A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

passingby

I thought I should start a thread in praise of this magnificent book 'A Fine Balance.'
anyone has ever read it? if yes, what is your opinion on it.

i have just finished reading the book and I have lots of mixed feelings, such as sadness and mostly rage against the Indian government.
I know the book is fiction, but do the events mentioned in the book actually occurred in real life? such as forcing men into vasectomy and throwing people out on the streets for no reason at all, and later forcing them into vans, beating them up and forcing them to work in inhuman conditions?

the book is written superbly, and I've learnt a great deal on Indian history, as for what happened during the Emergency in 1975.

please comment on the book, or on the events of the 1975 state of Emergency. I am having a real hard time believing the events in the book actually took place in India.

camelgirl

I read this fantastic book also and I can tell you that while it's fiction, I'm certain everything in it could have and DID happen. It's a VERY disturbing book but the reality was probably worse. Of course, the individual personalities of the characters are pure fiction, but we all know that those personalities exist.

I read it about a year ago and don't remember the details anymore but I do remember how I felt while I read it. Upset but intrigued, because I didn't know what was going on during that time, even though my first trip to India was in 1975 (the Emergency) and it didn't have much effect on me as a backpacker. Mrs. Gandhi really lost her marbles and ran amok with power and a lot of people paid a high price and so did the country as a whole. You have to also remember that this was during the "cold war" and every country chose sides. India aligned itself with the Soviet Union and for awhile followed a lot of the style of that closed, secret, dictatorship, even though India was supposed to be a democracy. India's politicians did not trust or like the United States and Mrs. Gandhi banned everything imported from most everywhere. It made for some amusing things, like Campa Cola, which copied the Coca Cola trademarked logo. On the other hand, the people of India had no such problem with people from the U.S.A and it was a great place to be a tourist/traveler/backpacker.

Some of the more bizarre things that were going on just seemed ridiculous. For example, all the western travel guides sold in India, and there weren't many in 1975 were censured. If there was anything suggesting something negative about Mrs. Gandhi and how she ran things it was blacked out in the book. So were periodicals like Time and Newsweek.

The individual stories in the book fill out the picture of a time in India that has already passed into history that most younger people barely remember.

Don't want to run on and on. You won't find much left from those times but life is still very bureaucratic and difficult for peasants and those on the lower end of the economic scale. There is no safety net (like Social Security or Welfare) and people are still being treated like crap and tossed out of their hovels in slums in the cities. It's still a hard life for alot of Indians.

That said, I love India and have been there 6 times and plan to go again as soon as possible.

Don't let the book ruin your travel experience. It's a fantastic country with lots to see and wonderful people.

happytraveler

I'm interested to see what others think of this book, because before I left on my trip, a friend had very highly recommended it and I happened to pick up a copy while I was in India. I read it but would caution others depending on what kind of books you like to read, because I personally found it incredibly depressing. In fact, I had a very vivid nightmare of being trapped in a street in India and dragged to one of those "family planning clinics" and woke up feeling sick to my stomach. Of course, it's well-written and based on a time period where I'm sure many horrible atrocities were committed, but it is also a book of fiction and I believe best not to confuse with a non-fiction book.

PeakXV

His books don't exactly leave you with that elated, warm fuzzy feeling but a very talented, clever writer who draws you into his world very tightly.


I thought Such a Long Journey was better.

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We shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started ...and know the place for the first time.
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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

ro-anD

I loved "A fine balance"...but then thats also beacuse I'm very fond for realistic and dark, movies and reads . It gives me a glimpse of others life and shows me how lucky and blessed I have been.

The potrayal of the chararcters is very real, and there would be a few thousands like them in India...about what happened in the emergency, I believe most of it did, and similar things happen today. Its just that the magnitude was larger then (like the atrocities of the partition), and there was one person or family to blame, whereas now it might just be generailsed as the 'Goverment'.

The book had a very deep impact on me, and I was restless and pensive for many days after.. the twist was really a slap in the face, it shook me up.

Honestly it is a great read, if you haven't read it pick it up.
I also read his "Family matters", much lighter and yet insightful 'bout a middle class family and how they cope.

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The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing." ~Daniel J. Boorstin

Jess

I thought at first glance that the sheer size of A Fine Balance would be a perfect book to last my four day road trip across Canada and then some. How wrong I was. I finished it in less than two days (mind you, FULL 12 hour days of driving). I knew when I read this book that I would be going to India soon, though not exactly sure when. Anyway, this book had such a HUGE impact on me I don't quite know how to put it into words. This book made me aware of the historical issues in India of the time (which is really interesting and also important to know about), but it also made me more sensitive to many things (you may be able to understand if you've read the book). At this point it is the best book I've read....EVER. I've been reading ALOT of books in preparation for my trip to India, but I'd highly suggest this novel for it's many virtues.

Siena

I am a quarter of the way into it now (I love Indian fiction) and really really like it. It is extremely well written and very evocative.
I'm off to India tomorrow and will really enjoy reading it whilst travelling.
If you liked it Jesseswain then you would love "A suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth. It is probably my all time favorite novel.

Digital Drifter

You're pretty much spot on except for the Soviet union bit. Indira Gandhi was autocratic in that politburo style, the rest of the PMs didn't have a chance to be that way.

We didn't trust the USA then beacuse just 2 years back then, you(rather, USA) supported ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh with the US 7th Fleet in the bay of Bengal. the 1971 bangladesh war (see Blood telegram)

In fact, that's one of the reasons IMO she bounced back after getting kicked out when her election was decalred rigged. She had the 'balls' to do the A-bomb, stand up to Nixon, and generally show the finger to a whole lot of people.

& another reason is, if the book by the russian diplomat book is to be beleived, the ubiquitous 'foreign hand' CIA was doing the 'pay-for-play' schadenfruede bit. So, if you're a paranoid politician(all of them ARE paranoid) and more so a woman, a few heads on the block 'Kill Bill' style shows who's boss.

Of course, she forgot to calibrate the level of violence....


Some ghandian country, we were....

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jlynne

I thought this was a fabulous book, beautifully written, and very realistic. I highly recommend it to anyone who would like a deeper insight into the hardships that so many in India have faced, and still face.

camelgirl

Thanks Digital Drifter, for elaborating about the politics of Mrs. Gandhi. I also have to add that the U.S. was unpopular in most of the world in the early 70s. I started traveling out of the U.S. in 1970 and was often "engaged" by others about the screwed up politics of our country, mostly connected with Viet Nam but also our policies and interference in a lot of places. Seems like we're headed back to that time, unfortunately.

Also, like ro-anD, I carried that book in my head for days after I finished it. Could not stop thinking about it. I also couldn't put it down. It completely took me over while I read it.

skell

Great book! I've read a lot of Indian fiction and this was by far my favorite.

Shannon

My mom started reading this book while I was stuck in India (couldn't get a flight home) with a fever of 102 dropping a pound a day from illness. Needless to say, she didn't get far into it

I really liked this book. It was epic. The characters were rich. The connections the author made were incredible. I would have given the book a happier ending. Not because everyone has happy endings, but because I was so emotional at the end that I want to spare those feelings of others.

I was reading some reviews over at amazon.com of this book once, and so many criticized the title: A Fine Balance. They remarked that there was no balance in this book between happiness and sadness. But I don't think that's the balance Misty was going for. I see the title alluding to what a fine balance survival is. One slip - and your life as you know it is gone. Whether it is standing up for family in a village, not making it to your tailoring job because you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or saying the wrong thing to an enemy. At times there is such a fine balance between living and dying, and that's what the book meant to me.

Jess

Siena. Funny thing you should mention A Suitable Boy. It is sitting on my bookshelf right now waiting to be read. It will have to wait until I am finished The God of Small Things by Arundahti Roy (another good book. beautifully written, a bit difficult for me to get into, but very good too).

passingby

Shannon, I really liked your interpretation of the title. I was wondering for a while why the author named his book 'A fine balance', since the story does not balance at all.

Casey

While there were parts of this book that were very depressing, there were moments of joy and humanity. There was the metaphor with the quilt, where the tattered bits were attached to the others etc. which I think explains the "balance" in the title. I have read it twice and the first time found it to be quite depressing and the second time to be more hopeful. An amazing book, which I read when it first came out. I was drawn to the photograph on the front and bought the book before hearing anything about it.