Playwright Anosh Irani adapted Rohinton Mistry's epic 'A Fine Balance' for the stage at Crow's Theatre

Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" — a 600-plus-page epic published in 1995 — became a bestseller when Oprah Winfrey selected it for her book club. The novel won the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and was a finalist for the Booker Prize. The work of historical fiction follows four unlikely roommates sharing a cramped flat in an unnamed Mumbai in the mid-1970s, as the state of emergency declared by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi throws everyday life into turmoil.

Now, playwright and novelist Anosh Irani — a Dora Award winner — has adapted the sprawling tale into a three-hour stage production opening at Crow's Theatre. The cast stars Sugith Varughese ("Kim's Convenience", "Transplant"), Husein Madhavji ("Saving Hope"), and Siddharth Sharma ("Sterling Point").

Irani approached Crow's Theatre a couple of years ago wanting them to mount his own work. During a Zoom call with then–associate artistic director Paolo Santalucia, he was surprised to learn they wanted to commission an adaptation instead — and even more surprised when they specified "A Fine Balance." Irani had just finished one play and was working on another book. "I didn't want to take on more work," he said. "But then he said, 'It's A Fine Balance,' and I went, 'Well, how can anyone say no?'"

The scope of the book is massive, encompassing half a century of Indian history and politics alongside four main characters. For the adaptation, Irani kept faithful to the book's essence while departing from plot mechanics. "My main focus was on character," he explained. He picked lines and strands, building scenes around them using the fundamentals of playwriting — cause and effect, clear power dynamics, and the story's core: a found family forged through friendship.

"A Fine Balance is a perfect example of an intimate epic," Irani said. "Sometimes characters get lost when a novel's scope is large, but that never happens here. The book's main strengths are character and relationships, how friendships are formed, and how hope keeps rising within us even though better judgment tells us things won't work out."

The shared background between Irani and Mistry — both from Bombay and the Zoroastrian community — informed the adaptation's authenticity. Though Irani was too young to experience the Emergency firsthand, he grew up hearing stories about that time from family members. Mistry's first book, "Tales from Firozsha Baag," was set in a Parsi colony, and Irani grew up in a similar one, lending deeper understanding to the novel's cultural specificity.

The Emergency serves as an external threat in the play, while the adaptation's real focus remains the four characters and their interconnected lives. Irani's playwriting craft turned the novel's intimate moments into stageable scenes without losing the emotional weight that made the book resonate with millions of readers.