Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

Retired Professor Vakeel lives in a spacious apartment with his two stepchildren in Bombay as the Shiv Sena party are determined to remake the city into Mumbai. The political tension matches the emotional tension that exists amongst the household.

As Mistry is skilled at doing, there is an underlying mystery that slowly gets revealed and as expected, the theme of caste is ever present.

At age 79, Nariman Vakeel finds himself physically incapacitated after a fall and must rely on family members that may not be, or may not want to be up to the task.

Stepson to Vakeel, Jal Contractor seeks peace among family but retreats when things get too heated.

Stepdaughter Coomy Contractor wears her heart on her sleeve and it is an injured one. She finds peace only when she leaves the home to attend prayer services.

Yezad Chenoy is Vakeel’s son-in-law and was very family focused until his father-in-law moved into his much smaller apartment. His self-serving actions show he puts himself before his wife, sons and in-laws.

Quotes:

“How sorry I feel for you all,” he said, unable to choke back his disgust. “You’ve grown old without growing wise.”

“Can caring and concern be made compulsory? Either it resides in the heart, or nowhere.”

“Little white lies are as pernicious as big black lies. When they mix together, a great greyness of ambiguity descends, society is cast adrift in an amoral sea, and corruption and rot and decay start to flourish. Such is the time we are now passing through. Everything is disintegrating because details are neglected and nothing is regarded seriously.”

In fact, no matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story; of youth, and loss, and yearning for redemption. So we tell the same story, over and over. Just the details are different.

Curious, he thought, how if you knew a person long enough, he could elicit every kind of emotion from you, every possible reaction, envy, admiration, pity, irritation, fury, fondness, jealousy, love, disgust. But in the end all human beings became candidates for compassion, all of us, without exception…and if we could recognize this from the beginning, what a saving in pain and grief and misery…

Mistry has that enviable knack for revealing his character’s flaws in a very relatable manner. I’d love to hear about his early life and how it shaped him into the outstanding writer he became. Wish there were more of his books on the 1001 list.

My rating for Family Matters is an 8 out of 10.

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Next up…William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom

Source: https://vsudia.wordpress.com/2025/03/07/family-matters-by-rohinton-mistry/