CHAPTER VII

TALES FROM FIROZSHA BAAB

The stories in Rohinton Mistry's Tales From

Firozsha Baag deal with Parsee life in all its aspects -
social, cultural and religious in two parts : eight stories
deal with Parsee life in a "Baag" in Bombay whereas the

remaining three stories render the expatriate experience in

Canada. The stories, "Auspicious Occasion", "One Sunday",
"Condolence Visit", "The Collectors", "Of White Hairs and
Cricket", "The Paying Guests" and "Exercisers" dramatize the
conflict between the traditional Zoroastrian life and
modernity which is the outcome of Westernization. These
eight tales also focus on the adaptability of the Parsee
community to the various levels of Westernization. In

another set of stories, namely "Squatter", "Lend Me your

Light" and "Swimming Lessons", Mistry deals with the impact

of expatriation on the lives of young Parsee protagonists,

abroad.

Mistry employs omniscient narration in some

tales whereas the protagonist himself is the narrator in

"Swimming Lessons". In this tale, the two points of view,
i.e., the author's and that of his mother and father at home
are juxtaposed.

181
 The protagoinsts in "Squatter", "Lend Me Your
Light" and "Swimming Lessons" are typical migrants drawn to
<?

the West for its prosperity and success. If the comic tone
pervades "Squatter", the other two tales explore the
psychological consequences of diaspora. For Jamshed, the

protagonist in "Lend Me Your Light" and the young

protagonist in "Swimming Lessons", the voyage to the West is

an imperative need, a quest for roots. Their realisation

that they are misfits in India drives them to the "chosen

land" (America or Canada). But it is only a movement from

one peripheral situation to another. As their "Promised
Land" belies its promises all too often, they cannot, in
any case, return to India to join the mainstream of Indian
life. To this extent, they remain "peripheral men", in
India or abroad, alike. "Squatter" demonstrates this
tendency in vivid terms.

The proclamation of Nariman, a gifted story -

teller in Firozsha Baag assumes significance in the

expatriate context:

Remember this, success alone does not

bring happiness. Nor does failure have
to bring unhappiness.1.

This strikes the key-note of the short - story "Squatter".

Sid's quest in Toronto is for happiness, though he is very

1 .
Rohinton Mistry, "Squatter" in Tales From Firozsha Baao.
Rupa Paperbacks, 1993, p. 153.

1S2
successful at everything he attempts in the "chosen land".
He tells his mother and friends before his departure*

My dear family, my dear friends, if I

do not become completely Canadian in
exactly ten years from the time I land
there, then I will come back. I promise.^.

His nostalgia, which is born of his failure in adapting

himself to the Canadian life, is typical of an exile.

Expatriation, at least in his case, grants constipation,
besides the status of an immigrant.

In Tales From Firozsha Baaci. irony becomes a mode

of perception. In "Squatter" too, the mode employed by
Mistry is ironic. Sid's process of adaptation draws to a
close after he boards the plane to India.

In "Squatter", the journey 'motif' predominates.

It represents Sid's transition from a state of innocence to

a state of, experience. The incapacity of the protagonist to

find a home, despite his frantic efforts, is typical of

expatriate fiction. It is also an intense and passionate
search for self in a world divided into the "chosen land"
and the native land. Mistry captures the dilemma of the
expatriate whether to stay on in Canada or to return to
India. "Squatter" shows the love-hate association that

2.
Ibid, p.155.

183
exists between the land and the immigrants. Viney Kirpal
raises a point:

Return to his motherland aggravates an

emigre's feeling of rootlessness. He realises
how different he has grown, how incompatible'
he finds life in his native land. At the
same time, he feels estranged and exiled
in the adopted land.*5.

Sid's quest for home in the native land is an exercise in

futility. Thus, he remains, like Baumgartner in Anita

Desai's Baumgartner's Bombay, an exile both at home and
ft
abroad. His realisation that the "patterns of life are
selfish and unforgiving" is experiential.

Nostalgia and sentimental longing (which are part

of the diasporic consciousness) characterize Sid's

existence. He tells Nariman once:

Tell them that in Toronto once there

lived a Parsi boy as best as he could.
Set you down this; and say, besides,
that for some it was good and some
it was bad, but for me life in the land
of milk and honey was just a pain in
the posterior.^.

Underlying this comic tone in the expatriate experience of

Sid in Canada, a strong undercurrent of nostalgia pervades

Viney Kirpal, The Third World Novel of Expatriation.

p. 80.
4.
Rohinton Mistry, "Squatter" in Tales From Firozsha Baao.
p. 163.

184
the narrative. Sid, like Baumgartner, is a typical exile, a

"nowhere man" whose quest for home is, in any case,

archetypal.

"Squatter" is a good illustration of Parsee humour

which is reminiscent of Bapsi Sidhwa's The Crow Eaters.

Though the vein of humour is not so rich as. ..in The Crow

Eaters. "Squatter" captures the quintessential Parsee sense

of humour. Geeta Doctor observes:

Part of Parsi's armoury of weapons for

survival in a hostile world is an agility
with words, that allow him the luxury
of laughing at himself. This is again
similar to the Jewish trick of deflecting
anger or fear by mocking at themselves
or the community. But whereas there is
a certain bitterness in the Jewish laughter,
the Parsis are much more good natured, their
targets falling equally in all directions.'-.

Beeta Doctor's argument is that humour serves as a survival

- strategy happily though, for the Parsee community. In

Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice - Candy - Man too, there are jokes about

all the communities, including the Parsees. Mistry's Tales

From Firozsha Baao owes much to Parsee theatre comedy that

enjoyed popularity till recently. Mistry's humour in

"Squatter", though a little crude, is typically Zoroastrian:

5.
Geeta Doctor, "Long Day's Journey into the Light",
Literature Alive. Vol.4, No.3 Sc
Vol.5, No.1, p.46.

.185
 Sarosh felt a splash under him. . Could. A.t really
be? He glanced down to make certain. Yes,it .
was. . He had succeeded.^5.

Kerci, the protagonist in "Lend Me your Light" is

a typical immigrant who looks at his native land with
enough detachment. His quest in Canada is for an identity
that helps him to define himself in the "chosen land". He

is alienated from all things Indian and his fascination is

with all things foreign. This attitude of Kerci results in

a deep - seated guilt in him. He confesses:

I am guilty of the sin of hubris for

seeking emigration out of the land of my
birth, and paying the price in burnt-
out eyes : I Tiresias, blind and throbbing
between two lives, the one in Bombay and
the one to come in Toronto.^.

For Kerci, expatriation is a painful, though complex,

process involving severing of ties with his homeland.

Though the "chosen land", (Canada, in his case) promises

prosperity and success, his inner self remains chaotic.

; Jamshed, the other expatriate in the ..story,

detests India. He declares one day:

6.
Rohinton Mistry "Squatter" in Tales From Firozsha Baao.
p.165.
7.
Rohinton Mistry, "Lend Me Your Light" in Tales From
Firozsha Baao. p.180.

1S6
 Bloody corruption everywhere. And you
can't buy any of the things you want,
don't even get to see a decent English
movie. First chance I get, I'm going
abroad. Preferably the U.S.8.

Thus, Jamshed views his native land with resentment. He

says of Bombay:

Bombay is horrible. Seems dirtier than

ever, and the whole trip just made me
sick. I had my fill of it in two weeks
and was happy to leave.^.

Jamshed's disdain is similar to Naipaul's.

Discussing Mistry's treatment of Parsee life, Roshan Shahani

observes:

From a temporal and spatial perspective,

Mistry looks back at his community with
sympathy, irony and understanding. Here
is a group-elitist, conformist, Westernized,-
economically secure, numerically insecure.
Hence its protectionist attitude and belligerent,
at times arrogant stance. .

Behind Jamshed's arrogance lurks an anxiety which results

out of the fear psychosis the Parsee community experiences.

B.
Ibid, p.178.
9.
Ibid. p.181.
10.
Roshan Shahani, "On the Periphery of the City", Indian
English Fiction 1980 - 90 : An
Assesment. ed. Vilas Sarang & Nilufer
Bharucha, New Delhi:' B.R. Publishing
Corpn., 1994, p.35.

187
>

Similarly Kerci's outburst against Indians is typical of an

alien:

Ghatis were flooding the banks, desecrating

the sanctity of institutions, and taking up
all the coveted jobs. Ghatis were even flooding
the colleges and universities, a thing
unheard of.1 *.

Thus, Kerci and Jamshed represent the typical immigrant

psyche. They are caught between the two worlds - the one
they had forsaken and the "Other" which had failed them
despite initial promises. Their inability to find happiness
in the chosen land and the inability to discard the old
world leads to tension which, in fact, characterizes all
expatriate writing.

For Kerci, India is a 'parched land, brown, weary

and unhappy', far removed from the 'green and hopeful'

"chosen lahcf"-. -He contrasts the two:

Hostility and tension seemed to be perpetually present

in buses, shops, trains. It was disconcerting
to discover I'd become .unused to.it. Now I
knew what soldiers must experience in the
trenches after a respite far behind the
lines.12.

Kerci's inner transformation is the consequence of

11.
Rohinton Mistry, "Lend Me Your Light" in Tales From
Firozsha Baao. p.176.
12 .
Ibid, p.187.

188
expatriation. He becomes an alien in his own land. His
comment on a crowd in Bombay is that of an outsider;

All the players were there; Fate and Reality

and the latter's offspring, the New Reality,
and also Poverty and Hunger, Virtue and
Vice, Apathy and Corruption.*0.

His painful realisation is similar to the experience of

Nirad Chaudhuri who looks at India with the ironic

detachment of an outsider. Jamshed, on the other hand,

enjoys being an outsider in his own land. His glorification

of the "chosen land" is an existential heed. Kerci is a
"marginal" man whose roots exist neither in India nor in
Canada. Like Anita Desai's Baumgartner, he lives on the
fringes of the society, an outsider wherever he goes.
Thus, the two protagonists in "Lend Me Your Light", Kerci
and Jamshed, stand for the two conditions in expatriate

experience — acculturation and assimilation. In Jamshed,

as in the protagonists of Bharathi Mukherjee, the creative

pull of the "chosen land" is rather strong whereas Kerci

brings back his "entire burden of riddles and puzzles

unsolved", to Canada. Thus, Jamshed's belligerence which is,

in any case, part of expatriate experience, and Kerci's

sense of guilt and nostalgia illustrate the conflict and

adaptability of the immigrants.

13. . ,
Ibid. p.187.

189
 "Swimming Lessons" is a singular triumph in Tales

From Firozsha Baaci since it offers a "bystander's

viewpoint". Mistry's narrative technique assumes

significance as he employs a narrative agent in this tale.
"I", the protagonist himself is the narrator. The shifting
point of view of both the "author" directly and through the

reactions of the protagonist's father and mother at home is

an uncommon feature in Mistry's.fiction. The text of the

story is in two kinds of print - ordinary and in italics.

Ramaswamy compares it to Faulkner's narrative strategy in

The Sound and the Furv.*4. Quite significantly, Mistry

employs imagery in "Swimming Lessons" to depict the quandary

of his protagonist in Canada. Here the Canadian setting is

juxtaposed with Indian memories.

The protagonist <"I") is obsessed with' swimmming.

Though he sheds his ethnic identity (unlike Feroza in An

American Brat) in Canada, the white society is still not

"home". Water both fascinates and frustrates him. He admits:
Water magery in my life is recurring.
Chaupatty beach, now the high school
swimming pool..The universal symbol of life
and regeneration did nothing but frustrate
me. Perhaps the swimming pool will over -
turn that failure. .

14.
5.Ramaswamy, "Local Colour in Rohinton Mistry's Tales
From Firozsha Baao", Fiction of the
'Nineties. ed. Veena Noble Dass & R.K.
Dhawan, p.119.
15.
Rohinton Mistry, "Swimming Lessons", in Tales From
Firozsha Baao, p.239.

190
Racial antagonism of the white man is also a

significant part of diasporic experience. The protagonist

in "Swimming Lessons" is , like Adit and Dev in Anita

Desai's Bye Bve. Blackbird. a victim of racial

discrimination. He observes:

One of them holds his nose. The second

begins to hum under his breath; Paki,
Paki, smell like curry. The third says to
the first two; pretty soon, all the water's
going to taste of curry.16.

The assumed superiority of the whites is very much a painful

reality for expatriates. Viney Kirpal makes an interesting

observation:

Distance, and rejection in the white man"s

land-explicitly for his skin, implicitly for
ecomomic, historical reasons-produces in the
immigrant, a deeper consciousness about his
oppressed condition and his distorted past.
Here it is that he learns for the first time
that the colour black or brown is repugnant
to the white man and that his poverty and
technical backwardness at home, are traced
to the moral and spiritual failings of his race. 7

The protagonist in "Swimming Lessons" is an exile in the

true sense of the term since he faces rejection in the white

man's land. Discussing the treatment meted out to coloured
people by the whites, Fanon observes:

16 .
Ibid. p.240.
17.
Viney Kirpal, The Third World Novel of Expatriation.
p» 94.

191
 The native is declared insensible to ethics; he
represents not only the absence of values, but
also the negation of values. He is, let us dare
to admit, the enemy of values, and in this sense,
he is the absolute evil. He is the corrosive
element, destroying all that comes near him; he
is the deforming element, disfiguring all that
has to do with beauty and morality.* .

Here, the protagonist is not "the native" but an immigrant

who, at least in the white man's view, represents evil. He

symbolises anarchy and maleficient powers. For instance,

the reaction of the whites to the presence of the

protagonist, a coloured immigrant, is an illustration of the

tendency Fanon discusses. In bitterness, he observes;'

May be the swimming pool is the hangout

of some racist group, bent on eliminating all
non—white swimmers, to keep their waters
pure and their white sisters unogled.* .

Thus, commences his quest for identity in the "chosen land".

His strong nostalgia, though not explicitly conveyed, is

universal. Nilufer Bharucha observes;

The initial failure of the protagonist to master

the Chowpatty waters in Bombay as well as the
swimming pool waters in Canada symbolises the
failure to assimilate in. either society. However,
by the end of the story, water, the symbol of life,
the amionitic fluid, is the medium through

IB.
Frantz Fanon, From "Concerning Violence" in The
Wretched of the Earth included in Black
Identity. ed. Francis Kearns, p.168.
19.
Rohinton Mistry, "Swimming Lessons" in Tales From
_____ ._____ Firozsha Baaci. p .239.

192
 which the character is reborn. He opens his eyes
under water in his bath-tub and sees life in
the correct perspective, both Eastern and Western.

Thus, as Nilufer Bharucha aptly points out, the protagonist

ultimately settles in the expatriate setting of Canada,
despite his initial failure. He accomplishes what is still
a cherished ideal for an expatriate - "rebirth" in the
chosen land which would ensure him an identity. He, like

Kanga's Brit in Trvino to Brow ;chooses creative writing as a

means to conquer his nostalgia in the alien land.

In this tale, Mistry makes some generalizations on

his community. He takes the stance of a critical outsider,

as . Sidhwa and Kanga did in The Crow Eaters and Trvino to

Grow. Roshan Shahani observes!

Perhaps enough has been said about the reputed

and the renowned and those are the tales Mistry
chooses not to tell. Instead of dwelling on the
glorious past, Mistry chooses to explore the
perplexities and dilemmas of his people, which,
... erupt in gestures of bel1igerance, arrogance
or utter futility.^1.

20.
Nilufer Bharucha, "The Parsi Voice in Recent Indian
English Fiction", Indian - English
Fiction 1980-90! An ftssesment. ed.'
Vilas Sarang and Nilufer Bharucha,
pp.85-86.
21 .
Roshan Shahani, "On the Periphery of the City",
Indian - English Fiction 1980 - 90:
An ftssesment ed. Vilas Sarang &Nilufer
Bharucha, p.37.

193
Mistry's 'tales', as Roshan Shahani aptly observes, do not
provide romantic or glorified accounts of Parsee life. He,

like Sidhwa, possesses the detachment and ability to look at

his own community critically.

Interestingly, only three of the writer's short ~

stories deal with expatriate experience in Canada.

Anticipating criticism at home, Mistry makes the

protagonist's father says

... it takes a writer about ten years

time after an experience before he is able
to use it in his writing, it takes that
long to be absorbed internally and understood
thought out and thought about, over and over
again, he haunts it and it haunts him
if it is valuable enough, till the writer is
comfortable With it to be able to use it
as he wants.22.

The observation of the protagonist's father at

home towards the end of the narrative is charged with

profound significance:

... fiction does not create facts, fiction

can come from facts, it can grow out
of facts by compounding, transposing,
augmenting, diminishing or altering them
in any way.2*"*.

Rohinton Mistry, "Swimming Lessons" in Tales From

Firozsha Baao. p. 246.
.
Ibid, p.250.

194
Though his canvas is limited in "Swimming Lessons", Mistry

succeeds in raising, and to some extent, in answering some

of the vital questions on creative writing in general, and

expatriate writing in particular. If Canada is the land

that rejected Bharathi Mukherjee, (at least in her view), it

is also the land that assimilated Mistry. Mistry's young

protagonist in "Swimming Lessons", like Bharathi Mukherjee's

characters, exhibits instinctive ability to adapt himself.
Thus, his acculturation, which becomes the chief

preoccupation of Vassanji's Asian immigrants in No New Land,

is a survival - strategy in the white man's land.

/While seven stories, viz., "Auspicious Occasion",

"One Sunday", "Condolence Visit", "The Collectors", "Of
White Hairs and Cricket", "The Paying Buests" and

"Exercisers" deal with middle class Parsee life, "The Ghost

of Firozsha Baag" is the only tale told from a non-Parsee

point of view. /These stories offer a series of vignettes of

Parsee life in a 'Baag'. Discussing the tendency of Parsee

writers to create-'"Baags", Geeta Doctor observes:

There is no 'ghettorization' of Parsis as such,

though by custom the Parsis have btliilt
themselves into "Baags" or small enclosed
communities of residential housing donated
by philanthropic Parsis, for less advantaged
members of their community. The goldfish-bowl
syndrome of life in a Baag is therefore a
common theme of many of these accounts of
Parsi life.^ .

24.
Geeta Doctor, "Long Day's Journey into the Light",
Literature Alive. Vol.4, No.3 & Vo1.5,
No.1, 1992, p.44.

195
If Khodabad Building is the place of action in Such a Long

Journey. Firozsha Baag is the locale in eight of the tales.

Mistry's vignettes offer a microcosm of the decadent Parsee

life in the post-colonial era. Speaking of the need of

'Baags', Roshan Shahani raises a points

In the post-colonial period, especially, the

community feels its vantage - point threatened,
its cultural importance challenged, even its
economic superiority eroded. In this cont^kt,
the baao becomes the community refuge, a
bulwark against a fast - changing city,- which-
appears increasingly menacing. Within the baao
are the ties that bind - the neighbourliness,
the common language, the common customs -
without, is the deluge. Mistry does not
endorse this exclusiveness? often he is seen
to laugh at it? but he understands the
need for it, even while he shows its
stultifying effects. .

Shahani's argument is significant as it throws enough light

on the need of the Parsee community to have 'Baags' in a

city like Bombay. A "Baag" is a regimented world within a

world which provides security. It is cut off from the harsh

realities of Indian life. In the words of Nilufer Bharucha,

Firozsha Baag stands "half-way between the upper class world

HI
of Sidhwa and Desai and Dhondy's Sarbatwala Chowk". •

25. .
Roshan Shahani, "On the Periphery of the City", Indian
English Fiction 1980 - 90: An
Assesment. ed. Vilas Sarang & Nilufer
Bharucha, p.35.
26.
Nilufer Bharucha, "The Parsi Voice in Recent Indian
' English Fiction", Indian -
English Fiction 198(3 - 90:
An Assesment. ed. Vilas Sarang ?<
Nilufer Bharucha, pp. 84-85.

196
It is a ghetto - like world of fire-temples, priests, of the
eccentricities of Parsee men and women, of Parsee customs
and Parsee cuisine.

‘ The stories in Tales from Firozsha Baao. with the

exception of "The Ghost of Firozsha Baag", dramatize the

various aspects of the Parsee identity. "Auspicious

Occasion”, the first tale projects the eccentric side of

this identity. Even the title of the story is highly

evocative. Rustomji, the main protagonist in the story, is

a Westernized Parsee who expresses the general Parsee view

of most Indians being 'uneducated, filthy, ignorant

barbarians'. Mistry's success lies in depicting the

distance between the Parsee elite consciousness (which was

shaped by Westernization and the colonial rule) and their

downgraded status in the post-colonial India. The stance of

Rustomji is curiously similar to that of the Kotwals in
Kanga's Tryino to Grow whose colonised minds are out of

harmony with the Indian reality. Thus, Rustomji remains an

outsider in the land of adaptation of the Parsee community.

Mistry, the omniscient narrator, sayss

He (Rustomji) had decided long ago that

this was no country for sorrow or com­
passion or pity - these were worthless and,
at best, inappropriate. '.

27 .
Rohinton Mistry, "Auspicious Occasion" in Tales From
Firozsha Baao. p.S.

197
 I

Rustomji's nostalgia, thus, differs qualitatively from the

nostalgia of expatriate Parsees like Sid and Kerci. His

predicament is shared by many Parsees today since they are

painfully aware of the 'new' reality. Mistry employs irony

to dramatize the condition of the Parsee elite represented

by Rustomji. On Behram roje. (auspicious day), someone

spits betel juice from the upper deck of a bus. The
novelist's tone, though apparently humourous, is ironies

On the upper deck sat fate in the form

of a mouth chewing tobacco and betal nut,
a mouth with a surfeit of juice and
aching jaws crying for relief. And when
the bus halted at Marine Lines, fate
leaned out of the window to release a generous
quantity of sticky,viscous,dark,red stuff.28*

According to Ramaswamy, this is a different sort of

'murder'. He contends that the colour red is imaginatively

transplanted from the murder in the 'cathedral' to a

symbolic 'murder' .•*• . Nilufer Bharucha's observation is

interesting:

Rustomji's encounters with the 'ghaati', a

derogatory term for Indians, also focus
on the confrontation between Parsi identify
arid the Indian identity. It also symbolises
the social decline of the 'Bawaji' who in

28.
Ibid. pp. 16-17
29.
Ramaswamy,. "Local Colour in Rohinton Mistry's Tales
From Firozsha Baao", Fiction of the
'Nineties, ed. Veena Noble Dass & R.K. Dhawan,
p.115.

198
 the British Raj, was a 'sahib', but has now
become a figure of fun, ^somebody who can be
spat upon with impunity.0®.

Nilufer Bharucha's knowledge of the dilemma and ambivalence

of the Parsee community is sound since she is a Parsee

herself. Westernized Parsees like Rustomji and Jamshed in

"Lend Me Your Light" look down upon Indians with contempt

since they continue to dwell, emotionally and

psychologically, in the British Raj.

"One Sunday", the next story which is equally

steeped in irony, dramatizes the mock-heroic adventure of
Kerci and Percy, the two Parsee boys of Firozsha Baag. This
tale amply reveals the hysteria and the anxiety that the
Parsee community experiences when it feels itself threatened

by an outsider, even when there is no threat and the very

idea of the outsider seems absurd. Mistry makes a telling

comment on the needless persecution of Francis, the odd-job

man in Firozsha Baag, chased by the entire Parsee colony for

a petty theft he commits to allay his starvation. Roshan

Shahani raises a valid question:

30.
' Nilufer Bharucha, "The Parsi Voice in Recent Indian'
English Fiction", Indian - Enolish
Fiction 1980 — 90: An ftssesment. ed.
Vilas Sarang and Nilufer Bharucha,
p .85.

199
 Is this persecution a result of the fear of
Otherness? Is this fear strengthened by the
subconscious feeling that they themselves are
the Other?*"**.

It is precisely this fear of the "Other" that haunts many

Parsees today. Gustad in Such a Long Journey experiences

the same fear when his son revolts. His fears, mostiy
imaginary, are similar to Sam's in Trying to Grow. Though

the Parsee community fruitfully adapted in India (their

"chosen Land", since Iran is their homeland), the

Westernized Parsees continue to regard themselves as aliens,

representing the "Other". A strong feeling that they are

the "marginalized" in the Indian society pervades the life
of the Westernized Parsee community in the post—Independence
era. Mistry's triumph lies in capturing the fears and the
anxiety, imaginary or real, of his community in his works.

If "Auspicious Occasion" and "Lend Me Your Light"

depict the Parsee notion of racial superiority and the

resultant arrogance, "Exercisers" suggests the other state.

Jehangir, the protagoinst, is an introvert whose

helplessness is typical of the young in the Parsee

community. He comes close to other young characters under

31.
Roshan Shahani, "On the Periphery of the City",
Indian — English Fiction 1980-90; An
Assesment. ed. Vilas Sarang and
Nilufer Bharucha, p.35.
study - Brit, Cyrus and Amy in Trying to Grom. Sohrab in
Such a Long Journey and Xerxes in Bombay Duck. His sense of
sterility and isolation is suggestive of the generation -
gap in the Zoroastrian community.

In "Exercisers", Mistry contrasts the two states -

one in which there is motion, activity and life and the

other which is characterized by sffeteness and frigidity.

Significantly, Mistry sets a part of this story in Hanging

Bardens. Jehangir's impotence stands in glaring contrast to

the daring of other couples in Hanging Bardens. The

traditional spot for lovers, thus, signifies to the

protagonist his own sense of impotence. The agile movements

of the exercisers drive home to him a feeling of sterility :

Their bodies moved through the various

exercises, and Jehangir felt the urge to
join them in their sweating, rippling
activity. He imagined meeting them every
evening, taking off his clothes with them-
they would sweat and pant together
a community of

Mistry's contrast between the two conditions - stillness and

motion - is strikingly similar to Anita Desai's strategy in

Fire on the Mountain in which Nanda Kaul and Raka symbolise
these two states respectively. Roshan Shahani makes an apt
observation:

32.
Rohinton Mistry, "Exercisers" in Tales From Firozsha
Baag. p.219.

201
 Juxtaposed with the image of rippling
muscles, and the supple movements
of the exercisers, are the pruned animal­
shaped hedges in the park, caught in a
state of arrested motion. This topiary work
brings home to Jehangir his own trapped
and frigid state.0,3.

Mistry's imagery in this tale, like Anita Desai's images in

Fire on the Mountain, suggests the isolation and withdrawal
of Jehangir. Too timid to proceed, he emerges as a misfit

in a world of intense activity. Shahani's assesment of the

protagonist's condition is valid. Thus, Jehangir is an

enfeebled figure whose failure to 'act' is almost archetypal

in Parsee life.

"Condolence Visit" recounts the cultural and

ritualistic aspects of the Parsee identity. The central

symbol in the story is the puaree of Minocher Mirza. It
connects the past and the present. Daulat's decision to
dispose of her husband's puoree is, in reality, a bid to

keep a Parsee custom alive. The puoree stands for a rich

Parsee tradition which 'modern' youngmen like Sid refuse to

carry on. The young man, who volunteers to buy the puoree.
is traditional in dress as well as in outlook. He says:

oc>. •
Roshan Shahani, "On the Periphery of the City", Indian
Enolish Fiction 1980 - 908 An Assesment.
ed. Vilas Sarang and Nilufer Bharucha,
p. . ...

202
 Mrs. Mirza is selling Mr. Mirza's pugree.
to me. You see, my fiancee and X, we
decided to do everything, all the ceremonies,
the proper traditional way at our wedding.
In correct Parsi dress and all.^.

The gesture of a true Parsee, though he is a

stranger to her, brings relief to Daulat. She tells him:

But let me tell you, my Minocher would

be happy to give it to you if he were here.
He would rejoice to see someone get married
in his puciree. So if you want it, take it
today.’"1".

Thus, in this story, Mistry gives a vivid account

of middle class Parsee life at cultural and ritualistip

levels. He does not scoff at the customs, though he is an

expatriate. His treatment of Parsee life is sympathetic to

a high degree.

In "Collectors", the narrative mode is overtly

ironic. , Mistry depicts the boredom and ennui of the Parsee

community living ’in a 'Baag', far removed from-the realities

of life. The two protagonists in the story, Jehangir and

Pesi, are drawn as foils to each other. Dr.Mody's passion-

for stamps is a survival - strategy; it is a desperate bid

to conquer ennui which 'characterizes life in Firozsha Baag.

34.
Rohinton Mistry, "Condolence Visit" in Tales From
Firozsha Baag. pp.73 - 74.
.
Ibid. p.75.

203
Father - son confrontation appears to be a recurrent motif

in Mistry's fictional world. Dr. Mody, like 6ustad in Such

a Long Journey, is a connoisseur who dreams too selfishly

for his sons

At the birth of his son, Dr.Mody had

deliberated long and hard about the naming.
Peshotan, in the Persian epic Shah — Mama,
was the brother of the great Asf.andyar,
and a noble general, lover of art and
learning, and man of wise counsel. Dr.
Mody had decided his son would play
the violin, acquire the best from the
cultures of East and West, thrill to the
words of Tagore and Shakespeare, appreciate
Mozart and Indian ragasf and one day,
at the proper moment, he would introduce
him to his dearest activity,stamp-col1ecting^®.

However, Pesi , unlike his legendary namesake,... becomes the

'despair of his parents'. Jehangir's obsession with stamps,

on the other hand, is a fantasy of adoloscence which brings

immense joy to Dr. Mody:

His deepest wish appeared to be coming

trues he had at last found some one
to share his hobby with. He could not
have hoped for a finer neophyte than
Jehangi

As in other tales, Mistry gives an ironic twist to

this story towards the end. Referring to the mystery

shrouding her husband's favourite stamp, Mrs. Mody says:

36.
Rohinton Mistry, "Collectors" in Tales From Firozsha
Baao. p. 82.
37.
Ibid, p.88.

204
 He did not lose it. I destroyed it. 38

Jamshed's concluding gesture of closing the bo>: is invested

with symbolic significance! it marks the end of an
adoloscent fantasy. If Dr. Mody's passion for stamps is a

device to conquer ennui which pervades the contemporary

Parsee life, in Jehangir's life, reality catches up with

him. Thus, Mistry successfully brings out the"psychological

consequences of generation - gap which seem to threaten the

Parsee life now.

"Of White Hairs and Cricket" is a tale of

education of Kesi, a fourteen—year old boy. Nostalgia,

which is an essential part of the Parsee consciousness,

pervades the narrative. Like Lennie in Sidhwa's Ice -

Candy- Nan, he is initiated into the pains and pleasures of
adult life. Mistry deftly reconstructs a Sunday in Firozsha

Baag in bits and pieces. Here, Time performs the function

of a destroyer. Cricket on Sunday mornings, which was a

regular event for the boys in Firozsha Baag, ceases with the
passage of time. Thus, Kesi's nostalgia is the outcome of
his painful awareness of the decaying Parsee life.

The parents of Kesi, like the Kotwals in Kanga's

Trying to Brow, represent the typical frustrated community

38.
Ibid, p.102.

205
of the ■ Parsees. Disillusioned with India like most

Westernized Parsees, his father opts for a luxurious life

abroad:

And one day, you must go too, to America.

No future here.... Somehow, we'll get the
money to send you. I'll find a way. .

His father, like Sam in Trying to Brow is a failed quester

who dreams a little too selfishly for.his son. However,

both he and Kesi are aware of the passage of time and their

helplessness to stop the white hairs, "the signposts of

mortality". While Ranna's traumatic experience teaches

Lennie the significance of being whole in Ice - Candy - Nan,

in this story, Viraf's tenacity is a significant lesson to
Kesi. Kesi'.s failure to partake of his father's frustration
is vividly reflected in his confession:

I wanted to weep for myself, for not

being able to hug Daddy when I wanted
to, and for not ever saying thank you
for cricket in the morning and pigeons
and bicycles and dreams? and for all
the white hairs that I was powerless to
stop.^ .

Thus, Mistry once again turns to the aspects of

the inevitable contrast between the romantic past and the

traumatic present. Kesi's yearning for a by-gone period is
typical of a romantic.

39.
Rohinton Mistry, "Of White Hairs arid Cricket” in
Tales From Firozsha Baao. p.112.
40.
Ibid, p.120.

206
 In "The Paying Guests", Mistry employs the ironic

mode to depict the quandary of the midle class Parsees. His

treatment is both original and sympathetic to a high degree.
At one juncture, Boman, the protagonist in the tale, cries

outs

There are lams to protect the poor

and laws to protect the rich. But
middleclass people like us get the bamboo
all the way.^*.

Boman's economic insecurity and Khurshedbai's frustration,

born of an unfulfilled dream, represent the typical Parsee

life. Significantly, in this story, Mistry highlights the
evil consequences of communication - gap. Boman's failure
is to view his tenant's suffering from a sympathetic
perspective. If humour is the predominant rasa in
"Squatter", pathos seems to pervade the narrative in "The

Paying Guests".

"The Ghost of Firozsha Baag" is, in the words of

Ramaswamy, a "triumph of narration". . The singular

achievement of Mistry is his narrative technique in this

tale. It is the only story in this collection told from a

non - Parsee point of view, a Goan ayah being the narrator.

41.
Rohinton Mistry, "The Paying Guests" in
Tales From Firozsha Baag. p.133.
42.
Ramaswamy, "Local Colour in Rohinton Mistry's Tales From
Firozsha Baao. Fiction of.the 'Nineties, ed.
Veena Noble Dass and R.K. Dhawan, p.117.

. 207
Mistry's tale is a subtle dig at the Parsee notion of racial

purity (and hence, superior). This tale also reveals the

colour prejudice in the Parsee community. Mistry employs

irony in this tale to create a comic effect. If Jaykaylee,

the protagonist, is haunted by a 'ghost', who ultimately

emerges as the 'ghost' in the story is Jaykaylee herself.

The most striking feature of this tale is Mistry's use of

pidgin English. Commenting on the post - colonial writer's

choice of language, Seodial Deena writes:

Rather they should write freely in the

language of their choice,for in so doing,they
will represent the diversity of their people's
culture. In addition to the use of native
' languages and standard English, Third World
writers should be free to use pidgin, creole
English of secondary school leavers and
university graduates, and the different flavour
of dialects, ideolects and registers.^.

Mistry accomplishes precisely what Deena emphasizes, viz.,

the dynamic use of English in the past - colonial context.

The creative use of the language of the coloniser is part of

the design of the post — colonial writer. Ramaswamy writes:

The narration reminds one of the use of

the West Indian dialect in Samuel Selvon's
stories, especially Bracklev and the Bed. The
creative use of an authentic dialect,different
from the 'standard' English is an interesting
44
aspect of Commonwealth writing. .

43.
Seodial Deena, " Colonial and Canonical Control over
Third World Writers", The
Commonwealth Review. Vol.VII, No.2,
p.105.
44.
Ramaswami, "Local Colour in ^Rohinton Mistry's lales
From Firozsha Baao. Fiction of the 'Nineties,
ed. Veena Noble Dass & R.K. Dhawan, p.117.

208
Like Ezekiel in "Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa" and Desani,

Mistry employs pidgin English to achieve a remarkable

effect. For instance, Jaykaylee's description of pulav is

vivid and typically Indian:

Must not forget rice on stove. With rice,

especially basmati, one minute more or one
minute less, one spoon extra water or less
water, and it will spoil,it will not be light
and every grain separate.^.

Thus, Mistry's use of 'bazaar English', to borrow

Parthasarathy's phrase, gives this story an essentially

Indian character.

Nicholson, in his discussion of expatriate

sensibility in Commonwealth fiction, raises a point:

However, Mistry's Indian world will stop

growing unless he returns and plunges
back .into Bombay's hybrid culture. Ofcourse,
he could continue to write in the present
vein, but after a while, the vividness of
his world can start fading and imagination
will replace realism. .

Nicholson, however, does not discount the power and beauty

of Mistry's imagination. His argument is that Mistry's

imagination will be frozen to his time in India, since both

45.
Rohinton Mistry, "The Ghost of Firozsha Baag" in
Tales From Firozsha Baao. p.52.
46.
Kai Nicholson, "Are We Expatriates? “ The Common -
wealth Review. Vol.IV, No.2, p.ll.

2£1P
Tales From Firozsha Baaci and Such a Long Journey are full

documentation. Roshan Shahani's view is worth discussing

Distance has given the author a certain

.lucidity of thought and a clarity of vision,
tinged with nostalgia though it might be. It
permits him to perceive certain "hometruths"
about his old home and his people, a
fact which sometimes eludes those too close
to home.^.

Thus, . Shahani's argument projects the advantages

expatriation, at least in Mistry's case. Mistry continues

to gather news and views of his homeland through the media,

members of his Parsee community in Canada and

correspondence If Nicholson focusses on the adverse

effects of expatriation, Shahani.regards expatriation as a

creative source.

Thus, the whole burden of these tales is to

dramatize the conflict and adaptability of the Parsee

community to the fast - changing milieu in India and abroad.

In any case, as they are"immigrants", in India or abroad —

their alienation is relative yet fruitful. Rohinton Mistry

employs enough psychological realism in rendering the minds

of the characters, in Bombay and more authentically in

Canada. This is the reason for the success of these tales.

47.
Roshan Shahani, "On the Periphery of the City",
Indian - English Fiction 1980 -
90 ; ftn ftssesment. ed. Vilas Sarang
& Nilufer Bharucha. p.37.

210
Ultimately, he dramatizes the pangs of alienation though

yet, finally they lead to the fruits of adaptation, in India

and abroad, for the Parsees. If in India, it is adaptation

by the Parsees, as their "motherland" is Iran. If in
Canada, it is "expatriation" with its "fruits of exile". In
Tales From Firozsha Baao. both these aspects are*-studied

independently, and without much comparison as two concepts;

for in reality, "adaptation" in India and expatriation in

Canada are. similar in function, though they are dissimilar

in their levels of historicity. Form and manner also may

differ. In essence, however, the theme of "displacement" is
common to their lives, in general, in these tales under
study.

211