swimming lessons and other stories from firozsha baag

This is evident in the last story from which the book derives its title. This turns out to be true when Kersi reemerges as the narrator of three more episodes from his own life and times.

We have a hunch that there’s more to Kersi than merely smashing rats with his cricket bat. But is Francis really a thief? We wonder through Kersi, the young Boyce boy who lives downstairs and volunteers to catch the perpetrator, but feels guilty of turning in the hapless Francis. Driven to desperation by his hunger and poverty, he sneaks into Najamai’s flat in her absence – Najamai the widow gossip monger of the colony whose daughters study abroad and who is the sole owner of a refrigerator in Block C, exchanging favours from her neighbours in letting them use it. “One Sunday”, Francis the homeless errand boy for many Baag residents turns into a thief. As he laments on the state of the world, we realize that there’s a tender, pensive side to the “tough exterior” of Rustomji that his wife adores. The rather comical nature of the story, starting out with Rustomji trying to free himself of constipation and constantly being delayed in his visit to the fire temple that he finally has to abandon due to a ghati (a derogatory term, used by Rustomji, for people of the Western Ghats migrated to Bombay) spitting tobacco juice from the bus on his dugli, is punctured in the end with the murder of a priest. We see a slice of his life on the “Auspicious Occasion” of Behram Roje. The children of the Baag, always in the shadow of his squabbles, lap it up. Rustomji of Block A, a bitter old lawyer blessed with a thoughtful, caring wife much younger than himself, is called Rustomji the Curmudgeon – a name given by his fellow resident Nariman Hansotia. Unlike the old, crubmling blocks of Firozsha Baag, the lives of its residents – adults and children, men and women, owners and servants – are rich and interesting. Although they can be read individually, the stories are interconnected through recurring characters and incidents – like Pesi padmaroo and his antics and Nariman Hansotia with his trips to the Cawasji Framji Memorial Library. Being a Parsi himself, it comes as no surprise that he should choose a Parsi residential society as the setting. “Swimming Lessons…” is a collection of eleven short stories by the accomplished Rohinton Mistry.

Swimming lessons and other stories from firozsha baag