A Thematic Exploration in Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters

Abstract

Among the many voices that constitute the Parsi diasporic literary tradition, Rohinton Mistry's stands apart for its rare combination of sociological attentiveness and deep human sympathy. His novel Family Matters (2002) is, in many respects, the fullest expression of his fictional vision. Set against the turbulent backdrop of Bombay in the 1990s, the novel traces the fortunes of the Vakeel-Chenoy household as it struggles to manage the illness of an ageing patriarch. It is, on one level, a novel about Parkinson's disease and the domestic upheaval it causes. But it is also, and more profoundly, a meditation on what families owe one another, on how communities police the intimate lives of their members, and on the extraordinary tenacity of love even under conditions of severe material and emotional privation. The present paper undertakes a thematic exploration of these concerns, examining Mistry's handling of intergenerational relationships, the ethics of care, the Parsi community's investment in racial exclusivity, and the redemptive possibilities that the novel discovers within the ordinary fabric of family life.