“My dentures are smelling, I haven’t been able to clean them for five days.” Said Nariman.
Snatching the glass from him, Coomy went to the bathroom, gritting her teeth. She poured out the water, taking care that his teeth did not tip out, and threw in a few flakes of laundry soap, filled fresh water, swirled. She rinsed twice and returned, pleased to have managed without touching.
Nariman slipped his dentures gratefully into his mouth. Then his face turned bitter as he tasted the detergent....
That’s Chateau Facility for you, a flat inhabited by a 79-year old, Parkinson-stricken Nariman, who is the decaying patriarch and a widower with a small, discordant family consisting of his two middle-aged step children: Coomy (bitter and domineering) and Jal (mild-mannered and subservient). When Nariman’s sickness is compounded by a broken ankle, Coomy’s harshness reaches its summit (as seen in the excerpt above). She plots to turn his round-the-clock care over to Roxana, her sweet-tempered sister and Nariman’s real daughter and that’s where the problems start. Roxana, who lives a contented life with Yezad and her two children (Murad and Jehangir) in a small flat at Pleasant Villa takes up the care of Nariman like any dutiful daughter, but the inclusion of a new member in an already stuffed house soon becomes evidently painful, both physically and emotionally for Roxana’s family. As loathing for Nariman’s sickness increases and finances of the already strained household go bust,inundated by the ever increasing financial worries, Yezad pushes himself into a scheme of deception involving Vikram Kapur (his eccentric and sometimes exasperating employer at Bombay Goods Emporium).
Two terrible incidents occur, which turn the plot and the lives of the characters topsy-turvy. What could the incidents be? What is Yezad’s plan? Does he become successful in it? Does Nariman get well and return to Chateau Facility? And what about Coomy? Read the book to find out the intriguing series of events that engulf the rest of the book.
.::MY REVIEW::.
.::The Plot and Storytelling::.
The plot of Family Matters is its forte. Questioning and jacketing a glut of problems faced by a middle class family, the author envelopes all the intricacies in his simplistic, yet rich narrative. Domesticating each and every character, he creates this wonderfully realised world, where the reader, quite easily becomes a part of.
Within the first few pages itself, the author hooks you by the touching account of Nariman, who’s subjection to increasing decay in physical health and stinging insults (quite realistically revolving around his cost of medicine, lack of space and privacy, the daily routine of bedpans and urinals, sponge baths and bedsores) from his step-daughter invokes a mountain of sympathy for the protagonist. And that it’s the step-parent at the receiving end only intensifies the reader’s involvement.
Very soon, the focus shifts to a sunshine-fresh household of Roxana which has characters blooming with dew-drop freshness. With Nariman’s inclusion, however, the deterioration and decay that creeps into it, again makes you sympathize. As Yezad comes to centre stage for the following part of the book, the author vividly explores the realistic problems faced by an average middle class family. The financial problems which lure him and Jehangir towards greed and money, comes across as wonderfully convincing. Tiny nuances like Jehangir feeding his Grandpa, Murad buying Christmas present for Jehangir by walking to school for months...Mistry even makes the most mundane of sequences heart-tugging with his pen.
The subplot of the book, which involves Yezad hatching a plan to dethrone his employer, is a huge slap on the faces of the corrupt Shiv Sainiks. The author’s constant digging at their nonsensical attacks again is believable, and the way this sub-plot actually acts as the turning point in the main story is shocking!The Parsi-background of the book also came across as wonderfully refreshing and knowledgeable with exhaustive practices, rituals,intolerances and the concerns of native Parsis thrown in.
Mistry lets the characters describe themselves to the reader through their dialogues and ways of conversing. Pages and pages of dialogues mean the reader feels himself sitting in the world of characters and seeing it all happen in front of his own eyes! Reflections of characters (like Nariman remembering his bitter past, Jehangir interpreting conversations of adults, Yezad’s change of soul midway) is accentuated with such nuances, that you can’t help but feel the pain.
The climax of the book is its plus-point. In an epilogue, where the youngest of all characters, Jehangir, becomes the narrator, shows the clear metamorphosis that religion, age, death and wealth bring to his family. There’s no abruptness, no diabetic sweetness and the reader is bound to close the book with a satisfied breath.
.::Characterisation::.
Awesome is the word for the way the author has etched out his characters. The deeper the plot becomes, the more his characters acquire the solidity of flesh and blood. Of course, this is only a compliment for his recognition of the potential in each of them and the consequent supervision with which he creates a separate world for each of them. My absolute favourite was the character of Jehangir. Such emotion has gone into his character, that it made me chuckle loudly in one sentence (thanks to his raw innocence) and shed a tear in another (his unconditional love for his family is something that’ll melt even the stone-hearted!).
In Murad, Mistry plonks in the brashness and bluntness of today’s youth, while Mr.Kapur attains the philosophical facet of the book. With Yezad, the author plunges into the metamorphosis of a guilt-stricken man to a fundamentalist and with Nariman, he addresses the misery of marrying against his heart’s wishes (His bitter-past remembrances thrown in italics throughout the book is straight out of a melodramatic Hindi flick). Outside the principal characters, there are many other that leave an indelible mark, like the violinist, the Matka-queen, a community letter-writer, a peon stricken by the Bombay riots and the incompetent handy-man who spells disaster on anything he hammers....all of them, remain with you much after you have closed the book.
.::Literary speaking::.
Mistry’s language is again his biggest asset. An over-dose of dialogues and a lucid flow means almost complete absence of those scary reptilian groups of letters which will prompt you to reach the nearest dictionary with every blink. The balance the author achieves with his plain language and his sweeping narrative makes this 500-page book a quick read.
.::On an ending note::.
In every word, Mistry’s book breathes and comes alive. Simply yet richly written, the domesticity, the gentleness and the realism can’t be tampered with. Through one family, Mistry conveys everything from the dilemmas among India''s Parsis, Persian-descended Zoroastrians, to the wider concerns of corruption and communalism. Experiences and the characters that make it are none of those one-dimensional, cacophonous out-of-this-world, dramatic caricatures, but impressions of humans you have known and probably lived with, from childhood...which makes it highly identifiable and enjoyable.
A must read for anyone looking for a satisfying emotional roller-coaster....for anyone whose family matters...
....Hope you liked my review....do comment if time permits....
©Karan 2003
