History Matters in Rohinton Mistry’s “Family Matters”

Abstract

This paper concentrates on Mistry’s penultimate book “Family Matters”, a beautifully written traditional novel set in the mid-nineties Mumbai tracing the lives of three generations in a Parsi family. Apart from charting the effects of religious bigotry and rigid traditionalism, the novel scrutinizes other ills of post-colonial Indian society chief among which is the unending corruption of government and politicians. I shall try to emphasize that despite Mistry’s keen interest in universalities which permeates all his work, one of his main preoccupations remains history and the toll it takes on the lives of ordinary people.