Restrained to perfection. Thats how I see this masterpiece. Mohsin Hamid has painted an image that is too compelling to cast aside. In fact, there are instances where you’ll find echoing in the mind of Changez, the Pakistan-to-Princeton protagonist, the lost depth of your own soul. The voice that you perhaps silenced aeons ago. To say the least, you ‘rediscover’ the fragility of your own being, the scars made deeper and more smarting.

One thing that immediately strikes you in the controlled flow of Hamid’s exquisite narrative is the instant kinship you develop with Changez. He doesn’t seem someone alien despite his, ‘respectful politeness’. Infact, the more you discover him, the more you realize how incomplete we ourselves are. How inspite of umpteen races and nationalities, human beings still have something in common. Their inner ‘vulnerability’. Their inner ‘reluctance’.

From a regal family in Pakistan whose name deteriorated slowly than its wealth, Changez rises meteorically and ‘on the ranks of meritocracy’ gets into Princeton University. His ‘hunger’ earns him a place into an upper crust firm in America, Underwood Samson and Company. And, then there is no looking back. He starts believing and conducting himself as an American. Nay, a  hardcore New Yorker.

His lifestyle does a paradigm shift and so does his mind-set. Or, so he lets himself believe. Whether it is his relationship with the pretty Erica or applying ‘fundamentals’ in his professional life or rising into the elite society of New York, slowly but surely he marches on. Firm. Everything seems perfect. The Great American Dream didn’t sound too good to be true. It was, in fact, even better. And, it was materializing right in front of his eyes.

Religion, Ethnicity, Background – where do these fare on the grounds of merit, of excellence, of being human? No where. Alas! If that were true. Add on to it the anxieties and pains, the agonies and ghosts of the past, and you will realize that maybe, even being human is grievous than being animalistic.

Changez faces something like this, or perhaps worse, when 9/11 happens. Gone were the days when his brown skin, the ‘middle’ man, would effectively blend in the serpentine current of New Yorkers. Instead, his nationality, his religion, his wheatish complexion and his beard become his only identity ‘in America’. America! The great superpower that had welcome him with open arms was suddenly hostile.

At 22, ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ Changez finds his life in a strage vortex. And, he finds he has nothing substantial. Nothing concrete within. Something he could hold on to, inspite of anything and everything. Something that he never had, till date, and perhaps he felt, was the reason he lost Erica. Or, was it she who chose not to be a part of his life? He would never know. It was a vortex of paradoxes.

The journey takes unexpected and, even, poignant turns. What remains or what is lost within are what makes ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ such a delightful read. An evening with this book can change your outlook and make it more broad, more encompassing. I felt a strange sense of bonding with Pakistan and its people, something I had not felt in my entire life. But, was it because we have the same background? Or, because they seem vaguely similar than the distant Americans? Am I too a victim of ethnic misinterpretations?

‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ is a peek into the minds of those who build magnificent castles and, yet, fail to identify the foundation beneath. And above all it, as succinctly put by Kurkus Reviews, is ‘A grim reminder of the continuing cost of ethnic profiling, miscommunication and confrontation.’

Magnificent! I would give it a 4 on 5.

Siddhartha