A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

716 pages

Jacket:
A Fine Balance" displays a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens. This magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers — a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village — will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.

As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, "A Fine Balance" creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.

Wow. This was an amazing read. There are just so many layers to this story; it really does affect you on some level. It leaves you thinking about the book long after it is over.
Dina Dalal, the widow is trying to make ends meet. Manek Kohlah is leaving a peaceful loving life in the mountains to come to the ‘City by the Sea’ so he can study and survive in this world. Uncle and nephew, Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, tailors now, leave behind the cloak of untouchability to earn a living in the city, hoping they’ll make enough to go back and live comfortably at their village.
Four different lives join together – find family in each other and connect with you in such a way that you hope it will turn out well for all of them. In a backdrop of Indira Gandhi’s emergency, dreams and hopes get shattered. Despite knowing how futile it is, you still continue reading till the end, you still wish for a happy ending for all in this story

My favourite lines:

• (But he went so far away) When you go so far away, you change. Distance is a difficult thing
  
• (The secret to survival) is to maintain a balance between hope and despair