entertain

India is a country whose complexities are not easily known. Literature alone cannot fill an adequate map; one must visit. But can we know everything from observation?

Prior to a recent trip to India, I read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. It is a book which embodies the tragedies India has endured, summing the country into memorable characters whose passions ignite the novel. The picture it gave me was beautiful, but incomplete until I saw India for myself. Suddenly the characters were very real, their histories existent and paving the ground I was exploring.

Mistry harvests a host of personalities which are as unique and solid as an individual passer-by walking the streets of Mumbai. One man trades his performance art act, involving a pet monkey, for a job collecting hair to sell for wigs. A legless beggar wheels himself on a small platform through the streets. A rent collector weighted down by his work struggles between duty and fulfillment. They and many others make the background of the lives of four main characters—Dina, a middle aged widow fierce in her demand for independence from her brother’s family, Maneck, a young university student from a mountain village who rooms with Dina, and Ishvar and Omprakesh, a tailor and his nephew the same age as Maneck, who come to work for Dina and eventually live with her as well. Dina is cold from her fight for freedom, the two tailors are resilient in defying the caste system which tore them from their old village, and Maneck, who has the greatest opportunity laid out for his future, has the imprint from all of their tragedies reflected onto him. They learn to trust each other and live together equally, and they know the happiest time of their lives until it is cut short and crushed. Set in the 1970’s, the living conditions are tumultuous as the Indian government has declared a state of emergency, breaking up slums and enforcing birth control procedures for population control. With the country’s vast population inequality is inevitable. The tidal wave of the changing times eventually sweeps over the characters, leaving them in states of ultimate tragedy.

The characters are built of true human traits through Mistry’s straightforward writing. Each is shown from the perspective of the others, and their natures shown through a wide scope of trials. On my arrival in India, they were brought to mind again and again; I looked up to spot them in the crowded streets. Their lives are transformed by the book into an epic portrait. I saw their faces in the people I met, and the unnamed city by the sea where they live I formed into the parts of Mumbai that I visited.

I saw the slums, the staggering numbers of people, but as I was not very long involved in the lives of individuals, I never saw the development of a tragic downfall. What I did see was the resilience and optimism among the crushing poverty. Of the little each does have, he takes pride in his appearance, always valuing cleanliness. She wears silk saris in splendid colors, jewelry adorning her ears, nose, wrists and ankles. Their gods accompany them through their everyday, their foods cover every taste. It seemed that a smile could always be given. Of course, all this is present in A Fine Balance, but it is sometimes hard to pull out among the heartbreaking climaxes, just as the struggles of every individual are incomprehensible to the naïve traveler.

Having read this book widened the scope of what I saw as a traveler, and the story rang true on another level as well. I realized that the characters, although inevitably trodden down, experienced a success of overcoming the hardships around them. The success, though temporary, exists in the moment. That these characters were able to have moments of happiness together is an achievement; its termination is almost irrelevant because nothing can remain in one state for ever. Each day is new and nothing is permanent.