A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Rohinton Mistry wrote a masterpiece with this book. Set in India during the 1975 State of Emergency under Indira Gandhi, A Fine Balance is the heartbreaking story four people whose lives were profoundly interwined and profoundly changed by the cultural norms and the government’s choices.

Ishvar and Om leave the cruel, caste-based violence of their rural Indian village to work as tailors for a Parsi woman, Dina, in the (unnamed) city. Dina also rents a room in her flat — left to her after her husband was killed in an accident — to a university student named Maneck, who is the son of a former schoolmate.

Without giving away too much of the story and writing too long of a blog post, let me say this: Mistry manages to capture the fragile existence of living in a rapidly modernizing society with extreme polarities of wealth and income. Some of the incidents Mistry describes are horrifying when they aren’t merely heartbreaking. His words capture both the beauty and cruelty of humanity. A fantastic read.