A Fine Balance
The story is sad. So sad that I was depressed when I closed the book. Depressed not just because the story is sad but that the story ended and that it ended on a low point. It could have easily turned sunny way up but it didn't. It made me so unhappy I wondered what is the point of the story, except to leave your reader feeling helpless and insecure about the future and about humanity. After you have absorbed the story and lamented over it, you start to look beyond the main story and to the backdrop. The descriptive nature of the book paints you a picture of India in the 1970s in front of your eyes. The prologues give you the history of each protagonist and with them of different cultures and social nitty-gritties. It unravels the Parsi families and their modern culture that is still constrained to their singular community. In Dina, you see the young spirited potential of modern middle class women that is shunned and choked by the patriarchal society. The story of Ishv