Reflecting on A Fine Balance and the ISU Process...

 

            By the time I put down my copy of A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, I had been deeply affected emotionally and intellectually by the experience of reading a book that was so riveting and tragic, and which delved into subject matter entirely foreign to my experience. I have always known that I tend to become highly invested in what I am reading, writing or otherwise engaging intellectually in. The direction that my ISU took allowed me to look deep inside my own human nature and allowed my understanding of this novel to be shaped by the ideologies of the profound characters I encountered in this story. The experience of writing this ISU has allowed me to harness my tendency of strong personal investment and transfer it into deep thought and consideration in terms of what this novel means in context to Canada and to the greater world of literature as well.

            At first the though of conferencing with other students and having to share my writing with them was slightly daunting, as I have always considered my writing a very personal thing.  I began to wonder at first if I might put restrictions on myself. I was afraid that I would write in a more subdued fashion in order to not reveal intimate details about how this book had affected me, and by those means keep the personal details of my writing to myself. However, soon I realized that this was not possible; this book had impacted me far too extensively for me to contain my thoughts about it. This process of letting go, and fully allowing myself to learn and experience through others reading my writing, has definitely assisted my academic and intellectual development-I no longer fear the judgment of others, but welcome their comments and insights with the belief that they will only further my understanding of the task at hand. My personal evolution that has occurred in conjunction with this assignment, follows closely with what I have learned about my novel. My understanding of the Canadian literary scene and humanity in its entirety has progressed deeply through this project, as the ISU requires a much more focused look at literature than I have ever experienced before. A Fine Balance is unlike anything I have ever read previously by a Canadian author, and for a good reason- it takes on the perspective of a Canadian who was not born in our country, but rather India. Nonetheless, Rohinton Mistry now resides in Canada, and writes with just as much intelligence on the human condition as any other Canadian author. I had always known the importance that multiculturalism brought to the Canadian identity, but never before had I encountered the vast impact it has had on Canada’s literary works. Not only did reading and writing about this novel educate me on an issue of great importance- the history of Indian people and The Emergency of 1975- but it made me realize that the nature of the human spirit spans beyond the definition of countries and borders. I was able to connect with this story on a very personal level, and I realize upon reflection that Rohinton Mistry was able to connect each prominent issue of the story to the reader because he effectively harnessed the intrinsic qualities of the human spirit. This has become excellent direction for my own writing as well, as I have seen how to create a story with great emotional impact. Humans all over the world experience the same conditions of emotional life, no matter their background, and it was this aspect of the human condition that Mistry relied upon in order to communicate the emotion of his story. 

            Through the experience of writing this ISU I have become acquainted with my own ability to take a story and examine exactly how it has affected me, and have also discovered how much I enjoy that process. Had I simply read this book independent from this assignment, I do not believe I would have as clear an understanding of its complexity and its value as a piece of Canadian literature. I am therefore grateful for the insight this ISU has brought me in terms of self and literary discovery. In conclusion, I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who desires a compelling and though-provoking read and is also prepared to be thoroughly moved by its content. 

Explication: Truly Falling Prey to Cruelty and Misfortune

            The brutality of life in India is skillfully painted by Rohinton Mistry in A Fine Balance and evokes trauma and pain in the reader on a scale that not even Polti’s classification could attest to. This leaves the very essence of the novel’s cruel dramatic situations engrained in one’s consciousness for a time that extends beyond the book. It’s drama is not the kind concocted only of clever prose and heightened imagery, but of the very essence of the human condition, and the ultimate pain that one can experience in the raw and fragile state of cruelty. I strongly believe that the horrors the characters in this novel face transcend conventions, for these horrors are not limited to a few specific events, but rather are represented by their entire lives. The lives of Maneck, Dina, Ishvar and Om are larger than their two dimensional existence on paper, however in the confines of their literary home, they become defined at the end of the novel by the seventh dramatic situation- what George Polti calls “Falling Prey to Cruelty or Misfortune.” Polti explains this situation with the elements of a master, an unfortunate and a misfortune, all of which are displayed through the complex lives of the main characters. There are two central ways in which the characters of this novel begin their consuming relationship with life’s unfortunate cruelties; through losing the status of what Polti calls “the master” of their lives and secondly by falling from an already meager existence. Both of these aspects create an incredibly dynamic portrayal of the ways in which people live through the dramatic situation of misfortune.

            All of the characters in this book are left in a state that promises no recovery at the end of their stories, but of those who have lived with some measure of benevolence in their lives beforehand, we as readers are able to experience their capture by cruelty with a greater sense of tolerance, rather than dismay. We believe in this way that they may still have the strength to regain control of their lives, and can be affected more deeply as we anticipate the outcome. This is the case for three characters I will address, Maneck, Dina and Beggarmaster. Dina takes on a quieter sense of equilibrium than the other two, showing a facet of dealing with suffering that is different than the other two in this category. Instead of giving up her life to explicit misery, she simply continues silently forward, and is able to demonstrate the resilience that we as humans are capable of in the face of misfortune. She has lived a life of great pain and great uprising, arriving at her place in threshold of the story by living through the death of her husband killed on his way to buy ice cream. ‘ “A bastard lorry driver,” said the sub-inspector. “Hit and run. No chance for the poor man I think. Head completely crushed.” ’(Mistry, 51).  Throughout her days she rose out of the confines of her brother’s care, opened up shop by employing the two tailors Ishvar and Om, and fiercely fought her oppressive landlord, and was able to keep her flat for much of her life. But as all of the characters in this book do, she met the master of cruelty in the end, having the land lords “goondas” evict her when she realized the “the law works just like a lemon and spoon race,”(Mistry, 657)-she was simply unable to walk fast enough to beat the inevitable tragedy. Yet in the end she finishes the book without a trace of regret, opening her arms to the misfortune that has enveloped her. The last line of the book captures the essence of her ability to cope with tragedy and portrays the way in which she was forced into a eerie calm, for after everything that had transgressed she simply “dried her hands, and decided to take a nap before the evening meal.”(Mistry, 713)

            Maneck and Beggermaster are subjected to a far crueler end by their misfortunate fall from the apparent mastery of their lives. Yet they become just as defined by what Polti calls “falling prey to cruelty and misfortune” as they allow it to dictate the outcome of their lives. Maneck has existed throughout this story, with the ability to maintain a moderate level of complacency given the turmoil the goes on all around him. He has the support of his background and mostly loving family where “he would hear the familiar sounds from downstairs as his father opened up the store and stepped outside to sweep the porch.”(Mistry, 231) However this is not enough to keep him within the reaches of happiness. He crumbles into a pitiful state of existence after his second mother, Dina, is evicted, and his dear friends Ishvar and Om are forced to become beggars when the government forcibly castrates them. He takes his last leap into the arms of misfortune at the end of the book- “Now the express tracks could be seen in the distance…when the first compartment had entered the station, he stepped off the platform and onto the gleaming silver tracks….Maneck’s last thought was that he still had Avinash’s chessmen.”(Mistry, 710) This is the last image of Maneck that we as readers are left with, and it engrains us with the impression of someone who has succumbed to the cruelties of life, defining his character by the situation of misfortune. We are given a much more confined glimpse into the life of Beggarmaster, yet as readers we can gather that he has been able to rise up from the slums he was born into and become the master of the “unfortunates”, hence his title. Yet he meets a horrific end and is murdered by someone he has previously tried to give assistance to- “When Beggarmaster entered, he jumped upon his back and tried to stab him…He who had lived by the beggings of helpless cripples, died by those beggings, rooted by their heaviness.”(Mistry, 643) In the end of this book, the characters who had been hanging onto the wisps of tangled hope that Mistry hid in the confines of their stories, were left without any means of surviving life’s cruelties, therefore defining their lives by Polti’s seventh dramatic situation.

            As painful as it is to observe characters fall prey to cruelty and misfortune from an initially contrasting state of existence, nothing evokes more pain in a reader than helplessly watching those who have nothing, fall into a deeper state of lack and misfortune. This was the epitome of Ishavar and Om’s circumstance, for without a doubt they experienced a more difficult life, on a more unprecedented scale than I have ever encountered before in a literary composition. They lived their life simply trying to get by and dwell comfortably in their horrendously meager circumstances. At times they would pay a man to sleep in the doorway of his shop with the constant notion that “If a customer comes for medicine you will have to move. Then don’t say I spoiled your sleep. No refund for spoiled sleep.”(Mistry, 358) These two tailors as I mentioned in my previous writings have risen out of the village when there entire family was murdered, but in the end are castrated and disabled by the very same man that ended the lives of their loved ones. Ishvar cries out, “I have let down your dead father! Our family will die without children, it is the end of everything-everything is lost!” (Mistry, 620) when “with a swift incision, the doctor removed the testicles.”(Mistry, 622) A Fine Balance literally becomes the embodiment of the next course in their lives as they are reduced humiliatingly to roam the streets as beggars in search for the human kindness that they have not encountered in all of their lives, except by Dina’s generosity. However they are alive if nothing else, and this balances out the heaviness of death that pervades the ends of the other character’s stories. They are nonetheless defined by the dramatic situation of cruelty and misfortune as is the motivating forced of each challenge Ishvar and Om must face and tragedy becomes their most memorable companion for the reader.  Their lives are completely demolished in one fell swoop of fate and they become the ultimate prey of misfortune with cruelty’s master as Thakur Dharamsi the man who killed their family and took away their hope.

            By the end this story I was left in a state of absolute shock and even personal agony from having experienced vicariously, the truly honest fall from mercy that these characters exemplified. The dramatic situation of cruelty and misfortune was able to evolve, by Mistry’s prolific telling of a remarkable story, into not only the identity of the central characters, but into the entire scope of life and the human condition that was presented. By reading A Fine Balance I had the opportunity to experience the absolute pain of tragic suffering, but also the remarkable beauty that comes when you realize misfortunes are part of the fine balance of all our lives. 

 

Apologia of A Fine Balance

On Friday November 7^th at seven o’clock, The River Run centre in Guelph housed an annual event know as a Lecture on “What it means to be Canadian”, where a collection of Canadian writers, artists and other culturally motivated individuals presented varying facets of their life’s work in front of an audience, who sought an answer to the timeless question-what is a Canadian and what do they have to offer to the world? Yet upon closing of the evening this significance was not explicitly remarked upon even once. This left many members of the audience at a loss for any feeling of solidarity in regards to the significance of what exactly these people had contributed to the canon of Canada’s identity. At first, one might consider this a deep flaw within the structure of such an event, but at a closer glance it can be concluded ironically that this reflects the exact nature of the complexity behind the Canadian identity. Rohinton Mistry becomes a symbol of this complex identity when we discover he is a Canadian author, originally of Indian dissent. A Fine Balance as a piece of literature also epitomizes the quality of complexity that Canadian literature upholds as a standard of authenticity. Canada cannot be represented by one face, one story or any idea of a homogeneous nature and its boundaries do not lie in the defining landforms of Canadian geography. Canada is the meeting place for the world’s people and the histories, stories, and cultures of those individuals. This ultimately makes our nation indefinable by a single means, and displays it as being  reflected by the multicultural intricacy of what becomes a canon of Canadian thought and eventually literature.

            By writing A Fine Balance, a powerful piece of historical fiction from a land out side Canada’s physical boundaries (India), Rohinton Mistry has made a highly significant contribution to the diversity, that Canadian literature like its people, have come to associate an identity with. He has drawn attention to his book in this way, with a fervor that cannot avoid attention. By these means he has enlightened all who read his book by giving them a portrayal of the truths of humanity, a reflection of the Canadian condition, and an affirmation that the importance of all cultures and world histories continue to be reflected undeniably in the fabric of Canadian literature.

            Canada has been known for decades as a multicultural mosaic of global identities.  By writing as a Canadian citizen on the issues of India that affected his personal history, Ronhinton Misrty has made A Fine balance a work of fiction that should be paid attention to for the profound way it portrays our Canadian connection to the global situation. ‘Like Dina, the widow in his story, Mistry grew up in a Parsi family in an Indian city by the sea in his case, Bombay, though he is careful not to identify the city in ''A Fine Balance.''’(Mazzacco, Mary) A Fine Balance is written with such an intimate tone, aptly describing not only the lives of Dina, Ishvar, Om and Maneck in a way that illuminates their fully life like characterizations, but also gives them an intricate past and a history that could only have been created with Mistry’s personal connection to his own life in India. In this case the fact that he was not born as a Canadian citizen was not an impediment to his ability to write like one. He moved to Toronto, shortly after the Indian Emergency of 1975 began, and for this reason was able to write A Fine Balance with the integrity of an affected observer, but without the intense and sometimes overpowering emotion that would have been present had he still be an Indian citizen. In this situation being a Canadian citizen allowed him to blossom as a writer. It gave him the objectivity required to write a deeply honest story, one that could touch Canadians, and also be seen as a piece of the ever growing cultural puzzle that Canadian literature has grown into.  Yet this was not how it was originally received. Many critics and readers alike could not decipher the connection that a story about four characters struggling through the Emergency, could possibly have to Canadian literature. Upon it being nominated for the Canadian Booker Prize, Germaine Greer an Australian critic for the BBC remarked on the nature of this seemingly apparent conflict of interest. ‘"I absolutely hate it." Laughingly she said, "It's a Canadian book about India. What could be worse? What could be more terrible?"’(Richards, Linda) Yet this only assisted Mistry on his journey of breaking free from any constrictions that were conceived about Canadian Literature as he went on to win the Giller prize, and the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Prize for this amazingly poignant novel. (Richards, Linda) These remarkable acknowledgements that were given to A Fine Balance, despite resistance from many citizens who had a different idea of what Canadian Literature should be, reflect once more the contribution this book and author have made to shape our understanding of Canadian lit. This book should be given credit not because it is controversial in a nationalistic sense, but because it brings all Canadians from different backgrounds together on a common cause- accepting that Canada and its literary work is shaped by all cultural forces.  Embracing the histories of all nationalities not only ties us together within our own country but educates us on the universal nature of all of our lives.

            Maragaret Atwood has written an essay concerning the nature of Canadian literature, called the Victim Theory, and by choosing for the plot of A Fine Balance to play out in a tragic manner, Rohinton Mistry has become an example of this truly Canadian identity. He has accurately reflected the condition that Maragaret Atwood says means ‘hanging on, staying alive. Canadians are forever taking the national pulse like doctors on a sickbead. Mistry also reflects with complete accuracy idea that in the canon of Canadain lit ‘Canadian authors spend a disproportionate amount of time making sure that their heroes die or fail. Much Canadian writing suggests that failure is required because it is felt.” Perhaps Mistry ha the courage to completely annihilate the future of every single one of his characters for the reason that Canada upholds and supports this tragic identity and is neutral to the story in a way that India never could be. With a firmer sense of nationalism to India, Mistry might have made the mistake of creating a happy, rewarding ending that made the struggle of his characters worth the effort. Instead he was able to find in his writing the courage to narrate from the place of the victim and truly portray the hardship that his characters faced. By writing A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry has added a new level of honesty to the Canadian literary scene. Canadians have been shown the ways in which a story so foreign to our own, in every sense of the word, can have a deep impact our impression of the human condition and its unlimited capacity for overcoming resistance. This allows each person who reads this story to see how the Canadian identity is shaped by each and every culture, and that is truly a cause for recognition and attention.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. "The Victim Theory." ¶ 4,5.

Mazzocco, Mary. "Rohinton Mistry became an author almost by chance." Knight-Ridder Newspapers. 8 Nov. 2008 .

Richards, Linda. "January Profile on Rohinton Mistry." January Magazine. Mar. 2003. 8 Nov. 2008 .

 

Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance. Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart Inc., 1995.

 

Sheppard, Tim. "Polti's 36 dramatic situations." Tim Sheppard's Storytelling Resources.                            15 Nov. 2008 .