Marissa Zindell
on
Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry takes place in 1975 in India. The unnamed city in which the story takes place is near the sea. The corrupt and brutal government has just declared a State of Emergency, and the country is heading for a great deal of chaos. Under these shaky and uncertain circumstances, four strangers come together involuntarily, to share one cramped apartment and an unplanned future together. The novel portrays a great deal of vindictiveness corruption, dignity and heroism of India. A Fine Balance is a dark novel, which revolves around the lives of four protagonists each extremely different from one another. These four roommates consist of a widow named Dinabhai who earns a living as a seamstress due to her refusal to marriage. There are also two tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash, uncle and nephew who come to the city searching for employment only to find more struggles ahead. Finally, Maneck Kohlah, a student from the Himalayan foothills, whose father has sent him to attend college. Throughout the novel, these characters begin their relationship with doubt and distrust of one another. However, each character eventually builds a friendship with one another.

The Fine Balance of the novel's title is actually an ideal state of being where a middle ground must be found between compassion and gullibility, kindness and weakness. The novel presents the lives of the main characters and their painful past. The four characters, who are forced to keep on going despite the occurrences of grief in their lives, find their fate to come together when Indira Gandhi announces her state of emergency in 1975. Dina Dalal’s "fragile independence" is significantly important in the novel. Dina becomes the novel's heroine. Dina possesses a clever, perceptive kind of intelligence. Although she is young, she definitely knows how to get what she wants. On the other hand, Nusswan (her brother) has no aspirations and goals over his life and doesn’t pay much attention to Dina’s. Dina's mother, Mrs. Shroff, does not take the time to understand her daughter’s problems and will not pay attention to the kind of person Dina really is. Mrs. Shroff’s mental health evidently falls apart after the unexpected death of her husband. For these women, being completely dependant on their husbands and never knowing freedom during marriage, the loss of their spouse is equivalent to the loss of a support necessary for living. However, Dina chooses try her best to move on and live her own life after Rustom died. After Mr.Shroff dies, it is customary for Nusswan to look after the family. Nusswan however treats Dina horribly. He forces her to stop school, beats her and makes her clean the apartment where they live with Nusswan's wife. Repeatedly, Dina is faced with the struggle of male figures in her life. She demonstrates her strength that she has over the men in her life. In addition, she has to take care of her mother as if her mother were her own child.

Dina demonstrates to be extremely independent-minded and bright. On top of that, she educates herself in Bombay's public libraries and selects her own husband, which few women did. Dina manages to go on living or rather surviving without having to depend on her brother's hesitant charity. Each day is a permanent struggle against Daab-Chaab's lusty fingers, her despotic brother and against the ghost of Rustom which haunts her. We must not forget the additional necessity of Dina having to make enough money to keep a roof over her head. Dina Shroff in A Fine Balance, knows the real dangers of arranged marriage, where the girl very often has little choice concerning who she is about share the rest of her life with in wedlock. Using harsh realism, Mistry attacks what he sees as Indira Gandhi's fascism. Brutal everyday realism is at the forefront of A Fine Balance. The novel ends in 1984, after the assassination of Indira in New Delhi where the city is being consumed by flames and Sikhs are being tortured and massacred by Hindus who have lost their reason after the violent death of their Mother Goddess.

A Fine Balance concentrates its attention on the terror experienced during the Emergency which historical texts have only superficially covered. Rohinton Mistry manages to bring forth the horror and devastation wreaked by the Emergency in all its vividness through 'A Fine Balance'. The novel is both a commentary on the political and social environment of the time as well as a beautiful tragedy. The story is based in 1975 in an unidentified city near the sea in India, riddled with poverty and teeming with beggars. Mistry places four pivotal characters in this squalid city. Mrs. Dina Dalal, 40-ish, poor and widowed after only three years of marriage. Determined to remain financially independent and to avoid a second marriage, stakes in a boarder and two Hindu tailors to sew dresses for an export company. The novel revolves around the interactions between these four characters. Their dreams and ambitions and the trials that they must face in life in order to achieve these. For four months, these four characters become a family. Eating and sleeping together, sharing their dreams, meals and living space. Their relationships with each other transcend inter-caste problems and barriers of caste, religion and monetary status. The cramped apartment becomes a haven from the political and social turmoil of the time. The four face various unpleasant encounters and are repeatedly saved from these by a quaint character, the Beggarmaster.. Her immediate reaction is that once again she has been let down by people she has placed her trust in. Dina and the tailors carry on with their lives through all this because they have learn "to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair''. The characters are used to represent people from all walks of life in India. The tailors are representative of villagers. Dina Dalal, is living in urban India. The young boy is representative of the youth of India. Through their experiences we realize the implications of a repressive caste system, an intrusive and hostile government and othe adversities that must have existed in the India of the seventies.