44 pages • 1 hour read
A Fine Balance
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Symbols & Motifs
The City as Destroyer
The city in the novel remains unnamed, but it is probably Mumbai; the shantytown where Ishvar and Om live is part of the infamous Dharavi slum. Although Dina has fond memories of the bright and glamorous city of her youth, this image differs markedly from the cesspool we see.
An ominous place that devours lives, the city symbolizes the culture of the Emergency: dangerous, corrupt, and utterly devoid of conscience. Rajaram articulates the city’s feral, predatory nature when he explains it to the newcomer tailors thus:
‘Who wants to live like this?’ His hand moved in a tired semicircle, taking in the squalid hutments, the ragged field, the huge slum across the road wearing its malodorous crown of cooking smoke and industrial effluvium. ‘But sometimes people have no choice. Sometimes the city grabs you, sinks its claws into you, and refuses to let go’ (172).
The city takes Shankar’s life when he accidentally rolls his platform into oncoming traffic. It takes the lives of the beggars murdered for their hair by the greedy Rajaram. It takes the lives of children maimed by Beggarmaster. At the very beginning of the story, train passengers lament the growing number of suicides who throw themselves on the tracks, prefiguring Maneck’s decision to end his life in the same way and become the city’s final victim.
Quilt Connections
The symbol of the quilt runs throughout the book. Dina begins sewing it from scraps collected at the end of each workday. Initially, the project is just to keep her hands occupied, but it achieves emotional resonance when the tailors and Maneck chat with her in the evenings as she stitches. Soon, they all begin to associate specific squares of fabric with individual episodes from their lives:
‘Let’s try that game with the quilt,’ said Om. He and Maneck located the oldest piece of fabric and moved chronologically, patch by patch, reconstructing the chain of their mishaps and triumphs, till they reached the uncompleted corner (481).
The quilt symbolizes the family connection among these four people. When Dina is forced to move back in with her brother, she spends her first night huddled under the quilt. As a mental exercise, she recalls each square in chronological order to maintain her emotional link to her chosen family.
At the end of the book, Ishvar is using the quilt as a seat cushion for his beggar’s platform. While Maneck is horrified to see this, Ishvar still views the quilt as an important part of the tailors’ bond with Dina. He offers to mend it when he notices a tear in one of the squares, and Dina gives him needle and thread. Dina and the tailors have managed to maintain their family connection even though Maneck emotionally separates from the group and kills himself.
Hair and Identity
A prominent motif in the book, hair expresses the personal identity of several different characters. In an early episode, we see Om purchasing a cheap comb to groom his pompadour hairstyle to look attractive. Dina becomes obsessed with Om’s hair when she believes he has lice. She assumes a motherly role toward him by dousing his head with kerosene to get rid of the parasites. Cutting her own hair becomes an act of defiance for Dina when she chops off her plaits to spite her brother.
The character most obviously tied to hair is Rajaram. He grows his own hair and collects hair from others to sell to wigmakers. When his stock of hair diminishes, he resorts to stealing hair. Rajaram greedily kills two beggars for their beautiful hair. Later, Shankar wants Rajaram to weave plaited hair into his own and unwittingly exposes the murdered beggars’ hair. The ensuing fight over the ill-gotten locks causes Shankar’s death. In penance for his crimes, Rajaram shaves his head and beard. For him, hair represents an identity transformation. He literally assumes a new persona when he becomes a hairless monk.
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