A Fine Balance
In Delhi there were many beggars. It's the same in Mumbai. These are nothing like the ones in New York or anywhere else in the States. What you see on the streets, stairwells, and gutters here are medical situations that back home only doctors see -- in emergency rooms and the medical examiner's office. It was driving me crazy. I came to India with a sort of unofficial policy of no giving to anybody asking. This was something sort of carried over from the NY subway (the Bullshit Express) and also from a little awareness of some of what goes on here in India, like buying, selling, and mutilating babies and children to get more money begging. I just wanted nothing to do with the situation.
In Delhi it became difficult for me, though. I began to find I couldn't quite remember my previous logic. I found myself routinely having to pull over, so to say, just to take a breath and get myself together. Rotting limbs glistening with puss. Fingers, toes, and whole legs shriveled, half gone, powdery white, eaten by leprosy. Arms that dangled with broken, jagged bones, attached to bodies by twisted skin as they dragged them across pavement, elbows crushed and crunched backwards. I wouldn't let myself stop and engage with them, but I hated myself for walking by. Still I didn't want to be part of this sick game here, where the manipulation of human sympathy has been honed to an artform, with living flesh as the medium. I don't know, I didn't know what to make of the situation, but I couldn't just keep walking by and shrugging.
I talked to Maude about it and it reminded her of this novel, A Fine Balance, which she said I had to read. That was several weeks ago. I just got through its last few pages yesterday afternoon, realizing it would be in my dreams and nightmares for several weeks more.
The next time you are in a bookstore looking for something good to read, get this book. A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry. The short description on the back flap gives no honest hint of what you will find inside. It stretches from pre-Independence India to 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assasinated, and takes you deep into this country through the eyes and lives of a few characters that feel as real as people I've known my whole life.
If you begin to read this book, you will soon beg it for mercy, but you won't be able to put it down. By the last 100 pages, you will think this book just might kill you, but you will still finish it. I don't know if I've ever read anything that hurt so much. In that sense, it might be the first time I've come across the printed equivalent of a Chopin piece.
You don't have to have any particular interest in or knowledge of India to read this book, but if you do you'll come away with a significant understanding of a lot of stuff here. And even a little Hindi.
In Delhi it became difficult for me, though. I began to find I couldn't quite remember my previous logic. I found myself routinely having to pull over, so to say, just to take a breath and get myself together. Rotting limbs glistening with puss. Fingers, toes, and whole legs shriveled, half gone, powdery white, eaten by leprosy. Arms that dangled with broken, jagged bones, attached to bodies by twisted skin as they dragged them across pavement, elbows crushed and crunched backwards. I wouldn't let myself stop and engage with them, but I hated myself for walking by. Still I didn't want to be part of this sick game here, where the manipulation of human sympathy has been honed to an artform, with living flesh as the medium. I don't know, I didn't know what to make of the situation, but I couldn't just keep walking by and shrugging.
I talked to Maude about it and it reminded her of this novel, A Fine Balance, which she said I had to read. That was several weeks ago. I just got through its last few pages yesterday afternoon, realizing it would be in my dreams and nightmares for several weeks more.
The next time you are in a bookstore looking for something good to read, get this book. A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry. The short description on the back flap gives no honest hint of what you will find inside. It stretches from pre-Independence India to 1984, when Indira Gandhi was assasinated, and takes you deep into this country through the eyes and lives of a few characters that feel as real as people I've known my whole life.
If you begin to read this book, you will soon beg it for mercy, but you won't be able to put it down. By the last 100 pages, you will think this book just might kill you, but you will still finish it. I don't know if I've ever read anything that hurt so much. In that sense, it might be the first time I've come across the printed equivalent of a Chopin piece.
You don't have to have any particular interest in or knowledge of India to read this book, but if you do you'll come away with a significant understanding of a lot of stuff here. And even a little Hindi.
posted by Michael M. at 11:47 PM
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