Word Attack!!

Such a Long Journey

April 1, 2008 on 11:43 am | In Book Reviews |

17th May, 2006

I’m relatively new to Rohinton Mistry’s style of writing. But after reading A Fine Balance, I think I can fairly well understand a lot of commonalities. I picked up ‘Such a Long Journey’ over the weekend, and finished reading it sometime yesterday.

This is his first novel, and well, for a first novel it reads really well. Mistry offers valuable insight into the world of Parsis, combined with life in Mumbai in the early seventies. I admire writers like him who offer such a wide glance into the not so distant past, for us readers who were born in the late seventies. It does make me wonder that this is what our parents must have pondered over. This is what made the news of their lives.

Ordinary people like Gustad Noble and their ordinary lives, and yet, thrown into a turmoil which is a small part of a larger plan. That would be the gist of the novel. Gustad has big dreams for his eldest son, Sohrab, to join IIT, Mumbai, but Sohrab is more artistic and defies his father, creating a rift between them. His other two children, 15 year old Darius and 8 year old Roshan are yet to grow up into the angst of the early seventies. Playfully unaware of the war with Pakistan over formation of Bangladesh, they both collect newspapers for a raffle in school which would help the Bengali refugees.

Gustad’s wife Dilnavaz would probably be the ideal wife and mother. Loving her husband immensely, and yet, daring to defy him when the need arises, but still, acqueiscing to him again when the need arises.

This first novel is not peopled with numerous characters like ‘A Fine Balance’ and for that, I’m almost relieved. Yet, there are characters well wrought out, who have some sort of important role to play in the final outcome of the novel.

There’s Dinshaw, Gustad’s friend and confidante in the bank where he works, Major Bilimoria, an ex-army major who lives in the same apartment complex as Gustad, and who is an extremely close friend of his family. Yet, he goes away without a word, leaving Gustad angry and confused, more so when he receives a letter from him after a year, asking for a favour.

There’s Mrs.Kutpitia, an eccentric old lady who’s brash and abrasive, but friendly with Dilnavaz. She offers a lot of superstitious black magic advice to Dilnavaz on how to bring her son back into the family. Then, there’s Tehmul, the lame and slightly deranged fellow, who is sort of disgusting, but there’s an overwhelming sense of pity for him, and what happens with him eventually.

I dont know what other books Rohinton Mistry has written. I still dont like his sense of toilet humour which makes me very uneasy. But I really admire his sense of history and the way he brings it alive for us.