Friday, March 29, 2013

A Fine Balance

     
by Rohinton Mistry




This month we read A Fine Balance, a historical fiction novel which takes place in India in the 1970's. During this time a state of emergency was in effect for about two years, as declared by Prime Minister Idira Gandhi. The emergency gave her ultimate power and it is interesting to see how her power effected the different characters in the story.

We all remarked at how lucky we are in this country to have running water 24 hours a day and clean, indoor restrooms. We also appreciate the rights that women have in this country, although we realized that has come a long way since the 1970's.

There are so many fine balances in life, but this book seemed to focus on the fine balance between hope and despair. When things get bad in life (as they did so many times in this story), as long as the characters had hope for the future, they could carry on, despite their despair. But when hope was lost for one character, the despair had nothing to balance it.

In the spirit of the book, our meeting spot was The Himalayan Kitchen in Salt Lake City. Their food was wonderful and the nan was amazing. Excellent service as well.