A Fine Balance

By Rohinton Mistry

With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.

As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307523631

Reviews for A Fine Balance

[randymetcalfe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In a country as vast and varied as India, perhaps only a story that focused on the particulars of very small players could provide the sense of scale appropriate. Dina is a strong-willed widow finding it hard to make ends meet. Maneck is student at the college seeking accommodation. Ishvar and Om are tailors seeking employment. When their lives intertwine, it is as though fate itself is drawing them together. And piece by piece the quilt of their lives takes shape. But given that it is stitched with misery, injustice, and calamitous bad fortune, it may not be a quilt that anyone would care to use.Rohinton Mistry sets his many, many pieces in motion and successfully keeps them going through all the changes. Personal joys and tragedies are set off against a backdrop of national events and Emergency. Sometimes it’s a bit clunky how history keeps intruding, but for the most part the stories of Dina, Maneck, Ishvar, and Om sustain our interest and see us through. Whether the Yeatsian fine balance is ever achieved however is an open question. Despair — justified despair — seems all too likely.Gently recommended.

[stevelindahl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A Fine Balance tells the story of India in 1975, during the state of emergency, when the opponents of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (who is never mentioned by name) are jailed and Gandhi’s son, Sanjay Gandhi, spearheads a forced sterilization campaign in an attempt to deal with overpopulation.The story looks at cultural sexism, religious prejudice, the caste system, and police corruption from the perspective of the poor and lower middle class. It touches on the lives of some wealthier individuals, but only briefly, looking primarily at their opinions of the poor.The publisher's description states that the novel has “a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens.” Like Dickens, Rohinton Mistry focuses on the underprivileged and like Dickens, his style includes numerous minor characters who keep reappearing throughout his story and plot twists that depend on coincidence.The title comes from a character referred to as “the proofreader.” He states, “You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.” The scales seem to weigh heavier on the latter of those two choices, but the book is well worth reading. The ending is particularly engrossing. I couldn't put it down.Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross.

[tinwara · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I always feel happy when I discover a gem such as this novel in the depths of my bookcase. It ia a beautifully written novel about India in the 1970's. I didn't know much about this period and was quite shocked to learn about the state of emergency Indira Ghandi declared and the political violence that ensued. Through the eyes of 4 main characters we get an idea of what this was like. At the same time it is a horrible book, as things end so bad for all of them. I guess that is what happens in reality, but still, I loved the characters and I wished so badly for things were going to end well for them. The ending made me feel really sad. Still, a very good book.

[bookbuddies_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Life for poor/lower castes in Bombay is pretty grim.

[nvenkataraman1-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was the first gift that my girlfriend at the time (now wife) gave me, and as such, this book holds a special place in my heart.The book itself is a no-holds-barred look at intertwining lives at a critical point in Indian history. The narration is harrowing and often bleak, but it is a genuine reflection on society and life in a country at a cross-roads.

[claudiabowman · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredibly well-written, soul-crushing

[lmaynev · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My all-time favorite book.

[cindamac · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At times difficult to read at other times heart-warming. A well-written story of four unlikely friends, crossing caste (and gender) boundaries to live together in modern India.

[lara335 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully-written story about India set in the 1970's. Focusing on the rife corruption, cruelty, fear and poverty, as seen through the experiences of four characters: an independent widow, a student, and two 'untouchables' who learn to sew; with a large cast of memorable figures including beggars, a beggar-master, a rent collector and a monkey-man street entertainer.Mistry writes in a way that makes you care about his well-drawn characters. But for me (and hence only 4-stars) there was little balance between 'hope' and 'despair'. I found myself willing an alternate ending, whereby the four main characters found a new life in an invigorated shop in the hills. Knowing little of India, I have no idea how true a picture this novel depicts of the time. And it would be fascinating to know what Indians living through those times made of this beautiful but bleak book.

[readingrat_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A haunting, exotic, tragic epic

[sydneyspaniel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very depressing book. Nothing goes right for anyone and everyone just ends up accepting bad things.

[tinkerbellkk · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautifully written story of 4 people in 1970's India whose lives intertwine due to their individual circumstances. They are from different backgrounds, different cities and different castes. However they bond together to form a lasting friendship and support each other. It is not an easy read as it depicts a bleak political period and a time when the people of India were treated extremely poorly. It also does not have a nice little tidy happy ending. Very well written.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I could tell I was going to like A Fine Balance when I got to this line early in the the novel, "How much gratitude for a little sherbet...how starved they seemed for ordinary kindness" (p 8). The writing is so graceful and honest. This is the story of the daily lives of four people in an unnamed seaside town in India, thrown together by a housing shortage after the government has declared a state of emergency. At the center is Dina Dalal, a widowed seamstress. As a matter of pride she will not remarry just to be supported by a man. In order to stay self sufficient she takes in borders. One such border is Manek Kohlah, a student attending college in the city. He is studying refrigeration. Ishvar Darji and Omprakash, two other borders, are tailors fleeing caste-centric brutalities in their village. There is no doubt in my mind most people find this story incredibly tragic, considering its ending. I found it sad but with a thin thread of optimism. When a once bitter character can laugh by the end of it, you know the human spirit has not been broken.The word that comes up time and time again when describing Mistry's work is depth. Depth of characters, depth of plot, and of human emotion. That being said, pay attention to Dina. Her transformation is the best part of the book.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great book that is set in 1975 in India and tells the story of a woman, Dina, who in order to maintain her independence takes on a border (Maneck) and hires two tailors (Ishvar and Om) to sew garments for a contract. It is a wonderful story of friendships and survival (or not) of the human spirit when life is not so easy. An eye opening book about the politics in 1975 and how it affected the people on the fringe. The emergency was a 21 month period of time from 1975 to 1977 when the prime mister ruled by decree; civil liberties and elections were suspended. One of the main events during this Emergency was the forced sterilization program. Quotes: "The secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt." pg 228. "Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair". pg 228 to 229. "Later I discovered there were different types of roads. And different way of walking on each.....Must be my tailor training. Tailors re practiced in examining patterns, reading the outlines." page 395. The Epilogue of the story is 8 years later after the assassination of the prime minister and we catch up on where everyone is 8 years later. Did they keep their fine balance? Were they able to adapt? You should read this story. A great story and a reminder of history that I had forgotten or didn't know.

[qofd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as Dickens but infinitely readable, far more so than other Indian based novels. Disappointed by the Tolstoy style ending. Made for a depressing finish to this otherwise excellent story.

[kslade-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent novel set in 1970s India, when Indira Gandhi was being very strict, about some poor people that keep going through hard times. Sometimes difficult to read but very moving.

[maryreinert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved almost everything about his book except that it was really just too long. This is the story of friendship. Set in a large city in India, this tells the story of a strange and unexpected friendship between a widowed woman, two lower caste tailors, and a young man from the country who is attempting to escape his family's business. Plot is very complicated with so much happening; much of which is almost unbearable to read. Life in India is so hard - beggars, horrible food, sleeping on the street, corruption at all levels of government. The most interesting characters are Ishvar and his nephew Om who were from the lowest caste of tanners, but were able to learn to be tailors. Although there is such a detailed look at the abject poverty in their lives, the story is told in a very straightforward manner; this is not a sentimental look at India.Although I've read several books revolving around poverty in India ("Djinn... purple line" and "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" ) this book probably paints the most accurate picture.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents-a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life."Set in 1975 in an unidentified Indian city, Mrs. Dina Dalal, a financially pressed early 40's Parsi widow, is determined to keep her independence from her bullying brother's influence, decides to take in a paying boarder, Maneck Kohlah, the son of a Parsi school chum, and hires two Hindu tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, to sew dresses for an export company. Gradually Dina's apartment is transformed, initially into a sweat shop and finally into a home full to bursting point.Each of the four main characters is a refugee from one thing or another. Dina seeks to escape from the suffocating strictures imposed upon respectable, single, ageing women. Maneck, the paying boarder, has been sent down from the hill country to attend college in an attempt to get a qualification and entry into "an industry that would grow with the nation's prosperity."In contrast he tailors, Ishvar and Om, are refugees from caste, communal and institutional violence. Om, 17, is the son of Ishvar's murdered brother, and Ishvar, in his 40's, who has never married, has dedicated his life to being father-protector to his nephew. Living from hand to mouth, at the mercy of the social upheavals. Each time they are beaten down, they are forced to pick themselves up and start over. Dina's apartment becomes a haven for the tailors. As the four start sharing their life stories, then meals, then living space they become an unconventional family where background and caste becomes irrelevant but there will be no happy endings because what follows is misfortune and catastrophe. Balance is obviously in the title but is also central to the book. No doubt the story is a little coloured by the author's own political leanings but is possibly also an indictment of Mrs. Gandhi's regime. Similarly the author treads a fine line between the past and the present, between foreground and background, and between haves and have nots. Generally the haves come out of this very poorly, being cruel and uncaring whereas the have nots are almost heroic in their struggles to survive.The characters, in particular Dina and Ishvar, are fully rounded and beautifully drawn, and you feel their joy and their despair. The secondary characters are interesting and add colour and interest. My only fear it that for many of the country's inhabitants little has really changed in the intervening years. To read this is is to experience an absolute roller-coaster of emotions. There is sorrow and joy, tears and laughter, hope and despair. At the end I felt emotionally drained but thoroughly enjoyed it."The human face has limited space. If you fill it with laughter there will be no room for crying."

[rglossne · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The setting is India in the 1970s, a time of upheaval, poverty, and repression. This sweeping novel tells three stories, which come together in an unnamed city by the sea. Dina comes from a middle class background, but the tragic death of her young husband leaves her on her own. She refuses to become the aunty in the home of her brother, and makes her way by sewing. The tailors are from a remote village, where they are part of the untouchable caste. They have endured unspeakable tragedies and injustice, before coming to the city to sew by day in Dina’s home, and live by night in slums, and on the street. A young student from an idyllic hill station rents a room from Dina while he is in school. These characters move from distrust and dislike, to friendship and love. The fine balance they seek is between hope and despair, and each finds it in their own way.

[trinker-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you love SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, you'll love this book.

[cecrow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Discovering this 1995 novel all these years later, it drew strong comparisons for me with "The Kite Runner" in its style and subject matter, and how it dispenses with all the needless magical realism of "Midnight's Children". This one is arguably braver than either of those novels for being utterly unflinching. The four central characters represent a swath of India's population on the social economic scale in the 1970s, and the course of their lives explores every corner of the worst things that period had to offer. Mistry never identifies Bombay/Mumbai by name, and 'the Prime Minister' never has her name stated. I thought this was strange distancing in a novel that refuses to shy away from harsh realities, but perhaps the lesson is that India's past should not be dismissed as having no bearing on its present. At over 700 pages this novel might have been shorter, but it never feels long with its brisk pacing, its dramatic highs and lows. As other reviewers have noted, it is the man whom Maneck meets on the train who delivers the key line, "You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair." But another telling quote is, "They are so rich in foreign countries, they can afford to fear all kinds of silly things." The epilogue is earned and it is pitch perfect.

[fbgnewbies · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Four people are thrown together by happenstance, become friends, and form a kind of family in a city in India where the prevailing atmosphere is poverty, corruption, injustice, and despair.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Extremely well written but relentless in the depressing and horrifying incidents that the main characters experience. I have heard Mistry compared to Dickens but it was missing the comic relief that Dickens usually includes & I for one would have appreciated it.

[pattylee-621744 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The fine balance is between hope and despair, between justice and injustice, between humanity and cruelty. But I really felt the stars tended to cruelty, injustice and lack of humanity. Realizing the setting is Indira Ghandi’s India doesn’t change it, but just makes the examples crueler and harsher and very difficult to take. Quite a portrait. Bring a strong stomach.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What to say, A Fine Balance is brilliant, and its length only a small obstacle.I was very surprised at how quickly I moved through 50-page chunks of this story as I became engrossed in the lives of several unfortunate citizens of an un-named Indian city during the official Emergency of 1975. What a cast of characters: A widow, determined to be independent and not to remain under the thumb of her older brother; a college student with an unclear vision of his own future; 2 tailors who have broken caste restrictions that would have kept them competing for animal carcasses and immersed in tanning chemicals as their fathers and grandfathers before them; a beggar mutilated as a child to make him more profitable to the Beggarmaster; the Monkey Man, whose street performances required a very fine sense of balance indeed. These lives intertwine in ways variously beneficial, detrimental, and tragic. There is little fairness, justice or order during the Emergency, and almost no basis for hope or dreams. In fact, very few of these people have any hopes for themselves beyond basic survival. They seem unsophisticated, fatalistic, almost simple-minded, to the Western reader, and have no points of references with the world beyond their limits. Sleeping in a doorway under the protection of a night watchman becomes a privilege to be held dear. People disappear regularly, victims of government round-ups for “supportive” crowds at an appearance by the Prime Minister, or for impressed labor, or even for involuntary sterilization. Although the college student’s parents, in their remote and, by contrast, idyllic, mountain home have dreams for their son and the elder tailor has dreams of marriage and children for his nephew, neither young man is able to share or even pretend enthusiasm for these hopeful imaginings. The reality of their existence is too forceful, the government presence and control too pervasive. As Maneck the student observes when asked if he believes that God is dead: "I prefer to think that God is a giant quiltmaker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt is grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangles don't fit well together anymore, it's all become meaningless. So He has abandoned it." As grim as it all is, there are moments of kindness, compassion and connection among the principals, as they occasionally find that balance between hope and despair that keeps the human spirit alive. "There is always hope--hope enough to balance our despair. Or we would be lost." Despite a few touches of dark humor, there is no doubt that reading this book is a heart-wrenching experience. As the 4 main characters come to care for one another, the reader comes to care for them, and to dread the inevitability of the college student’s repeated observation that everything always ends badly. With a bit more lightness, this would have been a 5-star read for me. But then it would have been slightly less brilliant, perhaps.

[anglophile65 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

really enjoyed this book. Just insight into the social caste system within India.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Four disparate lives join in one small modest flat in a "city by the sea" in India circa 1975: Dina, a young widow trying to maintain her independence; Manech, a young college student from a Himilayan hill town who rents a room from her; Ishvar, a middle-aged tailor who hails from a caste of leather workers in a poor village; and Om (Ishvar's 17-year-old nephew), an apprentice tailor. It is a time of unrest in India and the events that unfold outside their tiny flat have profound effects on them. The book is at times humorous, and at other times horrific. Mistry tells a compelling story.

[kittycunningh-815148 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not the book to read when your government is full of crooks and there is no safety net. I was as depressed as Maneck when I finished.

[sparemethecensor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written but tragic. I knew very little about India's unrest of the 1970s so it was a learning experience within a story of four friends from different castes.

[asha.leu · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of a number of novels that were given to me by a friend after he bought a kindle and lost all interest in paper books. It had been sitting on my bookshelf for quite a few years before I recently decided to read it, having basically no idea what to expect. I'm pleased to say that I basically loved it.'A Fine Balance' starts off slow, and has a pretty measured, relaxed pace throughout, Rohinton Mistry quite happy to just let the characters and story unfold in their own time. This can be both frustrating and boring in more mediocre books, but when in the hands of a skilled writer, results in a truly mesmerising experience. This is definitely one of the latter examples.Set in India during the 1970s "Emergency", a state of emergency and general crackdown on civil liberties and democratic rights declared by the government after the Prime Minister was convicted of electoral fraud, 'A Fine Balance' explores this historical event (one I previously knew next to nothing about) and life in 1970s India through its fictional characters in stark and fascinating detail. While often depressing and harrowing beyond belief, the main protagonists are just so likable and well-drawn, and the minor characters varied and fascinating, that you find yourself swept from page to page, desperate to see them find a happy ending even though you suspect that they probably won't. Its a frustrating book in many ways, one where often-times you wish you could reach into the pages and beat the everling shit out of the (often truly hateable) antagonists, and the last few chapters rank as probably some of the most depressing fiction I have ever read, yet that is also what makes this book so powerful. I don't know how historically accurate the depiction of the "Emergency" is, but if there's even a sliver of truth to it (and I imagine there's a whole lot more than a sliver), then it must have been a truly horrifying period for those who lived through it, and one that the perpetrators should be condemned for.