'A Fine Balance'

Yesterday, I finished reading 'A Fine Balance'. I haven't been able to decide yet whether it was a good decision or a foolhardy one. On one hand, it was an enjoyable affair, especially the spasmodic intervals which held me captivated and intrigued. However, in retrospect, there is simply so much that left me cold. Too much, perhaps. So many characters' ends so sudden and brutal...almost as if mocking the glory of their beings, almost as if jeering at their mere right to existence...

I didn't want to symapthise with his characters, for pitying them would be condescending. I have no reason to be so.

I don't even say that my disagreement lies within the claim that so many of the characters died, leaving me sad; rather, it lies within the staunch belief that Rohinton Mistry simply opted for the easy way out. After nurturing his characters for hundreds of pages, he then needed to leave them standing at the brink of their futures - whether bleak or optimistic remains his duty and right, not mine. But after having guided them all along, making them tread the paths of their lives so carefully and lovingly, after watching them grow and evolve, I felt that leaving them in the manner he chose to suggests abandoning them - giving up on them. It seems disrespectful, and they deserved better. That's all that saddened me. His decision to leave his main characters either dead under trains, murdered by lunatics or simply in utmost despair and poverty despite their toiling hard all their lives... I still believe he ended his story in a way that was just so easy for him to write about, without giving much thought to how fitting those endings would seem to his readers...and I do wish he hadn't spoilt his book like that!

Anyway, I'm ending this post on a thoroughly unrelated note. I just realised it's February 7...three and a half hours left for it to end at this very moment. The date stands out in my mind right now because a friend has been dreading yet anticipating it for quite a while. I wonder if anything expected or wanted (or even unexpected or unwanted!) has come out of the day yet...I have no idea, but all I know is that I really, really hope it doesn't turn out to be a let-down in any sense! :)