A Fine Balance question

The ending was totally a slap of reality. I think too often we are used to everything ending up tied up in a neat little bow at the end of stories with everyone getting what they want. (At least I do/or did!) But it's realistic that sometimes you can try hard your whole life, struggle, and be good people yet still end up screwed. (Not saying the characters hated how their lives ended up. But I myself believe they sure deserved better.) The ending totally ended up embracing the whole thought of the book. I loved this book, it's haunted me in a way none other has.

I kept somehow thinking that Dina and Ishvar would end up together and there would be a happy ending. On one hand the three surviving people did make me happy to a degree, though with unfulfilled lives all. I don't know about Maneck and the train....a little too Anna Karenina for me, and for totally different reasons! Mistry is a fine writer and this is a great book.

Yes this book demonstrates how people are able to sustain their humanity not only in relentless adversity but also when opportunity has become remote and hope a distant cousin. We usually encounter an expose on corruption in a formula describing abuse of power by the privileged and its impact on the underclass. This book shows how as a micro dynamic such corruption translates down through each level of the entire fabric of society, those most vulnerable, disabled and unresourced becoming most crushed. I thought the book was grim but essentially excellent

This is a not a novel which deserved a happy ending, something that would have cheapened it in my view.

The ending was heartbreaking and I think the only one fitting for the novel.

The ending is depressing in how the poor are exploited by the powerful for their selfish means.

But what it also highlights is the resilience of these poor men who go on with their lives instead of giving it up and ending it.

I liked it. It is depressing but is also uplifting in some ways.

I thought the ending was horrifying. The book shows the resilience of these four completely different people, from three different strata of society who band together in the face of adversity to create a good life for themselves. Then the government, who created this adversity, completely crushes their hopes and dreams. I did not "like" the ending. How could anyone "like" the destruction of four good and enterprising people who the reader had been rooting for and had come to love? But the end was necessary because it showed what a repressive government did to four fine talented worthwhile people.

not all books comes with happy endings ever after.
Mistry writting style is certainly different than most of inidian author and i liked it.
He is notably most underdog so low profile back to book.It was quite depressing how maneck ended but nice to see dina getting along with ishwar and om.
There wont be any other climax certainly for this it was sheer melancholy but to some extent also appreciates human gratitude and that was quite amazing

I think everyone who has commented about the ending has pretty much the same take on it; it's horrifying but uplifting. A friend of mine was showing me pictures from her recent trip to India (March, 2014), and the poverty is still stunning. She took a picture of 3 shacks inhabited by "outcasts"; my friend did not know whether they were outcast because of their cast or for some other reason. The father was sharpening knives for a living -- but the family was together and smiling. The other pictures of impoverished people were similar; desperate in their physical situation, cheerful in their demeanor. As a foreigner, it is hard to fathom such cheerfulness. We do not seem to see this attitude very much in pictures of other desperately poor people in other parts of the world, but it seems to be the truth about the Indian situation. We are all appalled by the conditions, but it is hard not to admire the warmth, support, and joy these people provide to each other.

The "fine balance" of the title is achieved, in that these characters love and care for one another despite their hard and hopeless lives.

True. Whilst the ending is depressing, it is clearly realistic. Moreover, I think if we look at our own societies, whilst especially in Europe we do have more social security, the poor still mostly loose. Moreover, we also still do not live in a meriocraty but backround, family connection and most of all class has the biggest impact on deciding how many chances in life you get.

I must add that for me the ending demonstrated how one can be more impacted by observing others' misery than the actual people experiencing it. For Maneck, the situation was too sad and too depressing to handle while for Om and Ishvar it was a 'life must go on' survival mode. I finished reading this book months ago and it still haunts me.

It has been a while since I read it, but I remember thinking that the poor outcasts who were mutilated continued to share joy in their lives and maintained the friendship with Dina. But then Maneck who had everything the boys were striving for in the book (shelter, food, a steady job, income, etc..) felt he couldn't cope with his situation in life and ended it.

Like the rest of the book, the ending was perfect.