Fine Balance.

Suppose that you were reading a novel about the struggle of a group of people on the margins (economic, racial, religious margins) of society in Hitler's Berlin or Stalin's Moscow, a novel written by a refugee; you wouldn't expect a particularly happy ending would you ? But somehow, even though Rohinton Mistry is a Parsi refugee from India, who moved to Canada in 1975 when Indira Ghandi declared a State of Emergency and assumed sweeping powers, we …

… seek a better life in America, long after their colonial masters have left them, seemingly, in control of their own fates. In the end, it avails the oppressed naught that their oppressors may share a skin color : it is ideas--such as freedom; and equality under the law; and opportunity--which really matter and which provide the setting in which people, such as those so lovingly portrayed here, can maintain their balance and realize their dreams.