Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry (1991)

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Such a Long a Journey, set in Bombay in 1971, is a decent novel with some great moments.  It does not match the depth and scope of his magnificent novel, A Fine Balance and most will, as I did, enjoy it less than his Family Matters.  (There is background material on Mistry in my prior posts on his work.)

I would say I felt a little disappointed by this book.  There is the potential for an exciting plot but it does not really come together.  What does work well is the development of the life of the central character, a modest bank clerk.  His son does not want to go to technical college and his young daughter is ill.  He has numerous crazy or disreputable acquaintances.  We do get a good feel for the streets of Bombay, for day to day life.  I really like the description of the giant 100 meter mural depicting numerous religious faiths.  This was brilliant. The characters in the novel of speak of the corruption rife in India and greatly hold in contempt Prime Minister Indera Gandhi.  The work in East Pakistan is causing millions of refuges to flow into India.  We do gain insight into the multitudes of religions in India, especially that of Zorastercism.  

For sure read A Fine Balance, it is truly a great work.  

Please share your experience with set in India Mega-City novels with us.

Mel u

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Ministry (1995, 614 pages)

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is a very powerful deeply sad novel set, though the city is not named,  in Mumbai, from 1974 to 1984.   This is a magnificent book that takes us deeply into lives of people caught up in the turmoil and incredible corruption of India.   This is a grand novel in the tradition of the great works of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo.  It focuses on the interconnected lives of several families, from relatively affluent to the poorest castes of citizens.   Much of the novel  deals with social issues arising from the very deep embedding of the caste system in India.  Two of the central characters come from what is commonly called an untouchable caste whose members had the job by custom  of removing and using the bodies of dead animals, mostly cows to make leather.  We see the terrible hardships under which they live, the incredible cruelties they must accept.  Two of the untouchables, Dalits, are apprenticed at a young age to become tailors, a huge leap for them.   We follow their lives and get to know them well.   

This is a grim dark world, at every turn something terrible happens to people we have come to like.  Anyone with any money lords it over those with less.  We meet lots of people we hate, , some turn out to be more human than we thought.  We learn of the terrible world of beggars and we meet a character that makes Fagin seem like a very  kind social worker, the Beggermaster.  There is some happiness in the novel found through bonds formed but it is all fragile and subject to the caprices of some very cruel Gods.   

This is a very rich beautifully written novel.   The characters are very real.  Parts of the novel are truly heartbreaking.  The ending is totally devastating in its absurdity and in the sense it conveys that life is barely worth enduring.   This is a great novel, though don't read it if you are in a dark place in your life.

I previously read and enjoyed the author's Family Matters.   A Fine Balance is by far the superior of the two works.   If you go on Amazon you will find lots of glowing five star reviews of this book.  A few people do say it  is melodramatic at times and relies on coincidence a lot but then again so do Dickens and Hugo.  Some reviewers have said his work has the social scope of Tolstoy but I do think that is going to far.  I would place this on a lifetime reading list were I to prepare one.

I hope to read his A Long Journey soon.

Mel u

"One Sunday" by Rohinton Mistry

"One Sunday" by Rohinton Mistry (1987, 21 pages)

Short Stories of the Indian Subcontinent

A Reading Life Project

Rohinton Mistry

I am very pleased  that The Reading Life was recently recommended by The Economic Times of India,. the leading financial daily of The Subcontinent.   




The Reading Life Guide to The Indian Short Story

This is my seventh  post for a  new permanent event on The Reading Life, short stories of the Indian subcontinent.   There is no literary culture with roots older than that of India.   I will always admire Edmund Burke for telling the English that they had no right to govern a region whose culture is much older than theirs.  Many of the geographic boundaries that created these countries were created by the British or are consequences of their misrule.       Some of the writers featured will be internationally famous, such as Salmon Rushdie, Saadat Manto,  and R. K. Narayan but most of the writers I post on will be authors on whom there are no prior book blog posts.    There are numerous books and academic conferences devoted to exploring the colonial experiences of India and Ireland and I will look at these stories partially as post colonial literature.   My main purpose here is just to open myself up to a lot more new to me writers and in this case most will be new to anyone outside of serious literary circles in the region.  Where I can I will provide links to the stories I post on but this will not always be possible.

I have previously posted on two of Rohinton Mistry's wonderful novels,  Such a Long Journey and Family Matters.   I totally endorsed both of these works  and I was glad to see a short story by Mistry (born in Mumbai, India in 1952 and  he is now a Canadian citizen) included in the anthology Passages:  24 Modern  Indian Stories.   

I do not think this story can be read online (if anyone knows where one of his short stories can be read  on the net, please let me know) so I will just do a short post on this very good story.   Like his novels in multi-family dwelling and we get to see the lives of several of the residents and their opinions of each  other.   One of the fun and brilliant things about the work of Mistry is his skill in showing us the contrast between what people say they think to what they really do feel in their private moment.    Mistry's insight into the human heart is very deep.

The story is set in Mumbai as are his novels.  As the story opens Najamai, a 55 year widow with daughters, is getting ready to lock up her flat and take the train to visit her sister in Bandra.   She thinks it is good that her downstairs neighbors use her fridge as the activity of them coming in and out will discourage intruders.   It is fun to listen in on Najamai's thoughts about her neighbors.    There is another central character in the story, a man who used to work for a neighborhood furniture store until he lost his job many years ago.   Now he lives under the awning of the store and does odd jobs for people in the area.   He comes to residence of Najamai after she left as she had told him to come by and she would have some work for him.   She must have forgotten this as she was leaving.   The man is in great distress as he has no food money.   He looks around in her apartment, the neighbors let him in and he has a good time looking at the underpants of her daughters though he is quite turned off by hers because of the size!.

We also learn a lot about the cricket obsessions of the teenage boys living in the building and we see how one of the boys sharpens his batting skills by using his bat to kill rats.    Everyone in this story is very concerned with keeping up appearances, with what the neighbors think of them and gossip is big.

I would fur sure read more of his stories and I am very much looking forward to reading his acknowledged by all best novel, A Fine Balance.  It is considered the best novel set in Bombay, as Mumbai was once called and as the people who live in Mistry's novels wish it was still called.   I think you cannot go wrong reading a Mistry novel.

This story is in participation in Nancy Cudis's great event, Short Stories on Wednesday.   I hope lots of   people will join us in sharing our love of short stories.


Mel u

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry  (2002, 448 pages)


Before I begin my post on this very powerful novel about family life in Mumbai, once called Bombay, I wish to thank Prashant C. Trikannad of Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema for suggesting I expand my meagre readings in Indian Literature to include a novel by Rohinton Mistry, known for writing about the lives of people who live in Bombay.  (Call me old fashioned but I prefer "Bombay" to "Mumbai" and if Mistry is right so do most of the people who live there.)


Mystry was born in India in 1952 and emigrated to Toronto Canada in 1975 with his wife.  He studied at The University of Toronto, writes in English and is a Canadian citizen.   All of his novels are about life in India in the second half of the 20th century.   He has won numerous literary awards including the Governor General's Prize for Canadian works and has been short listed two times for the Booker prize.   Thanks to Oprah Winfrey selecting it for her book club, his second novel,  A Fine Balance, sold several hundred thousand copies.


Family Matters is set in Bombay in the 1990s.     It focuses on the lives of the extended family of  a former professor, now very elderly and dependent on his relatives for care due to his numerous health problems.   After a long romance with  woman he truly loved, at the aggressive suggestion of his parents, he married a woman that was, like he and his family as far back as anyone knows, Parsi.   Parsis in India are descended from immigrants from Persia in the 10th century who left Persia for India  so they could practice their religion, Zoroastrianism (a religion six centuries older than Christianity).   As I learned in the novel, the Parsi are declining in numbers due to a low birthrate so there is a lot of pressure not to marry outside your religion.   


The drama in the story comes from the impact taking care of their step father has on his step-daughter and son and their families.    The families are beautifully done and I really felt like I was listening in on real conversations.   One of the dominant forces in the novel is Bombay (it is almost always called that in the novel).   There are so simply great descriptions of life in the city.   Mistry does not in any way hide the corruption, crowding and huge amount of religious and caste discord that can make the city a miserable place but you can tell the city is very much loved for its deep history and its powerful ambiance.   


I was emotionally involved with the characters and felt their joy and pain and the tedium of their lives when the book began to focus on the medical needs of the step father.


Family Matters is a very good novel.    The dialogues are great.   The relationships are totally perfect.    There is more or less a happy ending after lots of troubles.   I really liked the epilogue that flashed five years forward to show how the people were all doing.    There is also a lot to be learned about the culture of the Parsi and the religion of Zoroastrianism from this great book.   I hope to read his A Fine Balance in the not too distant future as it is considered his best work and the definitive Mumbiai/Bombay novel.


Be sure to check out Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema by Prashant C. Trikannad  for some great posts on a wide range of topics.




Please share your experience with Mistry with us-


Mel u