Delicate Balance - A Fragile View of India

What do you know about India? It is the most populous country in the world , the birthplace of Buddhism, the place where billionaires come to Phu Quoc to hold super luxurious weddings, the giant slums in Mumbai, the heavily divided society... That information is all true, but to understand more about the country of these opposites, you should read The Fragile Balance by Rohinton Mistry. The book is published by Tre Publishing House in the Open Door Bookcase program initiated by Professor Ngo Bao Chau.

The novel is set in India in the 1970s. This was the time when the government of Indira Gandhi, in an effort to protect her leadership, declared a national emergency. During this period, many political parties were dissolved, arrested, and the press was censored. But the most special was the campaign of forced sterilization and the campaign of destroying slums to beautify the country. The poor, especially those of the lower castes, always lived in fear of the police destroying their huts, not knowing where they would live if they were destroyed and being taken to a sterilization camp at any time.

In this context, four identities met: Dina, an upper-class woman who wanted to be independent from her brother, reacted against the age-old customs of society and opened a tailoring shop at home. Maneck, a student who stayed in the house, and Ishvar and Omprakash, two uncles and nephews from the “lower” class, came to work for Dina. They turned the apartment into a warm family, but unfortunately, history threw this family into the most tragic fates. Misfortunes fell on their heads endlessly in a country where individual rights temporarily did not exist, especially cruel to those at the bottom of society.

At the end of the story, Dina returns to being dependent on her brother like society. Ishvar and Omprakash become two crippled beggars after being brutally sterilized like in the Middle Ages. Maneck, with his sensitive soul, when he meets two beggars together, Omprakash in a miserable state pulls a shabby platform carrying Ishvar with two amputated legs... in desperation, he chooses to jump in front of a train.

A book written about the human condition, especially the low-caste people in a period of Indian history. A sad book, like a plea from the main characters who tried to find and maintain a fragile balance to survive in life. The book is quite thick, over a thousand pages, but it captivates the reader from beginning to end. Closing the book, the fates in the story haunt us forever.

MERCURY

Source