Yesterday I finished reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Its a fabulous book. It talks about how for the four main characters (as well as other side characters) in the book, life is maintaining a fine balance between hope and despair, and as decades go by how it becomes increasingly difficult for them.
Life for the lower middle class and the poor in India hasn't changed much. And this book with some powerful story telling, great political insights, shows us the priviledged class how the poor still have to struggle, how they don't have a voice, and how the lower middle class is perenially struggling to keep themselves off the footpaths.
Mistry focuses on the lives of the parsi lower-middle class and the poor in his books. I have seen Such a Long Journey which is based on his first novel, and which prompted me to get his second novel. Mistry's account of the emergency in "A Fine Balance" is chilling. How some of the characters in the book refuse to get involved or even talk about politics as they feel it doesn't affect their lives, and how through the course of the book we see how acutely the government and its policies affect them. This book is a keeper. And has made me an undying fan of Mistry.
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