Blissful Desolation: An Imitation of Life in ROHINTON MISTRY’s A Fine Balance

Disclaimer: Some of the ideas here are not mine. I got them from different sites to help me support my title and pass it to my Literary Forms teacher ON TIME. I already forgot some of the websites because after reading the book, I simply copied and pasted every article that I feel relevant for my analysis, making me forget to cite the sites (you know,the disadvantage of making things on the 11th hour).

INTRODUCTION
The Indian Emergency of 25 June 1975 – 21 March 1977 was a 21-month period, when President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, upon advice by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, declared a state of emergency under Article 352 of the Constitution of India, effectively bestowing on her the power to rule by decree, suspending elections and civil liberties. It is one of the most controversial times in the history of independent India.
Opponents had long made allegations that Indira's party, Congress, had practiced electoral fraud to win the 1971 elections. The Gandhian socialist Jaya Prakash Narayan had been agitating in Bihar for a change in provincial government, and increasingly sought to direct popular action against the Central Government through satyagrahas. Narayan and his supporters sought to unify students, peasants, and labour organisations in a 'Total Revolution' to non violently transform Indian society. Indira's party was defeated in Gujarat by a coalition of parties calling itself the Janata Party (People's Party), and even faced an all-party, no-confidence motion in Parliament.

Criticism and accusations of the Emergency-era may be grouped as:

Detention of people by police without charge or notification of families
Abuse and torture of detainees and political prisoners
Use of public and private media institutions, like the national television network Doordarshan, for propaganda
Forced sterilization of men and women under the family planning initiative. Indira's son, Sanjay Gandhi, was blamed for this forcible treatment of people
Destruction of the slum and low-income housing in the Turkmen Gate and Jama Masjid area of old Delhi
Large scale and illegal enactment of laws (including modifications to the Constitution) which shifted the country towards socialism

The Emergency years were the biggest challenge to India's commitment to democracy, which proved vulnerable to the manipulation of powerful leaders and large parliamentary majorities.

”A Fine a Balance” is a perfect picture of this story of India. It tackles both the struggle of people to live in spite the cruelty of the era. Both the major and minor characters have a say about their situations. The powerful dialogues that Mistry created were wonderfully crafted to let the readers understand both the “real sorrow and the inexplicable strength of India, the accountable crookedness and sweetness”. The book showed to me what it meant to live during the Emergency. Rohinton Mistry truly showed the slum life, the dispossessed, the hungry, the homeless, the injustice of the caste system; but most of all, the strength of the human spirit in India which never ceases.

Characters

a. MAJOR CHARACTERS
Dina Shroff Dalal is a 42 year old widow who grew up in a city by the sea. She was widowed when her husband was side swiped by a car. Dina did not marry again instead she stayed in the flat where she and her husband once lived ad put up her own business which is tailoring. As a child she lived as middle class with her brother and their parents in the City by the Sea in India. When her doctor father, volunteering for a hazardous job, falls sick and dies. Dina was forced to leave school at the age fourteen, denied a university education that would have been her right, and as an adult, is harassed by her older brother to marry rich but unappealing suitors.

Ishvar Darji belongs to the Chaamar caste of leather tanners and cobblers. In an attempt to break away from the restrictive caste system, Ishvar's father apprentices his sons Ishvar and Narayan to a Muslim tailor named Ashraf Chacha in a nearby village, and so they became tailors.

Omprakash Darji is Ishvar’s nephew whose whole family was burnt in a village by the river. He knew a bit of tailoring because before his father died, he had been going to the Muslim man to help Ishvar and practice tailoring. Ishvar and Om moved to Mumbai to get work which by then unavailable in the town near their village because a pre-made clothing shop has opened.

Maneck Kohlah is a young student from a small mountain village in northern India, he was sent away by his parents to study since he was in his fourth standard. He moved to the city to acquire a college certificate "as a back-up" in case his father's soft drink business is no longer able to compete after the building of a highway near their village. He stayed in the apartment of Dina Dalal as a boarder to go away from the troubles in his college dormitory.

MINOR CHARACTERS

1. Team Dina
Rustom Dalal is the deceased husband of Dina Dalal. They met when both were regular theatre visitors. Rustom died during their third anniversary celebration when his bicycle was side swiped by a truck when he went out to buy ice cream
Nusswan Shroff is the brother of Dina Shroff, who appears to be antagonistic in Dina’s affairs. He is very particular about what their relatives might say so he tried to help Dina in all her endeavours.
Ruby Shroff is the wife of Nusswan, she and Dina cannot go along at first but their quarrels eventually diminish as both knew how to compromise for familial relationships.
Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle were like foster parents of Rustom, they were the ones who helped Dina how to sew and come up with her own business.
Zenobia is the childhood friend of Dina. Dina and Rosa are the partners in crime during their highschool years. Dina connives with Zenobia in her activities and helps her whenever Nusswan’s restrictions trouble Dina. She was also the one who helped Dina to find a customer in the person of Mrs. Gupta and a boarder in the person of Maneck.
Mrs. Gupta is Zenobia's Client and Dina's boss.
Ibrahim the rent collector of Dina’s apartment.

2. Team Omprakash and Ishvar

Dukhi Mochi and Roopa are the parents of Ishvar. They originally belong in the Chaamar caste of leather tanners and cobblers. Many Brahmins envy them when they bore to sons while the former only have daughters. In order to keep their sons safe, Dukhi sent them to apprentice as tailors in the far away village. Years after, their two sons made them very proud, after they ascended and become real tailors.
Pandit Lalluram is a Brahmin believed by Dukhi to help him when his sons were battered by a teacher; unfortunately, it turned out the Brahmin has a preconceived notion.
Ashraf Chacha is Dukhi's friend who trained Ishvar and Narayan how to sew.
Nawaz is Ashraf's friend who he expected to accommodate Ishvar and Om in their stay in the city but it turned out that he accepted them bitterly.
Narayan Darji is Ishvar's brother. He was flogged, burned and hanged (and his whole family including his parents)by Thakur Dharamsi because he, along with two other men, demanded they be given a ballot during a biased election.
Thakur Dharamsi killed Om's father and is later in charge of the Family Planning where Om was castrated and Ishvar was vasectomized, leaving him a tortuous surgery which led to the cutting of his legs.
Rajaram was initially, a hair collector who killed two beggars with beautiful hair. Later in the story he disguised as Bal Baba telling people about their future lives.
Shankar is the crippled beggar, also known as Worm who rolls on the ground. They knew him when all beggars were taken away from the streets to do forced labour.
Beggarmaster is the half brother of Shankar and who controls all the beggars. Later he was killed by Monkey man for taking away from him his niece and nephew.
Monkey Man is an entertainer and a resident in the slum who was prophesied to commit a greater murder than killing his dog for eating his monkeys. Later we knew that he was the one who killed Beggarmaster.
Shanti is a girl from the slum and was fantasized by Om for a wife.
Jeevan is the tailor who was with Om and Ishvar in their first assignment.

3. Team Maneck

Aban and Farokh Kohlah are the parents of Maneck. Mr. Kohla who is a very romantic person forces his son to go to far away schools to be ready for whatever will happen to their business.
Vasantrao Valmik was the proofreader and lawyer who Maneck met in his train ride to the city; he is also a fan of Willian Butler Yeats.
Avinash is Maneck's good friend in college who mysteriously disappears. He is the President of the Student Union and Chairman of the Hostel Committee and later his body was found in a morgue , tortured.
Sunaiya is Maneck’s childhood friend.

Setting
The story was set in Mumbai, India (a city by the sea) between 1947 and 1977 during the turmoil of The Emergency, a period of expanded government power and crackdowns on civil liberties.

Point of view
The story is told in an Omniscient point of view, while occasionally the narrator does describe the feelings of the characters, he mainly sticks to their actions, and the reader interprets the feelings through these actions.

Style, Tone, & Language
The language used is familiar Indian words and phrases such as "yaar" and "hai ram." At first this can confuse the reader not familiar with these terms, but their constant use makes it easy to understand a word's meaning by the context in which it is used. Otherwise, the language is easy to read and flows well. The author provides in-depth detail about the settings and situations surrounding the action, sometimes to a point where it can distract the reader from the action itself.
I love the style of the author; he could develop a rise and fall of emotions: one scene could be cheerful and suddenly it becomes miserable. I love some of the philosophical lines in the novel and also the wit with a sudden twist of melancholy.
One of the most hurtful parts was when Roopa stole oranges and was caught and raped. The words used by the author were so simple yet how the images appeared was so powerful that one can really feel the corruption, the injustice, and the greed of the society that tyrannized them (as shown in the page 98 -99). Also, some of the dialogues are very witty, it has both humor and reality on it, a very good example is the persuading speech by a man who sells potion for the treatment of impotency and infertility (in page 515).


“Thank you, I have enough” [Roopa said.]
“Is it? But wait you cannot go just like that. You haven’t given me anything in return.” [said the man.]
“I don’t have anything. That’s why I came here in the night, for the sake of my child.”
“You have got something.” He put on his hands and squeezed her left breast. She struck his hand away. “I only have to shout once,” he warned, and slipped her hand inside her blouse. She shuddered at the touch, doing nothing this time.
“Please let me go.”
“Soon as I have fed you my Bhojpuri brinjal. Take off your clothes.”
“I beg you let me go.”
“I only have to shout once”
…
Dukhi pretended to be asleep as she entered the hut. He heard her muffled sobs several times during the night, and new from her smell what had happened to her while she was gone. He felt the urge to go to her, speak to her, comfort her. But he did not know what words to use, and he also felt afraid of learning too much. He wept silently, venting his shame, anger, humiliation in tears; he wished he would die that night.
In the morning, Roopa behaved as if nothing had occurred. So Dukhi said nothing , and they ate the oranges
(Page 98 -99)


Are you having difficulty in producing children? Is your hathiyar reluctant to rise up? Or does it sleep and forget to wake?... Fear not, there is a cure! Like a soldier in attention it will stand! One, two, three – Bhoom!... Does it stand but not straight enough? Is there a bend in the tool? Leaning left like the Marxist –Lennist Party? To the right like the Jan Sangh Fascists? Or wobbling mindlessly in the middle, like the Congress party? Fear not for it can be straightened! Does it refuse to harden even with rubbing and massage? Then try my ointment and it will become hard as the government’s heart! All your troubles will vanish with this amazing ointment made from the organs of these wild animals! Capable of turning all men into engine drivers! Punctual as the train in the Emergency…
(Page 515)



Some contemplating lines:
“People hardly ever saw their children as they really were.”
(Dina Dalal on Aban Khlah’s letter, page 194)
“Sometime the city grabs you, sinks it claws into you and refuses to let go.”
(Rajaram to Om, page 172)


Mood & atmosphere
apprehensive, optimistic, precarious

Symbols

Omprakash and Narayan
Narayan had fervour for what is just but his efforts were all in vain because powerful people easily defied his shift. His zeal for justice should have been passed on even when he died but the only vessel for his inheritance (his sone Om) was castrated which ceased what he had started. The same with what happened to the socialist Jayaprakash Narayan (from whose name the fictional characters were named after) who tried to fight for the people’s freedom against the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
In January 1977 when Emergency was lifted. Fresh elections were declared. Under Jayaprakash's guidance several parties united to form the Janata Party. The party incorporated all of Jayaprakash's goals in its manifesto. Jayaprakash was weak and helpless by that time. He felt his work was done, but he had to sorrowfully witness the collapse of the Janata Party government. Jayaprakash died on October 8, 1979. People hailed him as "Lok Nayak" or leader of the people. Vinoba Bhave said after Jayaprakash's death that Jayaprakash considered himself only a "Lok-sevak," or servant of the people.

quilt
Throughout the tailoring years, Dina is seen to keep squares of castaway material and sew them into a quilt, and one often is made to notice how the quilt grows to incorporate the events that are connected to the squares which are sewn together. Towards the end of the novel, the inhabitants pore over it and reminisce their happy or sad times that are spread in front of them, so to speak, and what they unanimously say is: how beautiful, how harmonious, how well the colours and materials have been chosen to match one another and form a unity of impression. So the question is: if the quilt represents the balance of fortunate and unfortunate events which have marked the life of the four main characters of the novel, if it represents their life together, mustn’t we deduct that happiness comes from togetherness, and unhappiness from solitude? And indeed, it is Ishvar and Om, in spite of their tragic destiny, manage to continue to give meaning to this life of suffering. They are the ones that keep alive in Dina the little flame of meaning shining in the night of this absurd world. Without friendship, seems to say Rohington Mistry, without that love.
So time acquires meaning only if it is quilt-like. That is to say, only if one person’s memories are part of another person’s. Only then does it have a pattern. It’s the “fine” of the title, which also means beautiful, remarkable. That “fine balance to be maintained between hope and despair” says Vasantrao Valmik, an enigmatic lawyer who is present three times in the story, and has a highly symbolical value as proof-reader and speech-writer, is what remains possible if one can cling on to another to avoid falling. Shankar could cling onto Beggarmaster, Dina to Rustom’s memory (her dead husband), Monkey-man to his monkeys, and then his children – but he becomes mad when they are taken away from him. Rajaram the hair-collector is also more or less driven to a form of madness through dispossession.

beggarmaster
He is a symbol of humanity. In him, we see both good and bad. He is corrupt using beggars for his survival and yet he is good because in him there is protection and identity. “And he who had lived by the beggings of the helpless cripples died by those beggings, rotted by their heaviness” which mostly happens to human being – we reap what we sow.

Motifs

“trouble with a capital t”

This is line is always spoken by Dina which simply shows the troubles present in their surroundings.

Chapatti

Wherever, the characters are, there is always someone cooking chapattis (like Ashraf Chacha, Dina, Rajaram etc). Chapattis are unleavened flatbread from the Indian subcontinent. It is a form of roti (bread). The words are often used interchangeably. While roti refers to any flat unleavened bread, chapati is a roti made of whole wheat flour and cooked on atava (flat skillet). Chapatti is present in both good and bad times in the novel hence it is a symbol of the subsiding existing of misery and bliss in the place which completes their whole existence.

Themes

Memories hold everything together.

“How much Dina Aunty relished her memories. Mummy and Daddy were the same, talking about their yesterdays and smiling in that sad-happy way while selecting each picture, each frame from the past, examining it lovingly, before it vanished again in the mist. But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be recreated – not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair, that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain. So what was the point of possessing memory? It didn’t help anything. In the end it was all hopeless … No amount of remembering happy days, no amount of yearning or nostalgia could change a thing about the misery and suffering – love and concern and caring and sharing come to nothing, nothing. Maneck began to weep, his chest heaving as he laboured to keep silent. Everything ended badly. And memory only made it worse, tormenting and taunting. Unless. Unless you lost your mind. Or committed suicide. The slate wiped clean. No more remembering, no more suffering.” - Maneck pondering, page 336


There is an extensive reflection on time in the novel; obviously it is one of its main themes. The characters always refer to their past.


Happiness is a choice.
The place is surrounded with malevolence, dishonesty and abhorrence yet many people seem to ignore it living their lives like a paradise.

“How comcomforting it felt, liquid between his fingers – why couldn’t life be like that , soft and smooth. He caressed his cheek with it, observing the drunkard’s children running about, sprawling in the dust, passing the time till their mother took them out to beg. One of them found a curiously shaped stone, which he showed off to his siblings. Then they chased a crow probing a lump of something rotten. The mettlesome bird reused to fly away, hopping circling, returning to the putrefying titbit to provide more fun for the children. How could they be so happy? Wondered Om – dirty and naked, ill-fed, sores on their faces, rashes on the skin.What was there for anyone to laugh about in this wretched place.” -Om reflecting, page 185

PLOT : A Blissful Melancholy
The book told of the hard life the four major characters led and how they slowly learnt to know about one another when they moved beyond the blatant law of mistrust in a society where everything is governed by money, power and corruption.
At first the tailors who had been looking for work for a long time were in a position of obedient workers, but then they soon resented being paid too little, especially young Om, who resisted what he believed is exploitation. The same exploitation when his father was hanged and all his family was burnt for the reason that they wanted practice their right to suffrage but more so because they ascended from their caste of leather tanners and cobblers to seasoned tailors; the same exploitation in their caste when daughters were left to die in order for families to do away from paying the dowry of their soon-to-be husbands; the same exploitation when Narayan and Ishvar were slapped six times by a teacher just because they played and wrote on the blackboards of a Brahmin school; the same exploitation when their rented jhopadatis were taken away from them leaving them to sleep in a shop for 4 rupees each night; the same exploitation when the people in the slum were delivered in one place to listen to the fallacious speeches and the hypocrisy of their leaders; the same exploitation when they together with the beggars were forced to do labour in an irrigation site and were freed in exchange of a payment.
On the other hand, Dina insisted on distances being kept between herself and Maneck on the one side, and the tailors on the other. She soon complained about their lack of collaboration, but had no choice: she is stuck between her tailors’ petulance and the deadlines of the export company for whom she made them work. She had always felt the anxiety, the anxiety that Nusswan placed through her when he meddled with her youthful affairs (like cutting her hair), when she was denied of a matriculation, when she refused to marry qualified bachelors, when she married poor Rustom, when she was widowed, when she refused to remarry and when she sought independence. She had never been sure what means to carry out, which way to set off and how to accomplish it, for Dina’s life had been precarious since her father’s death. And her anxieties were passed on even to these two innocent tailors who simply try their luck in the city.
In contrast, Maneck was adapting to the new life in the city, rather lost at having been sent away from his beloved mountains. The mountains where he felt so secure hugging his parents every sunrise looking at his father fed stray dogs and playing with Sunaiya (and looking at their genitals). But all of these were vanished when his father sent him away to a boarding school which he never loved. Of all people it was his father who forced him to study afar and be bullied by the older boys. He felt a hasty betrayal. The same betrayal when he first left home for boarding school, the same betrayal when suddenly he can no longer see Sunaiya, when his father did not understand his arrangement of the house when they left him to manage it, when suddenly Avinash disappeared and when he was enraged against those who coerced him to be inside the refrigerator despite his need to defecate and later forced him to masturbate.
However, the exploitation of Om and Ishvar, the anxiety of Dina and the betrayal of Maneck are but a part of life, parallel to these disparaging experiences are glimpses of kindness, hope, dignity and friendship.
The exploitation experienced by Om and Ishvar went side by side with the affection they received from Ashraf Chacha who treated them better than their Hindu brothers, the tough affection they got from Nawaz who let them sleep in the awning of his house which is better than being homeless, the paid affection of Beggarmaster which brought them back to their work and freedom, the affection of the people in slum like Rajaram for his utensils, monkeyman for his entertainment and music, the affection of the watchman who let them sleep for only 4 rupees, the affection of Dina when she fed them secretly when they became beggars.
And even if Nusswan seemed an antagonist in the life of Dina still he eased his sister’s pains by giving her a headband when she cut her hair, by spending for a decent wedding although against his will, by lending her money for her apartment and by accepting her after all the rebellions she did.
And Maneck after all the betrayal he felt in his life, after the distance between him and his parents, after his father died, contemplated that his home is still in the mountains.
These four people have stories of their own. Their dispositions and views in life differ all together and dependent on the bounds of their experiences. But before they went separate lives they were once bound to a place surrounded by chaos where they shared generosity, courage, friendship and memories (both good and bad).
Emergency allowed the state to lawfully reorganise the lives and rights of the population, especially of course the part which can’t buy its right to exemption. One of these absurd programs, called “beautification” involved the pure and simple bulldozing of the slum where Ishvar and Om lived. In a matter of hours, they were homeless, and had to shelter under a porch before the police picks them up and trucks them away to an irrigation project, miles from the city, leaving an ignorant Dina to pester that her tailors are unreliable and worrying about her future.
The irrigation project is a forced labour camp, where the beggars were a cheap but derelict workforce, and the tailors owed their survival to a new character, Beggarmaster, who came to the camp to buy back the beggars that the authorities had cleaned the streets from. The tailors explained they have jobs, that their presence is a mistake, and he grudgingly accepted to truck them back, on one condition: they will become chained to him by the obligation to pay him the equivalent of three days’ work at Dina’s during one year.
More twists and turns occur, some good, some bad, one of good ones being that Beggarmaster changes from tyrant to saviour. When the rent “goondas” came to evict Dina (and her tenants) from her flat, on grounds that she was using the flat professionally, they start breaking everything and mentally torturing the four inhabitants with Nazi-like ruthlessness. Dina’s business and the tailors’ work were hopelessly lost. Then Beggarmaster came, to collect his rent, and upon seeing the chaos, promised to “pay a visit” to Dina’s tenant, and miraculously tilted their broken world back on balance. How has this miracle been possible? Ishvar and Om at the camp have befriended a beggar called Worm, or Shankar, who had no legs and no fingers, but stupefies everyone because of his energy and good-will. Back in their Mumbai district, they remained his protectors, and even caste-conscious Dina agreed to make him a special garment. And Beggarmaster, who ruled his begging business (in which Worm was very profitable) according to his own laws, has now a debt towards the tailors and they had benefited from his powerful protection.
With these, Mistry’s novel shows a society where individualistic values are possible if and only if you are rich or powerful enough to indulge in them. If not, you are at the mercy of feudal lords which use you at their advantage, and whether or not what they do is against the democratic laws is pointless. Money makes the laws, pays the police, and performs whatever those in power have decided. Only a limited amount of solidarity can find its way through to build a more human type of relationships. We see beautiful figures pass us on their way to their destiny, but unless these men, women or children have the proper supports, they are ultimately doomed. The huge Wheel of personal or bureaucratic self-interests crunches along, monstrously slicing into the little constructions that the poor have set up to have a chance at something decent and pleasurable in life. The only salvation is to jump into one of the wheels, but then you might end up rolling over former friends, and if you jump out to save them, you know you too have decreed your own undoing.
The title “A fine balance” thus refers to that extremely fragile situation of the poor who have temporarily managed to secure for themselves a little niche in the ever dangerous and destructive Indian urban society of today. They have been lucky enough, or intelligent enough to find a loophole in the relentless economic system of giving and taking, and have taken advantage of it for the time it will last, until something happens to blow their straw house to smithereens, and they must rush to another shelter, if there is such a shelter. Otherwise the mongering wolf – the institutionalised appetites of the rich and powerful - will gulp them up.
The caste system is a very efficient way of providing for those above with a ready means to continue to benefit from the advantages they have always had: food, health, comfort, security, education, hygiene. Those in the lower castes do not have a right to all these amenities. Why? Because they are in their lower caste. It’s as simple as that. The order of the world (its dharma) dictates it. If one low-caste individual breaks that order, any form of jealous retaliation, any punishment, however brutal cruel or inhuman, is considered a god-sent balancing of the eternal order of things. Whoever upsets that balance understands he faces a terrible Kaliyug- like frown an all-powerful Destiny.
In A Fine Balance, there is a kindness at work, a benevolence, a compassion in spite of the rushing roar of meaninglessness. It is first exemplified in the magnificent character of Ishvar, the tailor Uncle who always tries to mend, to sew together, to iron out differences and potential conflicts. He is the first to excuse, the last to complain. He’s always open to finding a solution, and almost never despairs. He is Hope. Then, in spite of his longing and aimlessness, Maneck is also a soother of pains. His good-natured charm is part of the story’s pleasure. At one time, for example, when the tailors are missing once again, he manages to drive Dina out of despair and trouble by deciding that for three days he doesn’t have any classes, and is going to help her sew the batch of dresses in time for her to meet the deadline. They work day and night, and he does it out of benevolence, or companionship. We follow the stories of the characters because they are deeply human. Even the “sour-lime” Omprakash has a good enough heart. One easily sympathises with his good-humoured pranks, his freedom, his lively and youthful rebelliousness. And Dina, under her prim and proper principles has also a yearning heart, a soft and generous nature which slowly grows and then blooms at the end. We have also loving characters such as Ashraf Chacha, the splendidly generous Muslim tailor who apprentices the two chamaar boys in spite of having a grudging wife and a family to feed, then there’s the compassionate Rajaram who welcomes and helps the tailors when they arrive in the slum.


Conclusion
Billion heads exist on earth. And these billion heads are of different orientations, beliefs, and culture. Many of these existing orientations contradict each other which lead to a precarious experience. An experience which, according to Henry James, is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.
In short, life does not guarantee happiness but it doesn’t mean that it will be a total misery. Life is a web of both ecstasy and misery.
What had happened in India during the sate of emergency is not rare in the world. In fact, there are much worst occurrences like the holocaust of the Jews, the genocide in Rwanda and even the Martial Law in the Philippines. Many lives were wasted because of the thirst for power. Crime, corruption, cruelty, injustice, abhorrence – they are present anywhere. However, in these monstrous crimes that men do to each other, there are regular deeds of kindness which in there smallness and abundance intricately compliments human’s desolation.
What I’m trying to say is that, there are billions who resemble the Prime Minister, millions similar to Thakur Dharamsi and thousands akin to Pandit Lalluram. But there number equal that of billion Dina’s, million Ishvar’s, thousand Ompraksh’s, hundred Manecks and ten Shankar. But their existence created an ever growing beautiful quilt which nobody knows when and where it will end.



Some Sources:
Msitry, Rohintor. A Fine Balance, United Sate of America: Vintage Book, 1995.
http://letstalkaboutbollywood.over-blog.org/article-14099206.html
Wikipedia.com