You realise how whimsical the things that affect people’s lives can be. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. There is a poignant comment from a lawyer about 200 pages in: It is really hard to write about this without spoiling the plot, but all four of them live their lives on a knife-edge between survival and disaster. The lives of the four intertwine through the book and this unusual ‘family’ provides much of the fleeting joy in the book. And the final member of the quartet is a young student called Maneck sent by his parents from the hills to the city to study refrigeration. The second are two tailors, gentle Ishvar and his sweet but a bit rebellious nephew Omprakash who move to the big city in hope of work and fleeing a brutal caste system in the countryside. The first is Dina Dalal, a woman determined to make her way independently in the world in spite of the difficulties and family pressures she faces. The book follows the stories of four main characters, with a great cast of sub characters that drift in and out throughout the story. I’m not sure why not because it is brilliantly written and the characters are fantastic. I was given this book for free as part of World Book Night in 2011 and, although I had started it, I had never made it all the way through before. As I write these words, having just finished the book, I am a bit of an emotional wreck. I think the phrase “rollercoaster of emotion” was invented specifically for this book.

A fine balance review