44 pages • 1 hour read
A Fine Balance
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Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Small Obstacles”
Ishvar and Om settle into their home in the shantytown. They quickly learn that water only flows from the communal pump in the morning. In line at the pump, they meet their next-door neighbor, Rajaram, who gives them a few pointers about the area, like using the nearby railroad tracks as an outdoor latrine. Rajaram tells them about his business as a hair-collector. He cooks them food because they haven’t gotten a stove for themselves yet. He also helps them stop the leaks in their roof when monsoon season arrives.
When Ishvar protests that he and his nephew won’t be staying in the shantytown long, Rajaram doesn’t think that Ishvar’s optimism is realistic: “Sometimes people have no choice. Sometimes the city grabs you, sinks its claws into you, and refuses to let go” (172). He advises them to get ration coupons the next day. When Ishvar and Om apply for their coupons, an official refuses to issue them because the shantytown isn’t a real address. However, he also hints that if one of them would be willing to get a vasectomy, he would approve their ration cards. The government is pushing voluntary sterilization, so the official has a quota to meet. Ishvar and Om refuse and leave.
The next day, Om rents a bicycle. He is intent on following Dina when she makes her order delivery so that he can meet the owner and negotiate an independent deal for himself and Ishvar. Om pretends to cut his finger and complains that he needs to go to the doctor. When Dina allows him to leave, he follows her taxi. Several streets over, Om loses Dina in traffic and is hit by a chauffeur-driven car. Even though Om isn’t seriously injured, the passenger pays him 50 rupees. He spends the rest of the afternoon riding his bicycle and dozing at the beach.
Later, Om and Ishvar help Dina get the spare bedroom ready for Maneck. He is supposed to arrive the following day. After the men leave, Dina catches the scent of textiles mingling with the tailors’ smell of sweat and tobacco as she contemplates her loneliness:
She liked it while their bustle filled the room. But the smell was depressing during the empty evenings, when something acrid suspired from the bolts, stiffening the air, clouding it with thoughts of dingy factories, tubercular labourers, bleak lives. The emptiness of her own life appeared starkest at this hour (193).
Chapter 5 Summary: “Mountains”
Maneck settles into Dina’s shabby apartment and thinks back to his childhood in the mountains. He comes from a wealthy family of landholders. After the Pakistan/India partition, much of the family property ended up on the wrong side of the capriciously determined border that didn’t take into account local history: “A foreigner drew a magic line on a map and called it the new border; it became a river of blood upon the earth” (203).
Maneck grows up in a stable, loving home surrounded by the natural beauty of the mountains. This changes when the construction of new roads allows new businesses and slum dwellings to appear. All that remains of the family fortune is a general store, which his father, Farokh, runs. As his family’s business dwindles, Maneck goes to college in the city. During the two-day train ride, he strikes up a lengthy conversation with a proofreader named Vasantrao Valmik, who tells him that the trick to succeeding in life is to strike a balance between hope and despair.
When Maneck arrives at school, he doesn’t like the filth, vermin, and bad food of the student hostel. His one friend, Avinash, disappears after leading protests that displease the government. When Maneck becomes the target of a disgusting hazing ritual, he writes to his parents and begs to come home. As a compromise to keep him in school, they find him better living accommodations—his mother contacts Dina and arranges to rent a room for her son.
As Maneck is washing up during his first morning in the apartment, the worms that creep up out of the bathroom drain appall him. He remembers Avinash teasing him about being overly sensitive to his surroundings: “The problem with you is, you see too much and you smell too much. This is big-city life—no more beautiful snow-covered mountains. You have to learn to curb your sissy eyes and nose” (238).
Chapters 4-5 Analysis
As Ishvar and Om search for a place to live, we’re introduced to the city as a devourer of lives. The toxic environment of the shantytown where the two tailors rent space is menacing: squalor, filth, and disease surrounds everything; water only runs in the morning; and the stench from the railroad tracks that thousands use as a latrine lingers over the slum like a cloud.
When Rajaram warns his new friends of the dangers of the city, he is equally concerned with its physical danger and its soul-crushing capabilities. Even though Ishvar blithely claims they won’t be staying long, Rajaram hints that the city may have darker plans for them.
Along with the negative influence of the city itself, these chapters foreground another major theme of the book—greed and corruption. When Ishvar and Om apply for food coupons, they’re told the slum isn’t part of the city proper, so they aren’t entitled to assistance. The official hints that he will waive the restriction if the two men consent to sterilization—asking for a favor to fill his quota for the Family Planning initiative before agreeing to do his job. More volunteers mean more money for him.
Maneck’s backstory returns to a theme we’ve seen earlier in Dina’s origins: being able to adapt to change. Memories of his happy childhood with a loving family in a pristine mountain village are a stark contrast to the filth and horrors of the student hostel and the worms crawling out of the drain in Dina’s shabby bathroom. Unlike Dina, Maneck desperately wants to cling to life as it was during his childhood; he refuses to accept that change is constant and that he must adapt.
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