A Fine Balance

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.