Welcome to the third discussion for our India read - A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Today we are looking at chapter IV - Small Obstacles - V - Mountains. Next week we will discuss chapters VI - Day at the Circus, Night at the slum - VIII - Beautification. Link to the schedule is here, with links to all

discussions as well, and the link to the marginalia is here.

​

For some background info, here are some links that you might find useful:

Partition of India

The Emergency (India) - Wikipedia

Caste system in India - Wikipedia

Punishments and torture in ancient India

Parsis

Krishna - Wikipedia

Mahatma Gandhi - Wikipedia

Thakur )

Pandit

Chamar - Wikipedia

Who Are the Brahmins in the Indian Caste System? (thoughtco.com)

Discussion questions are in the comments below but feel free to add your own!

Chapter summary

Ishvar and Om settle into life in the city. Their neighbour Rajaram shows them the way things run with water etc and helps them settle in. They go to see a rations officer, to be refused because they don’t have a proper address. They are told they can have the ration card if one of them has a vasectomy. They meet someone outside who can get them one for money, but they cant afford it. One their way home from their first day at Dinas, they take a shortcut to the train station and get rounded up and incorrectly arrested for having no ticket, but they were all soon released. The slumlord doubles the number of shacks on the site and then monsoon season starts, where they realise their roof leaks.

Om is getting increasingly restless and concocts a plan to follow Dina by bike to her contact when she is delivering the garments, but he gets knocked down and is given 50 rupees. He loses Dina and returns to her flat and delightedly tells Ishvar about the accident and the money.

Maneck arrives to stay with Dina. We then get his backstory. He grew up on the mountains where his family was once very wealthy, but they lost everything except a shop as a result of partition. Manecks parents made the shop a success, mainly due to a home made soft drink that they made and sold. But soon big brand soft drinks grew in popularity and their business suffered. Maneck was sent away to boarding school and clashed constantly with his father during his returns over modernising the shop. It is then decided for Maneck that he should go to college to learn refrigeration and air conditioning as the future of the shop was uncertain.

Maneck leaves for college. The hostel he is staying in is dirty and the food is horrible, but he makes friends with his next door neighbour. They become firm friends, but as political tensions mount, Avinash becomes closely involved in politics, which is very unstable and dangerous because of the emergency laws. Life in the hostel becomes too dangerous and Maneck, after being attacked, writes to his parents, who arrange for him to move in with Dina.