‘A FINE BALANCE’: STUDY
A. S. Ratnam
A quilt of fiction with the four characters serving as the four corners spread over a period of less than a decade is created by the immigrant Indian writer Rohinton Mistry. The theme of the novel is the efforts of the characters to maintain balance in the swinging fortunes which bring them closer to one another. Exploitation of the underprivileged, the unprotected and the unfortunate by the heartless is vividly described by the author: The plot though not contrived to appear improbable develops rather unnaturally. The interaction of the groups of characters defines the parameters of the structure for, the characters are drawn from three different parts of the society – the Parsees, the untouchables and the city-bred exploiters. The central figure, Dina Dalal is like the needle which struggles to bind the slender thread of characters to weave a pattern of the society as the author observes.
Dina Shroff born into an educated well-to-do Parsee family is a girl of firm beliefs and independent views. She is greatly influenced by her philanthropic father whose untimely death leaves her under the guardianship of her brother Nassawan and her mother, a cripple. To the shock of Dina Shroff Nassawan illiterates Dina and treats her as an appendage to the family after the demise of their mother. Dina becomes a lonely child bearing the cruelty of her brother who robs her of her childhood and girlhood joys with his sadistic desire to hurt her. Her love for musical concerts draws her close to another similar self-willed and self-made secluded youth Rustom Dalal. Much against the will of her brother Nassawan who is now a prosperous businessman, Dina marries Rustom only to enjoy the bliss of happy union for a couple of years which yields no results in the form of progeny for consolation. Dina, shattered and battered after the demolition of her dream world takes shelter under her brother’s roof to suffer the hypocritic brother, good-natured sister-in-law Ruby and endearing nephews. The misery and anguish following the death of her husband coupled with her brother’s heartless behaviour makes her revolt against the society and its system. She decides to shift to her deceased husband’s flat to live independently. Dina’ s character is delineated as an independent, strong willed and pragmatic woman. She eeks out her living thanks to the odd skill that she acquired from her schooldays friend Zeuobia-the art and skill of hairdressing. In the course of her profession she encounters Fredoon with whom she flirts till the sacredness of union called marriage cuts short her blossoming relationship with Fredoon. Dina’ s character shines in her passionate meetings, with her temporary temptations as she reminds herself of the holiness of her blissful relationship with Rustom. It is to the credit of Fredoon that he respects the female sentiments of Dina which eventually help Dina to live alone. At this juncture are introduced the uncle and nephew team from far off place and far removed from the realities of Dina’s world. Ishvar and Om who belong to the untouchable community of chamars, after many trials and tribulations which have devoured the father of Om come to the city by the sea in search of employment. Their displacement is symbolic. They are displaced in the caste hierarchy from chamars to tailors and from native village to unknown and far off civilised city. They couldn’t adjust with the displacement of place as easily as they did with their caste. Ishwar and Om on the one side and their employer Dina on the other started off their joint enterprise on an uneasy note. The venture floundered on the rocks of misplaced apprehensions caused by each one’s insecure economic condition. The third person Maneck acts as a lubricant to ease the relationship and succeeds in clearing the mists of misunderstanding in the mind of Dina about Ishvar and Om. The company of Ishvar and Om notwithstanding their unhygienic habits and unparliamentary language leaves a soothing effect on Dina and makes Manek forget the traumatic hostel experiences. Ishvar and Om make friends with varied characters, Rajaram; the hair-collector, the monkey-man and the beggar master who rescues them from the workplace. The experiences of Ishvar and Om from the time they landed in the city by the sea are no less poignant in description than the masterly descriptions of Dickens. The similarities between London’s ruthless exploiters in the underworld and the city’s beggar master or the agent who offers shacks on rent are striking. The living conditions in the slums and the behaviour of the upper caste in the villages in the childhood days of Ishvar remind the reader of the pointed and powerful narration of Mulk Raj Anand while exposing the predicament of the untouchables in his novels.
The lives of Dina Mehta, Ishvar Darji and Om Darji are falling into a pattern when the political turn of events strikes a blow in the form of Emergency cleaning up operations. The episode introduces new characters - the beggar master and Shaukar, the beggar. The predominant imagery in the novel is that of a cloth with zigzag stitches and strange designs. Om Darji in one of his desperate moments says: “If time were a bit of cloth I would cut out all the bad parts, snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable. Then, I could wear it like a coat and always live happily.”
The juxtaposition of the grotesque and the sublime is presented by the novelist when Om and Maneck talk in a semi-serious mood about the tall mountains and the Vishram tea stall where they have their daily sip of tea. There are philosophical undertones noticeable in the utterances of the town-bred and aristocratic Dina Mehta and the oppressed villagers Om and Ishvar. Even the beggar master observes that we like to deceive ourselves and call life wonderful and beautiful while in actuality life is freakish and birth and death are freaks.
The novelist takes advantage of the imposition of Emergency and its effects on the lives of his characters to castigate the perpetrators of legalised corruption and lawful crime. A whole chapter is devoted to the family planning programme under Emergency which results in castrating Om who returned to his village to get married, and causing permanent loss to Ishvar. The incident enables the plot to develop and to intensify the anguish of the characters. Though the meeting of the various characters like Valmiki, Shankar and the beggar master, the monkey-man and the hair-collector Rajaram in the end appears to be improbable coincidence, the novelist succeeds in joining the corners of the structure to leave one side open.
The structure and plot of the novel and the language of the novel help the novel to sustain interest in the readers in the 614 pages - long narrative and one can hope to expect another fictional creation from Mistry with more identifiable characters drawn from other sections of Indian society. The fictional landscape offers recognisable landmarks in the incidents of the mysterious disappearance of a hostel inmate during the emergency and the family planning drive which was vigorously implemented. The characters Mrs. Grewal, Valmiki Dharamsi et al contribute little to the movement of the narrative. The novel whose movement in time and space is slow and steady in the first half, rather clumsily moves fast at the fag-end of the novel. Though in time the novel depicts contemporary India two decades ago, the sensibilities highlighted by the novelist lend credibility to the artistic form chosen to secure permanence in the realm of literature.