ŷ������

“You see, we cannot draw lines & compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end, it's all a question of balance.��


RATING: 5/5

For Camus, existence is absurd & meaningless. The world we inhabit is grossly unreasonable and only a privileged few have all the advantages in life. Yet, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, for that's the only way his relentless toil can make sense to us. He is happy because he has accepted his fate, made peace with quotidian routine. And yet, by accepting it he revolts against it. The lack of meaning ceases to be an issue because the struggle replaces it and he has come to realize that. In the world created by Rohinton Mistry, the four central characters similarly rail against their circumstances. Their life is filled with tragedy through no fault of their own and just by the dint of their birth. Try as they might escape the vicious circles that visit misfortune upon them, there can be no running away. Sooner or later, they will back in its grasp. Their stolen moments of joy will turn once more to despair.

On some level, these characters do realize the futility of their efforts yet that does not make them give up. Rolling the boulder uphill is all there is, and right on top of the summit, there is some grace before it rolls back down once more. Even after all their struggle, no stunning reversals of fortune away them. Yet they all keep going on: the very act of repetition is rebellion. The fine balance of the title does not refer to an equal amount on both sides, it just indicates the precarious nature of these characters' lives, hanging on just by a fine thread, poised between bleakness and optimism.