One of the foremost voices in the realm of modern Indian writing in English, Rohinton Mistry can be held at par with the likes of Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, R.K. Narayan and Arundhati Roy. His three novels reflect the deep-rooted angst, trauma and struggles of post-independence middle class India, with uncommon passion and dexterity...

Rohinton Mistry can be regarded as one of the foremost names among the new breed of Indian writers in English. Born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1952, this mathematics graduate from the University of Bombay has had such a long—and fascinating—journey from the obscurity of a bank clerk in Toronto to being a celebrated Booker Prize short-listed writer that today his fame spans across continents.

In the initial stages of his youth, the writer with an independent voice was induced by his peers to migrate to Canada, because, then, in the seventies, that was the ‘done thing’ to do in India’s foreign-crazy, middle class society. So, a year after his graduation, Mistry migrated to Canada in 1975 along with his wife and settled there in the mundane monotony of a bank clerk’s job, while studying English and philosophy, part-time, at the University of Toronto.

However, the fact that he didn’t forget his Bombay—the place that was an integral part of his formative years—is very much evident from his three novels and his collection of short stories, where the bustling city of Bombay and its fascinating people with their varied idiosyncrasies come alive between the pages. In Toronto, he eventually got a second degree in 1982, and till then very few punters would have bet a single penny on his future fame and fortune. Then, suddenly, One Sunday happened, which prompted him to realize his true calling and encouraged him to undertake the unpredictable and tumultuous literary route to success.

It was during his academic tenure in the University of Toronto when he visualized himself as a teller of stories. One Sunday was his first published story, which fetched him first prize in the Canadian Hart House Literary Contest. That was in 1983. He followed this coveted distinction in the very next year with another short story, Auspicious Occasion. It was soon followed by the Annual Contributors’ Award from the Canadian Fiction Magazine in 1985 and a much needed Canada Council grant. The latter facilitated him to leave his job and switch to full-time fiction writing. The long journey had begun…

This now acclaimed novelist, however, began his literary career with short stories. Many of his stories were published in numerous Canadian magazines, and, eventually, his first (and till now only) collection of short stories was published in 1987 by Penguin Books, Canada. His Tales from Firozsha Baag is a book of eleven interrelated short stories, which together manage to weave a fascinating tapestry of the day to day joys, sorrows, and trials and tribulations of the Parsi residents in an apartment complex in Mumbai. The cultural identity of Parsis and their diasporic experience, who in any case have a marginalized presence in India, are also explored in these short stories in a dexterous manner. In fact, in all his novels, the main characters are Parsi. Perhaps, being a Parsi himself has helped him to know his own community more intimately, and paint an authentic pen-portrait of them. His international fame came only through his novels, the first of which is titled Such a Long Journey (1991). With this momentous piece of work, set in 1971 during the troubled times of Indo-Pak war, he showed the literary world that he had truly arrived.

The novel explores the life of a common Parsi man, caught in the vortex of a political quagmire. In this novel, Mistry deftly examines the life of a common man and his family in detail, set against the backdrop of sub-continental politics. The novel’s protagonist, Gustad Noble, and his family’s life, turn upside down when he receives a letter from an old friend, Major Jimmy Bilmoria, requesting Gustad to receive a package on his behalf. The contents of the package create havoc in his life, where already enough family-related troubles were piling up. As we turn the pages, we do not realize when and how our emotions become intertwined with the main characters of the story, and we develop a sense of empathy towards Gustad Noble, a simple bank clerk, who unwittingly gets involved in a fraud committed by the establishment. The absorbing read, deservedly got a number of prestigious awards. Besides being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1991, Such a Long Journey also won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction (Canada) in 1991 and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) in 1992.

A Fine Balance appeared on bookshelves in 1996, a full five years after his maiden novel. However, reading the first few pages reveals that the wait was well worth the effort. It is a mammoth literary endeavour, greater in scale than Such a Long Journey. Here, also, Mistry explores his theme of the common man’s trauma and despair in detail and with passion. A Fine Balance is set during the period of ‘emergency’—one of the darkest periods of post-independent India, when all democratic values were crushed, democratic institutions were converted into propaganda machineries of the state, and common people’s lives were marked by brutal state repression.

Here also, Mistry’s thumbnail sketches of human characters and his masterly art of weaving the macro with the micro, really touches our souls, whereas his precise and intricate prose paints a vivid picture of the lives which we can easily identify with. The novel revolves around four main characters—Dina, Maneck, Ishwar and Omprakash. In fact, Mistry has always chosen to highlight the plight and tragedies of common men and women, rather than going in for conventional heroes. And he has steadfastly refused through his prose to fabricate a rosy picture of India or dwell into some abstract magic realism. No trait of escapism permeates his literary works. In all his novels, stark realities stare you in the face.

Like Such a Long Journey, his A Fine Balance, too, was short listed for the Booker (1996), though he was unlucky to lose it again. But the book won the Giller Prize (Canada), Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) in 1996, and was short listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize in 1997.  

His latest magnum opus Family Matters; which also came after a six-year wait in 2002, also bears the unmistakable Mistry stamp. Here, also, the protagonist, Nariman Vakeel, a seventy-nine-year-old widower suffering from Parkinson’s, and other main characters are Parsis, like in his previous novels. The helpless dependency of Nariman Vakeel, the domineering trait of his stepdaughter Coomy, the docility of her brother Jal, the despondency of Roxanna and her husband Yezad… all come vividly alive through the pages, and we start sharing their lives, their sorrows, their little tragedies. And yet again, yes, like his previous two novels, Family Matters, too, had a brush with the Booker—making it to the shortlist in 2002, though, eventually, not winning it.

All said and done, Mistry brings out the flavour of a good old fashioned narrative and, though he has confined his literary exploration largely to the poor and lower middle class sections of the Parsi community in India, with an underlying gloomy streak, his prose speaks a language that bridges distances and crosses boundaries.

        --By Swarnendu Biswas