Negotiating Narratives: Disability, Ageing and Social Exclusion in the Fiction of Rohinton Mistry

Abstract

Rohinton Mistry is one of the most influential contemporary Indian English novelists known for his realistic and compassionate portrayal of ordinary lives. His fiction reflects themes such as poverty, displacement, suffering, family relationships, marginalisation, and human resilience. His major works include Such a Long Journey, A Fine Balance, and Family Matters. Through simple yet powerful storytelling, Mistry captures the struggles of common people with deep sensitivity and humanity. The fiction of Rohinton Mistry deeply reflects the struggles, pain, and resilience of ordinary people living in a complex and unequal society. His novels portray characters who suffer because of poverty, caste discrimination, political oppression, ageing, illness, and social neglect. In many of his works, disability becomes an important theme through which he explores identity, loneliness, and exclusion. This paper studies the representation of disability in Such a Long Journey, A Fine Balance, and Family Matters. It also examines that disability in Mistry’s fiction is not shown only as a physical or mental condition, but also as a social experience shaped by injustice, neglect and emotional suffering. It critically analyses how ageing gradually becomes a burden to the family and leads to the social exclusion and human suffering. The aged people are treated as old furniture in the family and society.

The paper explores how Mistry’s characters struggle to maintain dignity and self-respect in a society that often ignores or humiliates them. Characters such as Nariman Vakeel, Ishvar, Omprakash, and Maneck face different forms of physical and emotional suffering, yet they continue to search for love, care, belonging, and hope. Mistry shows how families, social institutions, and political systems frequently fail to support vulnerable individuals. At the same time, he highlights the importance of compassion, human connection, and mutual support in surviving difficult circumstances. Using ideas from Disability Studies and postcolonial theory, this paper explores how Mistry gives voice to people who are pushed to the margins of society. His fiction questions social attitudes that treat disabled and marginalised people as burdens or outsiders. The study concludes that Mistry presents disability as a deeply human experience connected with identity, suffering, and survival. Through his sensitive portrayal of pain and endurance, he reminds readers of the value of empathy and the strength of the human spirit.