The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid

The title is absolutely eye-catching. Doesn’t give anything about the book away, while letting you form your opinion on what the unturned pages might contain. I had the notion that it would probably be about a Muslim individual who, at the mercy of the situation and the harsh opinions of some of the pseudo-secular countries on Islam, had developed a fundamentalist ideology, perhaps bordering on extremism which leads to human-bombing and 9/11 like incidents.

But the book was surprisingly different. On the inside on the front cover, the book carries a summary that the book is about the turn of events that lead to a conversation between a certain Pakistani named Changez and an American tourist in a Lahore eatery. And I had my doubts if I would like the book.

As promised, it was about the life of Changez, his stay in US and an account of his academic, professional and romantic life in US. Then came 9/11 and how things changed post that for him. Again, if I had known that the book was about what I wrote about in that last two sentences, it would have failed to excite me. But then the narration is absolutely beautiful! It is a monologue between Changez and the American tourist. And interspersed with the story of his life, Changez talks about the scenes and sounds around the dhaba as the day progresses. The author keeps the love story of Changez uncharacteristically un-sappy. His internal struggles are extremely well brought out without giving the impression that “The idiot is thinking too much”. And lastly the one-way dialogue is not just a rant of I-me-mine… as Changez tries to ensure that the American is being entertained, not just by his story, but the delightful food, and the pleasant hustling and bustling atmosphere of a Pakistani city.
Again, the life of this whole book is in the narration. It renders tremendous beauty to what otherwise could have been a slightly depressing and even a boring book. In the end, it is not only captivating, but poignant as well. And it is just as long as it should have been. At 180 pages, it makes an excellent read for that bus ride of yours to the neighboring state.