Rohinton Mistry, an Indian born writer belonging to Parsi community, was born in 1952 and grew up in Bombay, where he graduated from university with a B. Sc. despite his interest in literature and arts. After spending 23 years of his life in India, he emigrated to Canada in 1975 to become a pop singer. In order to survive in Canada, he took up a bank job and studied part time in the evening for a degree in English and philosophy at the University of Toronto. In 1983, he sent a short story, ‘One Sunday’ to the Hart House Literary Contest, and won the first prize. The following year, he sent ‘Auspicious Occasions’ to the same contest and won again. That is how he began his literary career. Bombay, the city where Rohinton Mistry spent his initial …show more content…
As Gustad’s grandmother warns him: “Never argue with a goaswalla…If he loses his temper, then bhup! He will stick you with his knife. Won’t stop to even think about it… Remember, the goaswalla’s whole life, his training, his occupation, is about butchering” (Mistry 21). Another important landmark of Bombay is Flora Fountain. The official Modern name of Flora Fountain is Hutatma Chowk. It was designed by a committee that included R. Norman Shaw, though it doesn’t look like it, and was erected in honour of Bartle Frere, the Governor responsible for laying out much of the post-1860 ‘new Bombay’, which is now so thoroughly ensconced in the patina of time lying on its Gothic surfaces. At the main intersection of Flora Fountain, the great traffic radiates five roads like giant pulsating tentacles. The traffic becomes a metaphor for recklessness and indiscipline. As Dinshawji describes: Cars were pulling out from inside the traffic island and recklessly leaping into the flow. The BEST buses, red and double-deckered, careened dangerously around the circle on their way to Colaba. Intrepid handcarts, fueled by muscle and bone, competed temerariously against the best that steel, petrol and vulcanized rubber threw in their paths (Mistry