Abstract

The publication of Family Matters, an intergenerational saga of a Parsi family’s trials and tribulations amidst the politically tense and ideologically contentious atmosphere in 1990’s Bombay catapulted its author Rohinton Mistry to fame and solidified his status as one of India’s premier exponents of Indian Writing in English. The Parsi identity and experience, a subject Mistry has explored repeatedly throughout his literary career returns yet again in this novel as do the pitfalls of being part of a minority community in this diversity that is India that Mistry’s characters have to contend with in a futile attempt to preserve their Parsi heritage. That includes upholding the tradition of Zoroastrianism, performing sacred rites, initiating the uninitiated into Parsi faith as well as the impediments that have followed the Parsi community in India Post-Independence. Mistry’s novel particularly focuses on memory, both on a personal and social level to provide commentary on the growing dissatisfaction that have followed the Parsi community since independence well into the new millenium. Following Jan and Aleida Assmann’s ‘Cultural Memory’ model and of Memory Studies as a whole, the present paper attempts an analysis of Mistry’s novel and puts forth an argument that the characters’ attempt at negotiating their Parsi identity in the face of a tussle between ‘tradition and modernness’ serves instead to destabilize their identity.