{"id":1242,"date":"2016-03-27T23:44:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T18:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fableandi.com\/?p=1242"},"modified":"2020-02-23T10:36:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T05:06:33","slug":"book-review-fine-balance-rohinton-mistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebooksatchel.com\/book-review-fine-balance-rohinton-mistry\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\">[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In <em>A Fine Balance<\/em> by Rohinton Mistry, tries to define the fine balance between hope and despair as the four strangers share their stories with each other. Innate humanitarian values begin to cloud the divides of caste, class, religion.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Review<\/h3>\n<p>I came across <em>A Fine Balance<\/em> while searching about books set in the era of \u2018Emergency\u2019 in India when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. The novel shines light on mushrooming callous government officials , employment programmes that benefit higher authorities rather than down-trodden masses , violence of rights of lower caste, all ensuing from a government struggling to prevent its downfall while being scarred by corruption.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Dina Dalal, a Parsi widow in her early 40&#8217;s, Maneck Kohlah, her paying boarder who she was forced to take in due to financial needs, and two Hindu tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, whom she hires to sew dresses for an export company are the four main characters about whom pivots the main storyline. All of them are fleeing from something &#8211; Dina from accepting charity from her brother\u2019s patriarchial household and forced remarriage, Maneck, is studying for a diploma to survive in a new world while his village in the mountains undergoes development (or destruction) by road construction and electrification projects leading to deforestation and the tailors, Ishvar and Om from caste, communal and institutional violence of Indira Gandhi&#8217;s emergency rule. As Dina struggles to break free from the norms society has set for aging, single women, her life gets entwined in the stories of the other three.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Another prominent character is the Beggar Master, who supervises the beggars in the city. He cares for the same people who he mutilates inorder to earn money for him. And surprisingly, they all love him. I was shocked beyond words in the descriptions where he keeps a notebook with future plans on expanding his business with new and innovative mutilations that would earn more sympathy and hence monetary benefits. He labels his actions as art. The four main characters of the novel find nothing odd about the Beggar Master&#8217;s art and this seems to conflict with their assigned character arcs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There are certain characters that I couldn\u2019t get acquainted with because their entry and exit seemed so abrupt that they are almost unbelievable. One such character is the proof reader who makes a brief acquaintance with Dina and Maneck on separate occasions and yet seems to remember every detail of his conversations even after many years. I found Maneck\u2019s return to the unnamed city after years to be wobbly as well as lacking the fine writing in the earlier part of the novel.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I wouldn\u2019t say it is the \u2018one\u2019 book that gives a reality check on the situation in India, especially during lesser fortunate times, but I would still recommend <em>A Fine Balance<\/em> for the ambitious subject it has tackled and nearly succeeded. Rohinton Mistry makes us think about kindness in inhumane scenarios.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Title : A Fine Balance<br \/>\nAuthor : Rohinton Mistry<br \/>\nPublished by : Faber<br \/>\nPublished : 2006<br \/>\nLanguage : English<br \/>\nPages : 624<br \/>\nRating : 3.5\/5[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four people from different backgrounds cross paths, what happens&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6307,16],"tags":[98,6888,462,431,99,1853,87,97,77],"thb-sponsors":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.9 (Yoast SEO v22.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Book Review: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry | The Book Satchel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Set in the Emergency period in India, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry tells the story of four strangers, from different backgrounds. 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