Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry

It took me a while to get into this book. I don't know whether this is because I was in a distracted frame of mind or because "Such a Long Journey", like its protagonist, has a quiet charm that creeps up on you while you're not looking.

For almost a third of the way through, I was reading along - dum di dum - about the daily life of Gustad Noble, his family, his neighbours, his work and the strict economies of their hanging-by-the-fingernails middle-class lives in Bombay. Dilnavaz Noble enlists her neighbour's spells to heal her little girl and bring her errant son back home, while Gustad bears up under increasing pressure at home, from the office, and especially from an old friend in deep political trouble.

But it was the wall that won me 'round: Gustad's apartment block is partially bounded by a wall that passersby use as a kind of urinal. It occurs to him to introduce this blighted wall to an intinerant pavement artist who draws on the sidewalk near his work.

"Three hours later, as he left for the bank, the artist was hard at work on his first drawing. He watched, trying to identify the subject, and finally interrupted, 'Excuse me. Which one is that, if you don't mind my asking?'

'Trimurti. Of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the gods of creation, preservation and destruction. If that's all right with you, sir? Or I can do something else.'

Oh no, it's fine,' said Gustad. He would have preferred a portrait of Zarathustra to inaugurate the wall, but realized that this triad would have a far-reaching influence in dissuading the urinators and defecators. When he returned in the evening, the artist had lit the pertomax. The Trimurti was complete, as well as a grim, sanguinary Crucifixion. A representative of the Jumma Masjid was in progress - since Islam prohibited portraits, he restricted himself to drawings of the famous mosques.

'Hope it does not rain,' said Gustad. He tested the air with a deep breath. 'So far, no stink.' The artist nodded without looking up from his work. 'But you will have to be careful tonight. It's the first night, people do not know yet that there are holy pictures here.'"

Gustad's maneuver succeeds beyond his dreams - the smelly wall is transformed as people now offer flowers and burn incense to their respective deities. "Such a Long Journey" is like this, an accumulation of foibles and graces - of small and significant acts of creativity. And if Dilnavaz Noble's magic succeeds too, it is at considerable cost; which is only right... in the balance of everything.

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