Such A Long Journey

I turned to Shankar: "I can't believe this is happening." My top boss from Delhi overheard this, gave me a look of fury and a little terror. A look with which I was to become familiar in the next couple of years.

The little men in Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance are luckier. Two poor tailors travelling to the city in search of a job, and a student also travelling to the same address as the tailors for paying guest accommodation, hear about the Emergency as one of those 'government things'. One of the basic features of the book is that the Emergency is not regarded, at least initially, as a monstrosity. On the other hand, Mistry implies that normal Indian life is itself monstrous. The Emergency probably only encapsulated the basic savagery of survival in Indian life. Even for attempting to say this one thing, I gave Mistry full marks in the first 500 pages of the book.

It is a mammoth novel and it says many obvious things at tiresome length. There is a quote from Balzac in the beginning of the book. Mistry has the detailed descriptive passion of Balzac but doesn't quite possess the fire to raise prose to meaningful drama. Still, Mistry is an artist and, as you suffer the long description of Bombay life and Parsi idiosyncrasies (probably meant for the West), you bear it all for the sake of the first good novel about one of the most traumatic events of the century.

The first chapter is about the life of a Parsi girl, Dina, growing up deprived of a beloved and idealistic father, controlled by a very calculating and narrow-minded brother, Nusswan. She marries and is widowed soon. The memory of her husband haunts her and leads to a peculiar affair in which extraordinary sexual postures are used to escape the memory of lovemaking with her husband. Typical Rohinton. The catch comes when Dina, now a dressmaker, adopts exploitative measures to deal with the two hapless tailors who have emigrated from the village in search of a living. The way Indian life forces decent people to become indecent has rarely been captured more subtly.

The book then transits to the village of the tailors and, in a long chapter, details why they fled to the city. They belonged to the lowest of the low—chamars (cobblers)—and dared to become tailors through the help of a Muslim family. All the tension this alliance produces is captured excellently. But there is a touch of documentation here of a certain outsideness missing from the Dina chapter. Will a credible novel about the vulnerable classes ever be written except by a vulnerable of the Rohinton class?

Finally, chamars-turned-tailors Ishwar and Om, nephew and uncle, emigrate to the city and land up in Dina's tailoring shop. This is a technically illegal establishment because it is not meant to be used for business. Dina supplies the dresses to an exporter. The devious little practices inherent in such a situation are part of the existence of all three.

Tensions develop between the tailors and Dina—as they would in a bigger industrial establishment. Living in a city expands relationships.

A new friend Rajaram, 'hair collector', enters their lives. The new friends symbolise the mass emigration to the city from the rural areas. An officer of the Emergency family planning programme enters their lives with talk of FPCs (family planning centres), etc. The gradual degeneration into slum life of the tailors is predictable but set out in merciless detail.

Into this motley bunch of characters enters Maneck Kohlah, son of Dina's old friend and now a paying guest. His coming brings another element to life under Emergency. Maneck's background is given in detail. By this time, one is getting a little tired of the lengthy flashbacks. Maneck's family has lived in the mountains. The opening up of the mountains, their descent into the confusion of the plains are described with a touch of tragedy—the trans-mogrification of the birthplace of the forefathers. This disrupts the family. Maneck becomes interested in merchandising and marketing, totally rejected in the family. Still, the towns and the giant corporations grow. The 19th century life of Maneck's elders is collapsing. Finally, Maneck decides to go away. He is the last to join the main foursome of Dina, uncle Ishwar and nephew Om.

One genteel Parsi lady, two tailors and one nondescript student; it is as if Mistry has deliberately chosen this rather drab group to illustrate the Emergency. For the readers of today, who may be too young to remember the Emergency, the book is certainly an achievement and a massive one. It creates a whole world about which we will not learn from books or films. For this writer, who lived and in his own way suffered the Emergency, the technical artistry of the book is more impressive than the inner fire. Mistry uses the foursome in conjunction with the various forces that flowed through the Emergency. In the case of the tailor brothers, he shows the growing alliance between SCs and OBCs and the Muslims. Secondly, he indicates the ruthless struggle for living space which, of course, was there before the Emergency and will continue long after that.

The most important feature of the book is how historical forces drive an unlikely group like this foursome together. This togetherness is not easy to achieve. Small, ugly incidents take place but slowly the group realises that human bonds can grow between an attractive Parsi widow, tailors and an undistinguished student.

The Emergency world is, of course, very much there. The slum clearers, the family planners, the brutal operations to ensure family planning. But these have already been recorded in non-fiction and so it doesn't make any particular impact here. The novel has to be read as a whole to understand the positive side of the Emergency—as a destroyer of age-old barriers in Indian society.

This aspect of the Emergency has not generally been noticed and constitutes something original in this book. Finally, the 'holiday' of the Emergency ends. Everyone goes back to where he or she belongs. Dina goes back to her brother Nusswan to become a glorified housemaid. Maneck goes back where he belongs—the Gulf. The tailors do what their ancestors have done—survive but at a higher caste level. Still, a hint of treason is there—the tailors come to dine at Dina's house in her relative's absence and the plates they eat from in her relative's absence are served at dinner to Nusswan and his wife. A small act of defiance.

I part ploughed through, part enjoyed Mistry's book. The Emergency was really a middle-class affair—some of us died because of the consequences of the Emergency. Others' careers were revived. The Emergency changed the Indian middle-class decisively and therefore India forever. Someone else will have to lament, rejoice for that period of cowardice and occasional heroism.