... Fine Balance treats India both kindly and harshly. Set in the mid-1970s during Mrs. Gandhi's declaration of a state of internal emergency, the book turns first toward the Parsi community in an unidentified city by the sea that resembles Bombay, but its plot opens up to embrace other characters and ... to an outsider; of course, I am not qualified to speculate on how the Parsi reader might react. Amin Malak, in a review of the book, notes that "the writer's sympathies preclude his condemning or disowning his culture in its entirety, and the humorous rendition of character and incident mak...

• Word Count: 4673
• Approx Pages: 19
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Fine Balance treats India both kindly and harshly. Set in the mid-1970s during Mrs. Gandhi's declaration of a state of internal emergency, the book turns first toward the Parsi community in an unidentified city by the sea that resembles Bombay, but its plot opens up to embrace other characters and ... to an outsider; of course, I am not qualified to speculate on how the Parsi reader might react. Amin Malak, in a review of the book, notes that "the writer's sympathies preclude his condemning or disowning his culture in its entirety, and the humorous rendition of character and incident mak...

• Word Count: 4675
• Approx Pages: 19
• Grade Level: Undergraduate