44 pages • 1 hour read
A Fine Balance
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Weddings, Worms, and Sanyas”
As months pass, the four friends achieve a precarious prosperity. The sewing business is going well, and Maneck has decided to remain for three more years to finish a degree program.
This newfound stability prompts Ishvar to search for a wife for Om. Whenever the others object that it’s too soon, or that there’s no extra living space, Ishvar flies into a rage. He takes his responsibilities as Om’s guardian very seriously—his principal duty is to find Om a wife. Dina decides that the tailors and Om’s prospective bride can share the verandah. Ishvar writes to his Muslim friend, Ashraf, to make inquiries in their village. Ashraf replies that four families are interested in the match but that a decision must be made quickly.
Ishvar immediately plans a bride-viewing trip. Convinced that Om’s skinny appearance is caused by worms, Dina insists that Om needs to take a remedy for parasites before he leaves. Om unwillingly swallows the bad-tasting medicine and rids himself of his tapeworm.
Rajaram turns up unexpectedly at the apartment with his hair and beard shaved. He invites the tailors to tea at the vegetarian hotel where he confesses to being the marketplace hair thief. He also murdered the beggars, after they screamed when he stole their hair. He didn’t mean to kill them, but couldn’t think of another way to silence them.
Rajaram feels terrible remorse for what he’s done and wants to renounce the world. He intends to travel to the Himalayas and become a hermit, doing lifelong penance for his crimes. He asks the tailors to lend him the money for a railway ticket. Om wonders if they will ever see him again.
Ishvar grimly jokes that no matter what happens, Rajaram seems to come out on top: “With Rajaram’s luck, all the caves will be occupied when he gets there. He’ll come back with a story about how there was a No Vacancy sign in the Himalayas” (476).
Chapter 14 Summary: “Return of Solitude”
On the evening before Ishvar and Om depart for the village, the four friends sit together in the living room. As Dina continues to stitch her quilt, they all take turns fondly remembering the events in their lives associated with each fabric square. The exercise depresses Maneck, who as usual compares the present and future unfavorably with a golden past: “The future was becoming past, everything vanished into the void, and reaching back to grasp for something, one came out clutching—what? A bit of string, scraps of cloth, shadows of the golden time” (481).
The next morning, Maneck goes back to the student hostel to return the borrowed chess set to his school friend Avinash. When he knocks on his friend’s door, Avinash’s parents greet him. Their son was missing for months, but his body recently turned up on the train tracks, seemingly the victim of an accident. Maneck is deeply upset because he suspects that in reality the government has staged this accident after Avinash’s arrest months earlier for leading protests in the school. Maneck keeps the chess set in memory of his friend.
Beggarmaster has arranged for a barber to groom Shankar. The only barber who will take the job is Rajaram, who is trying to earn some extra money before departing for the Himalayas. After his shave, Shankar insists that Rajaram should weave two long plaits of hair into Shankar’s own.
Shankar gets the bag of hair that the tailors gave to him to hold on to after Rajaram left it with them. Without knowing it, Shankar removes the hair taken from the beggars that Rajaram killed. A horrified Rajaram refuses to weave the hair extensions and flees. Shankar has a tantrum, and bystanders accuse him of killing the two beggars for their hair. Shankar tries to escape, but his wheeled platform flies into oncoming traffic, and a bus kills him.
Beggarmaster arrives at Dina’s flat to announce the sad news. She and Maneck agree to attend the beggar’s funeral. The procession moves at a snail’s pace to accommodate the crippled beggars in the entourage. Dina’s brother is mortified when he drives by and sees his sister walking among them.
Maneck packs and returns home the next day, leaving Dina feeling surprised at her loneliness: “Still how was it possible to feel lonely again after living alone most of her life? Didn’t the heart and mind learn anything? Could one year do so much damage to her resilience?” (500).
Chapter 15 Summary: “Family Planning”
Ishvar and Om arrive in their home village by train. They’re greeted by their Muslim friend, Ashraf. They happily recall the good old days when they were his apprentice tailors and then go to the market to buy new clothes for the bride-viewing visits.
In the market, the tailors notice that their old enemy, Thakur, now runs the prominent Family Planning Centre. Om still hates Thakur for burning his family to death. Ashraf explains that Thakur forces villagers to have sterilization operations in order to fill a government quota, bemoaning the corrupt power that oppresses them: “To listen to the things happening in our lifetime is like drinking venom—it poisons my peace. Every day I pray that this evil cloud over our country will lift, that justice will take care of these misguided people” (511). As they walk past the building, Thakur emerges. Om spits at him, barely missing his clothing. Thakur says, “I know who you are” (513).
The following is market day, and the three tailors return to the square to meet old friends. With no warning, several trucks arrive and start hauling villagers away. Ashraf is beaten in the struggle and later dies, while Om and Ishvar are taken to the sterilization camp where both men receive vasectomies. Thakur enters the recovery tent, recognizes Om, and quietly orders a doctor to castrate him.
The men are hauled back to Ashraf’s house to recover. They file a complaint with the police about their mistreatment, but no one will listen. Ishvar develops blood poisoning from his operation—both of his legs need to be amputated. A wooden platform on wheels is fashioned for him. He now gets around like Shankar used to. After being gone for four months, the two tailors board the train and return to Dina’s apartment.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
This section focuses mainly on the dissolution of family bonds. As these chapters open, the four flatmates are happy. The sewing business is doing well, and they enjoy their time together. The symbol of the quilt emerges to illustrate their solidarity. As Dina completes it, they all take turns recalling how each square of fabric is associated with an event from their year together.
At this point in the narrative, the family is preparing to expand. The two tailors are going back to their village to find Om a wife, and Dina fully intends that all of them will live with her. Although Maneck is going home at the end of the school year, he also plans to return for three more years of schooling. This is the pinnacle of their happiness as a family.
The rest of the section describes one lost connection after another. It’s as if the quilt itself is unraveling. Dina loses her three flatmates when they disperse to go their separate ways. Beggarmaster loses his half-brother Shankar because of a traffic accident. Rajaram loses his sense of remorse when faced with the prospect of making some cash as a barber, and his actions get Shankar killed. Maneck loses his school chum, Avinash, when he learns that Avinash has died in a staged accident. Ishvar and Om suffer the heaviest losses of all—they lose their old tailoring mentor Ashraf, their bodily autonomy, and their ability to father children. Ishvar even loses his legs.
Titling the chapter “Family Planning” is an ironic comment on the fact that the unexpected makeshift family that blossomed has fallen victim to outside forces. Dina’s dreams of an expanding family circle in her flat shatter.
To a lesser extent, this segment also revisits the theme of greed and corruption: Thakur’s motivation for rounding up hapless citizens for sterilization is to collect a larger kickback and advance his career in politics.
Unlock all 44 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
