P.S. Mary Christina
P.hD Scholar English
Karunya University
Coimbatore.
& Pauline Das
Set in the mid-1970s India, Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance contains a multi-layered plot with complex characters that are locally embedded and globally imaginable. The novels plot consists of incidents, such as experiences with the countries forced sterilization programme during the time of Emergency and caste based conflicts, its themes are globally relevant and observable. These include the strength of the human spirit, the common need for community and belongingness.
The stories of Mistry’s four main characters illustrate, in different ways, how the degeneration of community and social capital undermines individuals’ capabilities to move forward, to overcome obstacles, to challenge injustice and, for some people, to face life’s harshness and simply go on living. Only bare survival is achieved by the characters from their life long learning. Introduction:
Anthony Giddens, a noted sociologist believes that globalization creates opportunities for both individuals and communities. He acknowledges the fact that the freedom to move globally the multinational corporations and capital threatens local economies; he is convinced that globalization is unstoppable, when it is combined with traditional and social values will move humanity beyond outdated economic, social and political systems. While the journalist Thomas Fried-man presents his observation on globalization in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. There is difference between globalization as a trend and globalization as a project. Globalization as a trend involves technological advances that make possible the speedy flow of everything from information to people, culture to goods, jobs to capital. Globalization as project is framed by the tenets of capitalism and involves the deliberate decision of power-holders (both political and economic) to direct the trend, specifically through the pursuit of deregulation, privatization and free flow of capital (Roy, Pillai 180).
Community is used to define both the social bodies and the relationship between the individuals within those bodies.
Frazer (2000: 186) concludes that ‘the implication that an entity has to consist of human individuals integrated or related in a particular way suggests that “community” more properly refers not to the entity as such, but to the relations that constitute it’. She goes on to explain that community involves both the sharing of a characteristic that contributes to the creation of identity and a connectedness that is deep enough to be meaningful to its members’ lives (Roy, Pillai 183).
Hope for a better future:
Globalization creates the hope for a better future which makes individuals to take the leap of faith. Mistry’s A Fine Balance is taken to show the balance between globalization and community. Mistry’s characters cling on to the thin ray of light projected by globalization, their quest for survival and freedom comes at a cost. Trying to free themselves from the bondage of
casteism Ishvar and Om takes this leap to the city by the sea (i.e Mumbai) with the hope of a brighter future. Disgusted by the treatment of his sons by members of the more privileged caste, Dukhi sends his sons Ishvar and Narayan to be apprenticed as tailors in a nearby town. They are placed under the loving care of Ashraf, a Muslim who is Dukhi’s friend. In the village they were treated as untouchables by their own religious group. Here in the town Ashraf takes them under his wing without showing any religious disparities. Human bonding of friendship plays a vital role than the religious dictates of caste and creed.
The young apprentices soon grow into skillful tailors and seem to move up a rung on the ladder of class, from a Chamaar (cobbler) to a Darji (tailor). This boldness of Dukhi and his sons creates unhappiness among the upper castes. Waiting to strike Thakur Dharamsi a man of high social standing uses Narayan’s defiance on the voting poll against him and kills everyone in his family including Narayan in a most inhuman way as a lesson to others who dare to defy the caste system, and challenge the supremacy of the upper castes. Only Ishvar and Om are spared of this massacre as they are away from home at that time. Fortunate to have a loyal ally in Ashraf, they remain in his home until a combination of surrounding religious intolerance and competition from a newly established ready-made clothing shop convinces them to move to a larger city where they hope greater prospects await.
‘We have also come for a short time only’, said Ishvar. ‘To earn some money, then go back to our village. What is the use of such a big city? Noise and crowds, no place to live, water scarce, garbage everywhere. Terrible.’
‘Our village is far from here,’ said Omprakash. ‘Takes a whole day by train- morning till night- to reach it.’
‘And reach it, we will,’ said Ishvar. ‘Nothing is as fine as one’s native place.’(Mistry 7)
Ishvar and Om belonging to the lower rug of the Hindu society come with new hopes and dreams of a better future to the city. They soon meet Dina, the third tailor, and Maneck, her paying guest. As a Parsi, Dina lives outside the caste system and is raised in a upper middle- class family. At the age of fourty two, having been a widow for sixteen years, Dina is struggling to survive on her own. Unlike Ishvar and Om, Dina experiences struggle that are gender-based, rather than class-based.
Mistry’s three tailors come from different places and occupy different social stations, at the same time as they share struggles against discrimination and inequality within their original communities. Their stories remind us that community is not always supportive. As we meet them, they are committed to moving beyond the difficult circumstances determined by their communities and their community institutions. Globalization initially appear to offer them a way forward, an opportunity that they dare to take as they work together to prosper and reinvent their community. (Roy, Pillai 187)
Cost of freedom:
As the quilt is in the process of being pieced together and stitched, the lives of Dina and the three men from different background become more and more intertwined. The quilt develops into a story of their past, present, and future. As the novel progresses and the lives of these three characters are increasingly intertwined, the promise of a better future crumbles down in horrid ways. Irrespective of their struggle against traditional norms and demarcations in the name of caste and gender, all the three characters succumb to the very demarcations they boldly fought against.
Freedom is not free at all. Sometimes it comes at a very high price. What is the cost of such freedom? Is it really worth it? It is the question to be raised. In spite of all their toils they
are finally left with their bare survival. In some ways, this metaphor of the quilt can be taken a step further in that both Dina and the quilt can be associated with India in its state of independence. Mistry writes in regard to Dina:
Independence came at a high price: a debt with a payment schedule of hurt and regret. But the other option- under Nusswan’s thumb- was inconceivable.
As always, on looking back, Dina was convinced she was better off on her own. (473)
As Dina struggles to deal with her own independence, India also deals with its own self- rule since its independence in 1947. Despite “stories of misery, caste violence, government callousness, official arrogance, [and] police brutality” (Mistry 227), there is still the belief that India is better off in the self rule. Yet there is only a dismal hope for major changes. Ishvar says to Dina, “But before there can be home or shops for people like us, politicians will have to become honest” (455). He holds up his index finger, bends it, then straightens it, and says, “The bent stick may straighten, but not the government” (455). This type of life is still preferable to living under British rule, just as Dina’s fragile independence is preferred to living under Nusswan.
The fusion between the general and the personal:
The role of history in Mistry’s A Fine Balance needs to be examined to some extent. The contemporary Indian novelists in English are preoccupied with history along with magical realism. There is a view like Shashi Despande’s who thinks that contemporary Indian English novelists are overburdened with history and “they end up sagging under its weight”(Roy, Pillai 204 ). Mistrys novels however do not suffer from such excess. A Fine Balance attempts to locate the lives of its characters in a historical context. In other words, the readers see the personal in relation to the general.
This fusion between the general and the personal is seen at its best in the realistic representation of the Emergency in India during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s reign. Coming to the big city of Bombay their struggle to fulfill their basic necessities is keenly described. With dreams and aspirations for a better future away from the shackles of caste prejudice they secure a job under Dina who is in turn working for the Au Revoir exports. Thereby a steady income is arranged. Then their search for shelter turns out to be a temporarily substituted by a shack in the jhopadpatti. A jhopadpatti is actually an illegal procurement of government land by the influential or people who have contacts with the creamy layer of the society. These so called house brokers put up shacks with just basic facilities and rented out for meager amount to people like Ishvar and Om who are struggling to make a living in the big city by the sea (i.e. Mumbai).
The life in the jhopadpatti is vividly described by Mistry, which is something of a novelty in Indian English fiction. “Their daily life is picturised with a Dickensian eye for detail”(Roy, Pillai 205). One such memorable account is when the inhabitants of the jhopadpatti are taken to a village to be part of the audience who has been gathered around to listen to the Prime Ministers speech on the numerous benefits of Emergency to the poor. Mistry calls this performance of hers, rather satirically, as “a day in the circus” (Roy, Pillai 205). Though Ishvar and Om are not able to intellectually comprehend the factors that lead to the imposition of the emergency, they do feel its repercussions purely at the personal level when their jhopadpatti is demolished as a part of the city beautification programme. It is ironic as beauty comes at the sacrifice of poor people homes
While exploration and colonization have brought distant communities together for centuries and changed them forever more, the trends and projects of late twentieth century globalization have resulted in new forms and sources of community (Roy, Pillai 182).
Metaphor of the quilt:
In Mistry’s novel, as the quilt is observed and touched, memory is triggered, and the various pieces of fabric bring to mind specific occasions. However, not all of the memories are pleasant or happy. Ishvar points out one particular square and says, “See this? Our house was destroyed by the government, the day we started on this cloth. Makes me feel sad whenever I look at it”(490). Dina in her jovial response adds that she could cut that square out of the quilt, but Ishvar tells her to let it be, because it looks good where it is. He strokes the texture of that particular block, “recapturing the times” (490), and points out that one “sad” fragment is in the midst of other “happy” pieces:
Calling one piece sad is meaningless. See, it is connected to a happy piece- sleeping on the verandah. And the next square- chapatis. Then that violet tusser, when we made masala wada and started cooking together. And don’t forget this georgette pitch, where Beggarmaster saved us from the landlord’s goondas
. . . . ‘So that’s the rule to remember, the whole quilt is much more important than any single square.’(Mistry 490)
In this textile record, difficult and good times are portrayed and accepted. Eleanor Munro writes that she has heard it said: “There is a world of suffering in that quilt” (Roy, Pillai 219). This anguish of life is often juxtaposed with the better times. In Dina’s quilt, both sad and happy experiences are included in the fabric document that can be connected to four integrated lives.
Now the homeless Ishvar and Om end up as pavement dwellers, but even there no solace is available to them. They are forcefully taken away to the nearby irrigation project site where they go through the hard grind of manual labour. Their labour is exchanged for a mere semblance of shelter and food. They are eventually rescued by the Beggarmaster and are back in Dinas flat.
The intellectual response to the emergency is dramatized in a long conversation between Maneck and Avinash. It is further seen in the manner in which the student’s unions are split and in the submissive support of the college teachers for the declaration of the emergency.
Mrs Gupta and Nusswan, both representing the vested interests hail the emergency as “a true spirit of renaissance” and regard the Prime Minister as “our true visionary leader” (Roy, Pillai 205)
Though Dina is free from the constraints of the caste, she is obligated to fulfill the constraints of the society based on her gender. While caste system is confined to restrict people of South Asia gender is a universal factor of discrimination. The quilt is not only elegant and functional but it also serves as a metaphor for various aspects of Dina’s life. It consists of three portraits says Deborah Weagel:
A self portrait of Dina and her desire for independence, a portrait of the nation India which also attains independence, and a group portrait of a student boarder and two tailors who become a part of Dina’s life. Her quilt is a visual text which tells the story of her existence and interactions with people from different castes and backgrounds (Roy, Pillai 212).
Demarcation in the name of caste:
Ishvar and Om can not escape the constraints of their caste. After experiencing a series of hardships including having their jhopadpatti demolished and joining the ranks of the homeless, they are taken into custody one day while shopping at a market place and dragged off to one of the notorious ‘family planning’ clinics in the countryside. There they are forcibly sterilized and recognized by an official whom he had previously offended, Om is castrated. They return to the city, Om clearly unable to marry and Ishvar unable to work as both his legs have been amputated
because of the gangrene that sets in after his sterilization operation. For them, the combined forces of change and tradition lead not to a step upwards with the successful return to their village, but a plunge downwards with their final days lived as beggars on the streets of the big city.
In the quiet street outside the house, he [Maneck] began strolling along the footpath. Up, towards the end of the street, then down again, to Dina Aunty’s house. After several turns, he saw two beggars rounding the corner from the main road.
One sat lumped on a low platform that moves on castors. He had no legs. The other pulled the platform with a rope slung over his shoulder. His plumpness sat upon him strangely, like oversized, padded clothes. Under his arm he carried a torn umbrella (Mistry 607-608).
The life of the chamaars in a village and their traumatic existence in a caste-ridden society is evoked realistically by Mistry without any over-dramatization of their tragic plight, as it often happens in the novels of Mulk Raj Anand, the champion of the oppressed in Indian English fiction. Dukhi Mochi learns to survive with “humilation and forbearance as his constant companions” in the village. The silet suffering of his wife Roopa and the ruthless punishment meted out to his sons Narayan and Ishvar for transgressing the caste code by entering into the school premises makes Dukhi Mochi a much dejected man. How can education strive to break the caste barriers if it is very forcefully promoting it in the name of upholding traditions and mere rituals? When Dukhi unable to bear these humilations goes to Pandit Lalluram seeking justice, he is told that everyone as prescribed by Dharma. He then courageously decides to “break the timeless chain of caste” by sending his sons to Ashraf in the nearby town to be apprenticed as tailors.
Mutual love and understanding:
Mistry deftly handles the growing intimacy between Dina Dalal, Maneck and the chamaar turned tailors, Ishvar and Om. When the tailors and Maneck arrive together at Dina’s “dingy little flat,” she is relieved since “her fragile independence was preserved.” She is initially quite appalled by their sloppy work and tardiness. The various stages in their relationship, from her initial resistance to any kind of intimacy with the tailors to the longing for their company, given her own loneliness, and the rapid growth of concern for them once she learns of the enormity of their suffering, are described in painstaking detail by the novelist. This transformation of such a relationship, as the one between Parsis and Chamaars is an exceptional event in Indian English fiction. Mistry does not resort to any romantic simplification. It is the mutual dependence between them that finally forces Dina Dalal to agree to let the tailors sleep in her veranda, for she could not afford to lose their services. Note her reflection:
But how firm to stand, how much to bend? Where was the line between compassion and foolishness, kindness and weakness? And that was from her position. From theirs, it might be a line between mercy and cruelty, consideration and callousness. She could draw it on this side, but they might see it on that side. (Mistry 469)
Caste system- an obstacle to the Indian modern society:
In The Nation and Its Fragments, Chatterjee also discusses the caste system in his chapter “The Nation and Its Outcasts”. He says that from the point of view of the colonist, the one social institution that distinguished Indian society from Western society is “the institution of caste” (173). It was asserted by some that caste system was considered to be a hindrance in the way of India becoming a modern society. Indian nationalist responded to this argument in two ways. One was “to deny the suggestion that caste is essential to the characterization of Indian society” (173). Caste was considered a precapitalist formation that needed to be suppressed and ignored
in order to be eliminated. The second approach was to accept the caste hierarchy as an important and necessary element of Indian social structure. Chatterjee explains:
The former could be said to represent the pure theory of universal modernity”, and that “the latter, its genealogy running deep into the tradition of Orientalism scholarship, upholds a theory of Oriental exceptionalism (175).
Some of the fragments of society depicted in A Fine Balance involve caste hierarchies. In the novel, Pandit Lalluram, a Chit Pavan Brahmin who “descended from the purest among the pure” (Mistry 111), praises the division. He says to Dukhi Mochi that without the caste system “there would be chaos in the universe” (112). This would help to agree with Chatterjee’s view in which the caste system ideally helps to establish order in the social structure. Ishvar’s parents Dukhi and Roopa both came from the Chamaar caste of tanners and leather workers. Mistry writes:
Besides tanning and leather-working, Dukhi learned what it was to be a Chamaar, an untouchable in village society. No special instruction was necessary for this part of his education. Like the filth of the dead animals which covered him and his father as they worked, the ethos of the caste system was smeared everywhere (Mistry 96).
After Dukhi is hit with a stick and then cheated out of his wages by Thakur Premji, the untouchable says to his wife, “They treat us like animals” (Mistry 105). Dukhi later arranges a slightly better life for his sons by breaking with tradition and sending them to be apprentices with his friend Ashraf, who is a tailor. The fragments of the quilt tell the story of the difficulties of the caste system, but the connecting of the pieces through Dina’s stitches also reveals a desire to integrate people despite their caste.
Impact of globalization on the downtrodden:
Feminist sociologist Saskia Sassen’s analysis of contemporary urban environments makes a unique contribution to the debate on globalization’s impacts, particularly on the people who, like Mistry’s three tailors, inhabit emerging global cities like Mumbai. As Sassen (2000:
271) describes:
The downtowns of cities and metropolitan business centers receive massive investments in real estate and telecommunications while low-income city areas are starved of resources. Highly educated workers see their incomes rise to unusually high levels while low or medium- skilled workers see theirs sink. Financial services produce super profits while industrial services barely survive. These trends are evident, with different levels of intensity, in growing number of major cities in the developed world and increasingly in some of the developing countries that have been integrated into the global financial markets.
After eight years of absence from India Maneck returns to find Dina’s dingy apartment turned into a wealthy housing for the rich; previous residents like Dina, Ishvar and Om have been pushed to the margins to make room for a centre that might not accommodate more people but demands more space. Class-based and gender-based economic and social disparities such as the above not only disrupt individual and community potential, they are also known to further disrupt broader society.
Even strong communities that offer individual support in life are thereby compromised and fragmented by globalization’s outcome of increased income and wealth disparity; this is contrary to the view that globalization has ‘its own dominant culture, which is why it tends to be homogenizing’ (Roy, Pillai 189)
Globalization then touches all individuals and communities, whether they choose to seize its apparent opportunities or not.
In his decision to take work abroad, Maneck becomes one of globalization’s migrant workers.“These individuals move from their home countries, often to escape persecution or poverty but sometimes, as Maneck does, for greater financial or career opportunities” (Roy, Pillai 190). Statistics indicate that 175 million people have moved from their counties of birth (Taylor 2003). According to Hirst and Thompson (1999), their primary destinations have been North America, Western Europe and, until the Gulf War in 1991, the Gulf states. While skilled and professional migrant workers have fared relatively well, entry restrictions in many states often lead to mistreatment, deception and sometimes, illegal treatment of poor, unskilled workers (Hirst and Thompson 1999, Taylor 2003).
This describes the situation of the anonymous maid whom Maneck encounters in Dubai. Nameless, she represents the many poor migrants who are victimized by their employers. While globalization might offer these people an opportunity to earn sufficient funds for themselves and, often, remittances to family at home, it also removes them from community. These individuals are doubly victimized by globalization: the burdens of poverty and discrimination that they face in their homes societies and communities are compounded by social isolation, and emotional and physical vulnerability. Her presence in the novel reminds us that, despite rhetoric about breaking down cultural and physical boundaries between people, globalization’s most meaningful effect for at least some people is to break down whatever community has been constructed precisely because physical borders have been crossed.
Alienation:
In his relationship to other individual and to community, Maneck is an example of what Anderson (2000: 460) terms ‘multi-community individuals’
People whose personal issues have to do not so much with the “loss of community” that is a staple concern of many commentators, but rather with a surfeit of community. They must often choose priorities among their various community affliations, . . . [and] occasionally struggle with conflicting ethical and moral values that are held by different groups.
Maneck’s communities include his village of birth and family, his fellow Parsis in India, his school mates, Indians working in the Middle East and, of course, his friends and housemates, the tailors. “Anderson’s distinction between lack of and surfeit of community is interesting in an academic way; however, as Maneck’s story reminds us, the point of community is to provide a source of identity, purpose and belonging”(Roy, Pillai 193). In the end, whether we are engaged in competing communities or disengaged from all community, for a growing number of people, globalization is creating a world in which individuals no longer have a clear attachment to meaningful, core community.
In the writings of the geographer David Harvey, we find another way of describing this type of globalization-induced alienation. According to Harvey (2000: 294):
We have recently been going through a stronger phase of what I call ‘time-space compression’: the world suddenly feels much smaller, and the time-horizons over which we can think about social action become much shorter. Our sense of who we are, where we belong and what our obligations encompass – in short, our identity – is profoundly affected by our sense of location in space and time. In other words, we broadly locate our identity in terms of space (I belong here) and time (this is my biography, my history). Crisis of identity (Where is my place in this world? What future can I have?) arise out of strong phases of time-space compression.
This, too, depicts Maneck’s situation, and he, in turn, represents a more common human situation. Harvey (2000:293) is especially concerned with capitalism and a source of insecurity: “It is always unstable and crisis prone. The history of capitalist crisis formation and resolution is,
I maintain, fundamental to understanding our history. Understanding the rules of capital accumulation helps us understand why our history and geography take the form they do”. Particularly for individuals whose lives become mobile as they follow capitalism’s money trail, Harvey’s explanation of the impact of globalization (as both project and trend) rings true. Maneck’s and Harvey’s question are the same, and they ask, how we can make sense of our lives when what has always rooted us no longer exists as it did.
Conclusion:
“In stressing the importance of brain over brawn, globalization has given rise to an entire jargon: lifelong learning, knowledge society, and human and social capital” (Roy, Pillai 194). While Mistry’s focus is not education, he seems to acknowledge the value of life-long learning by centering some pivotal events on the human impulse and ability to learn. Ishvar and his brother, two bright, curious children, are taken by their father to learn tailoring from Ashraf shortly after they are punished and humiliated for sneaking into the school house of upper caste children. As an adult Ishvar and his nephew Om meet Maneck as the three of them arrive by train in the big city: Ishvar and Om to seek tailoring work, and Maneck to begin his college education that he hopes will free him from the confines of his village. Dina strengthens her sewing skills after the death of her husband, with the help of a sympathetic aunt, and develops business skills with the support of a friend. The presence and importance of lifelong learning in the lives of these characters sets portions of their stories in motion.
The lives of Mistry’s four characters illustrate how globalization has affected the lives of ordinary people. And how the degeneration of community and social capital hinders people from moving forward from facing life’s harshness and are left merely with their bare survival. “Learning is sought and knowledge is created, but their potential is all but lost” (Roy, Pillai 196).
Works Cited:
Anderson, W.T. “ Communities in a world of open systems”. Futures 31 (1999): 457-463. Print.
Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. “Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History”. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993. Print.
Harvey, D. “Capitalism: the factory of fragmentation”. From Modernization to Globalization: Perspectives on Development and Social Change . Eds. J.T. Roberts and A. Hite. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000. 292-297. Print.
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. Globalization in Question, 2nd ed .Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 1999. N. pag. Print.
Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance. Faber and Faber: Great Britain, 1996. Print.
Roy, Anjali Gera and Meena T Pillai,ed. Rohinton Mistry: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2007. Print. Sassen, S. Globalization and Its Discontent. New York: The New Press, 2000. N. pag. Print. Taylor, R. “ Hardship at home/hardship abroad: the migration ‘system’ doesn’t work.” United Nations Chronicle Online Edition. 15 January 2003. Web. 8 May 2012