The Disillusion of the Family (Family Matters)

Abstract

Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters (2002) capturing the essence of close knit Parsee community has come close to being the Great Parsee novel. Epic in its proportion and length the novel centralizes on the domestic trials and instability that plague a Parsee family in Mumbai, India. Set in modern India, from the implication of the title, the novel tells the story of a family at odds. The question that the novel posits is who will care for their aged (but astute) parents as they succumb to incurable diseases of the old age. Set in overcrowded Bombay, the novel defuses the dilemma's of the contemporary generations. After the physical fall in the old age that incapacitates every one, English Professor Nariman Vakeel is bedridden. His stepdaughter Coomy and her downtrodden brother Jal, forcefully oust him when the care becomes too onerous. Nariman moves into the smaller apartment purchased for his daughter Roxana and her husband Yezad and their two sons. Nariman reminisces, along with the progression of Illness, about Lucie the love of his life. He recalls the performed marriage to a Parsee widow, instead Lucy at his parent's requests. It is his reminisces that recalls the incidents of his request and unfolds the tragedy of the novel.