A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

iwanttogoback

have just finished this and am now reading through such a long journey.
really liked 'a fine balance', but wouldn't say i enjoyed it.
i was loving the developing relationships between the main characters, and all the history and then, it all fell apart for them.
but in the context of this story it was real, and probably inevitable.
absolutely beautifully written.
thoroughly recommended.

Jacob Ruiz

"A Fine Balance" makes for great train reading in India. It's historical fiction, a well crafted story and it keeps you engrossed until the finish. My question is why is Indira Ghandi so revered in India? To find her memorial in the same park in Delhi as Rajghat (Mahatma Ghandi's cremation site) is an insult to the father of India. She was everything he hated. She acquired and abused power for selfish reasons and tolerated no opposition. To my way of thinking she should be buried in an unmarked grave someplace. Perhaps those who are Indian and post here can shed some light on this. Most people don't like autocrats who abuse power but she seemed to thrive and India loved her for it. Why?

Digital Drifter

<in that irritating patronizing Indian mode> :-)

You dont u'stand politics. It's all about showmanship and about who's the biggest bully in school yard. CLosest I can come is Tom Delay crossed with Nixon.

action without Principles or scruples.

We are like that only.


& when in doubt, start/win a war. popularity assured. Ask Clinton, Bush Sr....not Jr.

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Priyamav

"A fine balance" is one of my favourite books! Read it 3 years ago. Couldn't stop reading it. What a story! What an ending!
I enjoyed "Such a long journey" and "Family Matters" by Mistry as well.

Has anyone here ever read "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard" by Kiran Desai? A great great book and so very funny. The story about a boy who climbs up a guava tree one day and decides to stay there. People see him as a 'holy man' and start worshipping him. Excellent writing.

Also really like the work of Anita Desai, love her writing.

Finished Das' "India Unbound" and "The elephant Paradigm" and am currently reading both Rushdie's "Shalimar the clown" (excellent) and "The Argumentative Indian" by Amartya Sen (very interesting!).

Jacob Ruiz

OK, digital drifter...I'm not sure I understand your points. Nixon was reviled and spent his remaining life trying to excuse himself. Tom DeLay is shunned and avoided now like he's been dipped in shit and Bush Sr. was soundly beaten by Mr. Clinton in the election following his great "victory". So, your point was...what? All the folks you mentioned lost big in American politics but Indira was..and is...loved. Go figure...

Gayamom

Well, I was a kid in California in 1975 so can't comment personally on the Emergency, but generally speaking, unbelievably cruel and unfair things happen to poor people with no power everywhere all the time. That's no surprise, is it?

If you liked A Fine Balance, try A Fortunate Man by John Berger. Very different setting (rural England), a work of non-fiction, but similar to Mistry's novel in that it is a tale of general indifference to the lives and deaths of the weak and powerless. Or try Jacob Holdt's American Pictures. Same story, set in the USA and told in a photojournalistic essay.

The hard thing to believe is that brain-blowing, devastating events destroy poor people all the time and, by and large, we don't care. Mistry's novel makes us care, at least for a while, and I'd agree with everyone else, it is a work of unusual power - thanks for starting a thread on it!

GM

camelgirl

[quote=Priyamav

Has anyone here ever read "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard" by Kiran Desai? A great great book and so very funny. The story about a boy who climbs up a guava tree one day and decides to stay there. People see him as a 'holy man' and start worshipping him. Excellent writing.
[/QUOTE]


Yes, I read it and liked it alot! Other "small" books I can recommend are: The Anger of the Aubergines, stories of women and food by Bulbul Sharma and absolutely anything by R.K. Narayan

Warning, rant ahead!

I do get kind of frustrated whenever IMers or anyone, try to equate terrible things that happen anywhere in the world --for example, the 1975-77 Emergency in India, with how awful things are for certain people in the U.S. or U.K. It's always easy to find screwed up policies and politics in most any so-called advanced country but what's the point? What happened in India was particularly Indian and affected the people and country of India. It doesn't make it less awful because the U.S.A. treated it's poorer citizens badly in the past or present or screwed up on Hurricane Katrina or is screwing up in Irag.

Human-made disasters from Nigeria to Sudan to Bosnia to Ethiopia to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (who have the unfortunate distinction of inventing suicide bombings) each stand on their own in their terribleness. It seems to me like an intellectual game to bring up another countries problems when discussing a particular country. Like one-upsmanship--"you think that's bad, well what about blah, blah, blah."

There was a complete breakdown of everyday democracy in 1975 India. The country was brought to the brink and almost fell over the edge by what happened. It's a testament to Indians that they threw her the hell out of office in 1977, which completely shocked her arrogant ass!

She was killed by a Sikh militant because she enraged the Sikhs by storming the Golden Temple, and her "popular son" was assinated by a Tamil woman over India's policies. India is not anywhere else, it has it's own very complex issues and I'm sure I've gotten some of the details wrong (someone else will surely set me right!).

RANT OVER

sorry, back to book reviewing.....

Gayamom

Wow, I got a rise from the even-tempered and sane camelgirl. Quite a feat

Of course, you're right. Human Disaster here is not equal to Human Disaster there. I don't think I said that (did I?). I think I pointed out that Rohinton Mistry is one of many authors who have expounded on a theme. A Fine Balance and the other works I mentioned are all on my all-time favorite reads list (leaving aside science fiction, which is another story). Yes, of course, every awful situation is awful in its own way. Each should be remembered within its own context.

Sometimes my posts are as much about what's going on between my own two ears as they are about what anyone else happens to write on a thread.

In this case, I was thinking about why several of the books I love should all touch upon the same theme. Then, I was thinking about why it should be unbelievable that awful things happened during the Emergency. They did. They do. Rather, I was thinking, isn't it unbelievable that we should care as little as we do? Then, I hit reply.

Well, ok, let me think a little more. Yes, I think CamelGirl's assertion is fair. I was doing the anti-orientalist thing as well in my post, almost on automatic. Here are some people who do the anti-orientalist thing very effectively:

www.sepiamutiny.com

I mean, IndiaMike exists amidst a lot of other information sources, most of which take a story about, say, India's highways appropriations bill and pepper it with metaphors about silk, spice, the Taj Mahal, bullock carts and (if they can find a way to get it in) appaling poverty and atrocity. A few decades of this, and, well, one becomes defensive when defensiveness isn't really called for. Like a thread about that fine work, A Fine Balance.

Still and all, if you come across the books I mentioned, pick them up. They each make my greatest hits list.

Cheers -

GM

somari

In India, politics is personality and family based. Indira Gandhi, being from Nehru's family, enjoyed the patronage of the people, inspite of her iron-handedness. Her son Rajeev Gandhi became the Prime Minister after her death, and now his widow Sonia Gandhi is the president of Congress Party and "real power behind the throne" She is grooming her son Rahul Gandhi to take over the party reins. It is not exaggeration to say that the congress party survives due to Gandhi dynasty. The party was almost in the process of being split into multiple pieces when Sonia took over the reins of the party. It is no secret that the congressmen worship the Gandhi clan.

camelgirl

Thanks Gayamom for the very thoughtful response. You did say you like the book and I will look into the others you recommend.

I'm no expert on India or anything for that matter. You didn't say anything that wasn't true or accurate, I tend to respond heatedly when someone makes comparisons between places that are so vastly different they really defy comparison. I'm sure I do it myself sometimes because it's really tempting but try not to.

I once had a brief argument with an young "lefty" in the early 80's who thought Russia's invasion of Afghanistan was so excellent because they would help all those oppressed "workers." I told him he obviously new nothing about Afghanistan, it was a tribal country, did not have a central government and that there was basically no such thing as "workers" in the meaning of Western politics. (I wasn't an expert on Afghanistan either but had been there & knew more than he did!) He ignored me. That's when my ideas/opinions (mostly because of traveling) started to fall out of favor with my friends! Oh well.

I think that would be an interesting thread: Has your travel experience affected your friendships?

Sorry to blather on....

cyberhippie

I remember speaking to a German girl who was in India at the time of Indira's asassination, she witnessed Sikhs cutting their hair and shaving their beards off during the aftermath.
Gives you some idea of the gravity of the situation!!

Casey

Camelgirl: I had a different way of looking at things when I was in Thailand and a Nike plant closed down. The people were really upset because it meant that they would have to go work in far more unsafe conditions ect. I though about all the people who revile the large companies for their labour practices who were probably congratulating themselves over this victory, yet the people that actually worked there were the ones who were now in danger again. I also made me wonder about how big American companies that tout "American made" to get people to buy their products rather than those that are made in a sweatshop fit into the picture. Does it placate peoples guilt. Anyways, totally off topic, but I find that travel does often offer you a contradictory viewpoint, sometimes even your own.

camelgirl

DEFINITELY!! That's why I was thinking about a thread about how travel affects friendship (the people who stay home!). Sometimes long held beliefs are challenged and your head spins. Many shades of gray instead of certainty. Your Thai example is an excellent example of this. At least we keep thinking and our brains won't get rusty

We seem to be getting but really the book that started this discussion is what got us all thinking about serious, important issues.

bijapuri

I'm going into MG/Brigade this morning, and will be browsing bookshops. I'll keep an eye out. Thanx everyone for the headsup, although I stopped reading Suitale boy after aout 30 pages. I didn't like Rushdie until Fury, stopped trying to read God o' small thingees, but read all her essays . . . so there's always hope for me!

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iwanttogoback

in 'city of djinns' william dalrymple meets and writes about sikhs who lived through this period. it is quite an eye opener and very sobering.