I thought that this was a good collection of short stories by Rohinton Mistry. Set in a Parsi community in Bombay, they reflect the lives of a selection of the inhabitants.

Mistry's tales are interlinked not only by the fact that the characters form part of the same community, but by time too - the children in the early stories pop up later as adults, the author having the opportunity to reflect on the how the passing of time has affected the characters and their views of India.

Mistry displays a wide range - his stories centre on children, young people, adults and the old - and are in turn poignant and amusing - there's even a ghost story (of sorts).

Mistry does not limit himself to Bombay - life for an immigrant in Toronto forms the subject of one of the stories, albeit one of comparison (life in Canada compared to life in India, and how time spent in the West changes one's view of home). Perhaps in the end, Mistry says that you can take the Indian out of India, but you can never take India out of the Indian?

Those (like me) who enjoyed Mistry's novels I am sure would enjoy this collection. Also, look out for Thrity Umrigar's "Bombay Time", on a similar theme but worth a read in its own right.

I read A Fine Balance about a year ago and loved it. I just finished Swimming Lessons and I'm going out to buy Family Matters right now. He writes so beautifully and descriptively that you feel that you lived alongside the characters in his books.He's my favorite author right now.

Rohinton Mistry's short stories are brilliant. Written in simple English without any pretentious embellishments, these stories vividly bring to life the characters described. Being an Indian myself and having moved to the US in the last few years, his two stories about an Indian youth moving to Canada seemed very beleivable and accurate representation. I would be surprised if these stories are not based on someone the author knows / has heard about -although I believe that Mistry also writes stories using news articles he reads in Indian newpapers these stories seem too real for the author not to have known someone like the characters he describes.

Reading the book made me feel as if the author were telling the story himself..in a very modest tone..yet the stories show a tremendous understanding of human character and human life. Mistry realizes that small and almost non-significant incidences are the heart of life in the apartments in India. Fortunately, in this book, he does not dwell on the fact that life in a third-world country can be tough. His tone is optimistic and non-judgemental - sometimes humurous - and sometimes a little serious.

The stories made my hair stand out. I would recommend it highly

India, a country I knew little about, haunts me since reading this book. The author captures on paper the feeling of India on every page. The sounds, the smells and the people stay with me well after the last page was turned. Unforgettable characters that evoke every type of emotion!

Rohinton Mistry meshes the lives of four people of diverse backgrounds into a bond that lasts a lifetime. The in-depth look at a culture and a people that I knew little about has brought about an understanding that I previously lacked.

Dina Dalal, widowed and determined to make it as an independent woman in a world where women have little value, becomes the unwilling glue that supports 3 other lives. Maneck Kohlah is a student, sent by his parents from his mountain village to attend school in the city. Ishvar Darji and his nephew Omprakash are tailors escaping the terror in their village by moving to the city to look for work. This unlikely group of people become dependent on each other out of necessity, their lives entangling to create the basis of the story.

This book is written with much sadness as well as humour and has touched a place in my heart. I look forward to reading more by this author in the future. Bravo!

I walked by the homeless in the streets while growing up in a city by the sea not unlike the one in this book. I was repulsed by their grimy faces, their missing limbs, their tattered and dirty clothes. Fearful I might catch their poor people diseases if I ventured too close, I would cross the street to avoid them. Sometimes throwing coins into their tin cups from a sterile distance-sometimes missing, and walking away praising my own charity.

Thank you Mr. Mistry for showing me the other side of the story. Thank you for putting into plain and powerful words exactly how unfair life in India is to the poor and lower castes. You have taught me more than any text book could about the injustices that daily occur in India. I hate you for your brutal honesty and for making me feel this way. Or perhaps, like you prophesized in the begining of this book, I am only blaming you for my own insensitivity.

For those of you considering reading this book, here is my warning. Mistry will seduce you with his flowing words and his gripping story. He will make you feel for his characters. He will show you a side of life that millions of people bravely struggle through. And soon you will begin to fear turning the page for fear of what might happend to the characters. And rest assured, when you turn the last page, and look for some solace, you will find none. For all is true. I have seen the Shankars and Ishvars and Oms. Go to any Indian city street corner, and you will too.

A FINE BALANCE is a novel of epic proportions - in length and in subject and in creativity. Rohinton Mistry writes with magisterial style, weaving spells with the English language as a matrix for the languages of India, conveys with thunderous impact the incredible poverty and fragile line between living/existing/thriving in a country beseiged with political squalor and sociologic catastrophe of the extant caste system, and yet despite this cinerama canvas of 'life in India' in the mid-1970s his focus remains on the very personal lives of his four main characters - people we grow to love, identify with and fight for in this struggle for survival. Not for a moment would I suggest that this is a novel of angst or of despondency, a book that will leave you only weeeping (though there is much of that well written here). A recurring phrase that Mistry places in the mouths of nearly all of of his characters is "This is only a small obstacle." Now if that isn't the strongest hint of the faith of the downtrodden, then look to the title of this tome: A FINE BALANCE is the life search for understanding the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' and finding that goodness comes through acts of kindness and caring, acts that can step over the vast abyss of a caste system. This is a fine book, richly detailed in atmosphere and scents and tender humor and very human emotion. A brilliant book that should be read by everyone who wants to understand India and its mysteries, universal truths, and who appreciate extraordinarily rich writing. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

A very enjoyable book, full of irony, humor, and social commentary. It offers a picture of middle class life in contemporary India, commentary on the state of religious and ethnic relations there, and the stories of several interesting and well drawn characters. Although it deals with mundane people in rather ordinary circumstances, there were several parts of the book that made my heart race. It's a testament to the author's skill that he can make ordinary moments extraordinary (and it's striking that none of the most overtly dramatic moments are told in the present tense or fleshed out very much). Nonetheless, in my view, the book falls short of Mistry's spectacular A Fine Balance. It just doesn't have that book's scope or impact.

Family Matters establishes Rohinton Mistry as a skilled storyteller. It is hugely entertaining and inspirational at the same time. Like all his other books, Family Matters is based on a very simple premise; a family forced on the responsibility of caring for an aged parent.

Mr. Mistry is able to so vividly bring alive his characters and the city of Bombay it is hard to believe that he has been based in Canada for some twenty-over years. His stories capture the very essence of India, its people and its culture. Yet, the themes are universal - sibling rivalry, parent-child relationships, challenges in the workplace, friendships, poverty, religion and politics. Every life has a story to tell, and Mr Mistry brings home that point so beautifully in his book. Seemingly everyday people we meet on the street each leads a life wrought full of emotions, rewards and challenges. It examines the way we each thrive, succumb and adapt to our environment.

I disagree with the other reviewers that they found it ridiculous for the characters of Jal and Coomy to destroy the ceiling so that they will have an excuse to keep their father away. It is precisely these quirky little elements that seem so ridiculous that it is hard to believe that they are NOT true! It is perhaps that very factor which made Seinfeld one of the most successful sitcoms on TV in the 90's.

The only slight flaw I found in this book was his description of Daisy, the neighbour when she was first introduced. It felt a little jarring to me and did not seem to 'flow' well with the story and the development of her character in the latter parts of the book. I believe that Mr. Mistry tries to make Daisy out to be a sensuous woman yet, unconscious of her sex appeal and also to have her be a possible love-interest for one of the other characters later in the book. But he didn't have to make her play the violin naked!

In weaving his stories, Mr. Mistry uses prose that is so reflective of his characters - common vocabulary that will make this book an easy and entertaining read for even a non-avid reader. Yet, by doing so, Mr. Mistry shows that he needs none of the purple prose so prevalent in some literary works to illustrate the skill of a prolific writer. Bravo Mr. Mistry! I look forward to your next book.

Within Bombay's Towers of Silence, the Parsis expose their dead to hungry vultures-a practice as environmentally friendly as it is macabre. Ethnic Persians who had migrated to India, the Parsis have traditionally led Bombay's commercial class. And though they have become an endangered species due to stagnating birth rates and miscegenation, their Zoroastrianism has largely removed them from the constant squabbling of Bombay's Hindus and Muslims, which a decade ago erupted into carnage and fire.

Behind the riots was the Shiv Sena, a Hindu supremacist band of thugs, whose agenda includes abolishing Valentine's Day, razing mosques and, according to writer Rohinton Mistry, "subjecting innocent letters and postcards to incineration if the address reads Bombay instead of Mumbai." Such is the cultural and political backdrop of this exciting new novel by Mistry.

Any novel set in Bombay must be as vast as the city. Mistry's knowledge of its customs, locales and languages is encyclopedic, his cast of characters panoramic, and his portrayal of Indian attitudes spot on. Indians perceive the use of toilet paper as unhygienic; they often converse in trite proverbs, and their attitude toward the West is decidedly conflicted. So is their attitude toward India, a great country and a "hopeless" one. Indians writing in English are producing some of today's most inspiring and original fiction, and I strongly recommend this one.

Mistry is a modern author whose writing compares to author's of "the Great Books". Such a Long Journey gives a stunning idea of life during Indira Gandhi's reign. Besides the cultural lesson on India you receive from reading this book, you also come away with the struggles of loyalty a man faces with friendship and family. This book is not as engaging as A Fine Balance, but a wonderful read nonetheless.

This interesting first novel tackles several long journeys -- India's transformation from the raj to a brawling, corrupt, mismanaged, constantly at-war democracy under Indira Gandhi; Bombay resident Gustad Noble's economic decline from a kind of family prominence and prosperity under the Brits; and, most directly, Noble's rise in understanding, breadth of spirit, friendship, and accommodation to what India has become, warts and all.

Readers who delight in plot development may be disappointed. There are plots and subplots of sorts in this book -- will Noble's son reject a shot at an engineering degree? will his daughter regain her health? will a former neighbor, now in New Delhi, be found out as a good guy or a bad guy? will a prized homage to spirituality survive the wrecker's ball? will the bank manager learn the truth about some misguided deposits and spill the beans? will the simpleton get the, uh, girl? -- but, to me at least, these stories appear and drift away without careful crafting or much urgency in the telling. Rather, Mistry uses his plot lines more as opportunities to describe modern Indian society, in its complexity, and Noble's passage through it.

Mistry's central characters are full, interesting, and idiosyncratic. His minor characters -- the politically active prostitutes, the apartment dweller practicing the black arts, the bureaucrats and politicians, the speedtalking simpleton -- are persons we have seen before. Excellent political satire sometimes veers toward cartoons. Still, sentence by sentence, Mistry writes well and with sensitivity to his characters' inner lives.

This is not world-class fiction, but it is a good read, especially for persons with an international bent who are not put off by detail.

Rohinton Mistry's novel, Such a Long Journey, is an engrossing and provocative tale. The main character Gustad Noble is aptly named, for here is a man of true nobility--not by birth, but by his being, his determination, and his goodness. This novel is truly a journey, and Mistry takes us by the hand, guiding us into the unfamiliar cultural landscape of India, taking us along with Gustad and his family as they struggle with all the assaults of being human, as they strive to sustain their way of life on the verge of a changing, evolving society.
Mistry's characters are real; they're developed as individuals and they stand seperatly--from the main character Gustad Noble to his upstairs neighbor who barks, literally, at the moon. When one of many of Mistry's characters dances their way onto this carefully wrought stage, he or she envelopes the reader--we don't wait for this scene to finish in order to get to the meat of the matter--we relax, we sift slowly with the writing as we're there with each of the characters' struggles.
This is a book of enormity. This is a book that when finished, regret sets in. The last few pages dangle themselves out, and when the last word is read and the book closed, the reader has a sense that this one is special, that there aren't many like this one, and that it's too bad, really, that it's over.

Of all the books by Rohinton Mistry, I liked this one the best because, it isn't as depressing as the others. Its a tale about the people of a Parsi Colony in Bombay, called Firozsha Baag; their experiences, triumphs and misfortunes. Characters such as Rustomji-the-cur, Nariman Hansotia and Jaykaylee the Aya (maid) are amusing and bring about a pleasant sense of deja-vu.
Being a Parsi myself, I couldn't stop laughing when Mistry depicted our "normal", rather idiotic behaviour. Strangely, a lot of old Parsi women (like Najamai in the book)complain about their cataracts!!
Mistry is a good author who dwells too deeply in the depressing aspects of life at times. But, then again, this is my personal opinion. If you would like to read about the reality of Parsis in Bombay...pick up Tales from Firozsha Baag.

This is a fine collection of early short stories, but note that it was reprinted in the U.S. as Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag; so if you have one book, you don't need the other.

This book is an excellent discussion on the human condition and its universal relevance. Rohinton Mistry weaves together the struggles of everyday life of an apartment complex in Bombay. As the book progresses, the universal problems of life becomes very clear...death, sorrow, poverty, superstition, and love. It describes the pertinence of existentialism in a quasi religious district. An excellent read for all those who wish to understand how human life progresses, and how it matters little where you live it. Touching and compassionate, and as historical fiction, a very compelling read!