book review book review

A Response to this article.


dear Papa, thank you for your interesting analysis on this novel!

Though it's been some time since i read the book, and i don't have it here to refresh my memory, here's my take on it.

In your review, you read the novel on 2 or 3 levels. the first is the explicit level of the character novel, of the exploration of relationships and choices from the psychological standpoint of the members of an ordinary Indian family. Then, rather less obviously (I didn't see it, that is) you perceived the plot and characters to be metaphors of India's past and present. You also mention another layer in passing, that of Mistry's own life as reflected in various charaters -- not necessarily in terns of autobiography, maybe also a reflection on the road not travelled -- what might have been, if.

what i remember most vividly in the novel, though, is the portrait of modern Bombay -- oops Mumbai -- in the shadow of the Shiv Sena: "Shiva's Army", a local xenophobic party. their main mottos are, in that order, "Maharashtra to the Maharashtrians" and "India to the Indians". They are, also heavily anti-Muslim and more heavily anti-Pakistan.

All accounts, written or spoken, which i was given of the Sena confirmed this aura of populism, xenophobia, and recourse to threats and violence -- not to mention proud ignorance. They are, though never seen, the villains of the story.

They regularly illustrate their coarse intolerance by releasing idiotic fatwas against such dangerous individuals as an Indian tenniswoman who married a Pakistani cricketeer and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan -- whose latest film is seditiously pro-tolerance.

but wait-- this is a novel about family isn't it? -- or is it about the political turmoil of Mistry's hometown?

the title says it all. in its obvious double meaning (noun noun and noun verb), it announces at once the topic and Mistry's main axiom: nothing is gained by resentment, hate, division; unity is strength, and it is achieved by tolerance and love. (as you put it so well, Papa, "where there is love, it’s like oil, the social machinery runs smoothly. Where hate reigns, it grinds to a halt, and snaps under the subsequent pressure buildup".)

It seems to me that Mistry establishes a daring but rather convincing parallel between a family (ostensibly an average sample) and a community of over fifteen million. The unlikely bridge between the two is furnished by Yezad's impossibly good-natured boss (i forget his name), a Bombay enthusiast who might have gone as far as to compare the highly cosmopolitan city to a "great multicultural family" (though i lack the references here to stay my point with an accurate quote).

The owner of a thriving sports shop, a self-made-man and an immigrant himself (did his family flee post-partition Pakistan?), he is depicted as eternally grateful to the city who welcomed him in a time of despair and to which, he feels, he owes his successful and happy life.

His raving harangues, to a mildly bemused but sympathetic Yezad, have in them something of the political: but they are the candid politics of open-mindedness, love and heartfelt conviction, as starkly opposed to the Sena's violent and cynical stance. The incarnation of Tolerance and Good Will, his dedication to the Bombay he loves goes ever further -- from lighting up the shop display with seasonal decorations of all religions (Diwali, Eid, Christmas...), to a growing conviction that his real calling lies in the field of politics, concerned as he is by the rise of corruption, cynicism and extremism in the city.
This leads to an interesting sub-plot!

The shop-owner begins to consider applying for election as local representative... but he is not making up his mind quickly enough for Yezad, who at this point is in desperate need of the promotion (and raise) promised him, should his employer's move towards politics materialize. This is where he hatches a dodgy plan involving a pair of accomplices posing as Shiv Sena thugs. They pay the shop a visit under the plausible pretense of asking the owner to change his sign ("Bombay Sports Emporium" ought to read "Mumbai", as everyone knows -- to think otherwise would be quite an ungood crimethink) or pay the Sena an absurdly high ransom. Yezad hopes, in fact is utterly confident, that this little face-to-face with the bad guys "in the flesh" will promptly bring the boss's wavering to a close: he will be convinced, once and for all, to stand for election in order to bring back peace and sanity to his beloved Bombay -- and leave the shop manager's seat free for his loyal subordinate Yezad to sit in... Of course, the plan fails miserably. Rather than being possessed by a righteous fury against the ruffians and hate-mongers of the Sena, the boss immediately yields to the blackmail and entrusts his employee with an envelope containing 25,000 rupees from his own savings, to be given to the imaginary Sainiks on their next visit – leaving a bewildered and guilt-ridden Yezad to pore over this new quandary.

Of course, Yezad has made a simple mistake – he did not realize that his boss would take the threat seriously. But beyond this, it seems, a comment can be made as to how fear and violence are self-amplifying, and the threats of the professional hatemongers, self-fulfilling. The dark forces of division within the great united "family" of Bom... of Mumbai have won the fight, but they have won without any actual involvement from the Sena: this is how frightfully strong they are. while a community needs all the good will and virtue it can get, the “dark side” of hatred has a way of generating its own momentum, like the proverbial piece of dirty gossip which, told once, will spread like wildfire throughout a neighborhood.

The fact that Yezad's plot backfires, coming as it does after he loses several weeks of the family’s money gambling, is also a further comment on what happens when you begin to lose your moral standards, on the individual level as on that of the community: it’s a downward spiral, no good can be hoped to come of it. Again: only love, tolerance and virtue can make things better. Not deceit, lies, etc.

What about the family itself?

Keeping in mind the parallel with the Shiv Sena, the word “estrangement” might be an apt synthesis of the book. While the Sena’s politics are based on xenophobia, fear and hatred of the stranger (immigrants from India and beyond, Muslims and other “others”), there is a similar force at work within the family: a breeder of discord and animosity, Coomy, like the Sena, has little redeeming value in the eye of the author. On the other end we have Nariman. Though the eldest and ostensibly the wisest, Nariman is not much of a patriarch: he is hated, disrespected, represented by Coomy as a source of trouble, financial or otherwise. He is, indeed, a stranger within his family, having but one direct kin (his daughter Roxana. To Jal and Coomy he is only a step-father (accused of killing their real mother, to further embitter their relationship) and Yezad is his son-in-law, who has to put up with the added promiscuity and worry brought by this invalid stranger in his already cramped home.

As in "A Fine Balance", we see -- yep -- a fine balance being destroyed by perverse forces. In the previous novel, it was power, here hate is at work, which easily ravages the subtle happiness of Yezad's household as it does the unlikely peace of the dense metropolis.

As for Yezad's intriguing conversion. At first, we are made to understand -- he himself justifies it thus -- that the temple is, to him, nothing more than an oasis of peace and harmony, a refuge from his work and his own chaotic family. Losing his love for his home, he is literally taking shelter in religion. the two are clearly, in his case, at odds. In keeping with the rest of my analysis, it would appear that religion (in its extreme form of fanaticism) is, for Mistry, too often used against community, as a refuge of self-righteousness, intolerance, and ultimately another vehicle of hatred.

Escape is another social evil, another rejection of the community. Yezad and Rohinton Mistry both entertained the hope of exile to Canada -- only, the latter was successful. Mistry seems, as you say Papa, to regret what he did: running away does not help to hold society together, quite otherwise.

I agree, also, with your vision of Rohinton Mistry as Vilas -- the reader and listener of lives, whose words, passed from one human being far away to another, are so vital to them... a fitting guise for an ostensibly realistic novelist.

But Mistry is also Jehangir, Yezad's youngest son. I have also read Mistry's first book, "Tales from Firozsha Baag", set in the 70s and ostensibly autobiographical. It turns out that the one writing all the short stories, 3 or 4 of which involve a young Jehangir and an old Nariman much reminiscent of the characters of "Family Matters", is Jehangir himself, now aged 28 and recently exiled to Canada. Jehangir, therefore, represents the author as a young boy, and gives an indication as to how he himself perceived Indian society in his own time.

As for “artistry”, I have to say that I did, indeed, feel “Family Matters” to be inferior to “A Fine Balance”– though they both provide fascinating insights into Indian lives... Maybe, among other aspects, I was disappointed by Mistry's lessened respect for secondary characters. I have hinted at how the shop-owner is a gently ridiculous monomaniac. He is nearly a stereotype: not a "full" character, such as Yezad or Nariman, more like an automaton with the role of personifying certain ideas or being used as a narrative subterfuge. Other auxiliary characters are like that: Edul Munshi, for instance, is little more than a joke and a narrative device: his obsession with DIY in spite of his pathological clumsiness is a pretext for smiles as well as the writer's weapon against Coomy.

But I also can't forget that Mistry's prose (both the novel discussed here and the Tales from Firozsha Baag") were a valuable introduction to India, in the days before I left and after I arrived. And it seems to me now, his books are still a truer vision that much of what a foreigner is allowed to see of the country and its people.