Introduction to 'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry

     Hello, my name is Om Patel, and I am a grade 12 academic English student at Fort Erie Secondary School. For our ISU, we were to choose an academic level novel to read and explore from various angles, and therefore choosing an interesting novel not only for myself but for anyone else, was an extremely important task. This is because I want people to be highly interested when reading my blogs, listening to my presentation, let alone reading the novel itself. Keeping these things in mind I chose the novel A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.

     A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry takes place in Mumbai, India between 1947 and 1977 during the high point of The Emergency; which was a 21-month period when elections were halted and the government expanded their power. A Fine Balance is a story about 2 Parsi's (an Indian religion), a man, his nephew; all having various backgrounds-Dina Dalal, Ishvar Darji, his nephew Omprakash Darji, and the young student Maneck Kohlah-who all come to together in the same place, Mumbai.

     Ishvar Darji and Omprakash Darji, both came from a poor Indian village not far from Mumbai, and became tailors under professional training from a friend of Ishvar's father. They struggled to find work in the city of Mumbai, also called "City by the Sea." Dina Dalal is a widow from a middle class Parsi family that gives the Darji's sewing work in her secret export company. Maneck Kohlah is a Parsi teenager from a mountainous village in northern India who is the son of one of Dina's college friends, who moves in with Dina to get away from his college residence. Due to The Emergency, these four characters are caught in the midst of numerous situations where the chaos could very well swallow them altogether. As the book progresses each of their tales slowly unfold and express the lives of people in India from the 1940's to the 1970's, in the midst of the chaos created by the government itself.

     As I've explained already, the novel A Fine Balance is based and set in India. I have an Indian background because my entire family (excluding my brother and myself), was born and raised in India, including my parents, my grandparents, and so on. This really urged me to read this novel and perhaps give myself a chance to learn more about the days of my parents and grandparents, and what it must have been like for them in their youth. Whenever I think about reading a novel, I read a little bit about that book prior to actually selecting it; usually the first few pages. Believe it or not, the very first page of the book states the name of one of the four main characters; Omprakash Darji (Om Darji). Since my name is also Om, having the same name as a central character of the book made this an almost greater factor for myself in terms of choosing this novel to read. This is mainly because I honestly have never heard or seen my name anywhere in English literature whether it is used to pray and worship god, as someones name, or simply used at all for that matter.

    

     I'm hoping for this novel to really help me learn more about my heritage and what my parents' lives might've been like. I'm also hoping I can keep you up to date and also help you get an idea of what the novel is about through my blogs. If you are someone that wants an Indian opinion about an English/Indian novel, then please follow my blogs and I promise to keep you all posted.