The Reluctant Fundamentalist

I rarely read these days, and when I do, I read popular new arrivals. New books are more relevant. They register new information in my brain. But they rarely get me to think. There is one rare exception, however.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist tells the story of a student from Pakistan coming to an elite university in the late 1990s. The protagonist got caught in the political whirlwind of September 11 and journeyed towards an identity he chose to form in the end. (I will not spoil the story. Read it yourself.)

This book does oversimplify and frustratingly falls short on helping me understand fundamentalism. However, the author was daring and made brilliant remarks all through. Any, who comes from a faraway developing land and starts off her American dream with the privileged Americans, can identify with this book.

The protagonist exhibited too many traits that are common among us lucky FOB’s. He was confident in his smarts. He possessed unswayable drive to succeed and unquestioned conviction that he would. He was shocked by the lack of social hierarchy in America. And of course there was his first love. He loved, like the rest of us who also obeyed the rule of large numbers, an American. Coming from a society where sexuality was a taboo, any display of sensuality, even just the bare skin of her arms, created such heightened sense of pleasure and longing within him…

He was living in an American Dream, but from the paradise he fell. Political climate for Pakistanis was not the best after Sept 11. Insecurity awakened our protagonist. External events forced him to ask what his cultural identity was and how much of that he retained. I enjoyed the rest of the book, although he became harder for me to identify with. He shifted his perspectives too quickly. I cannot grasp the intensity of Indian-Pakistan conflict in 2002 as I know so little about it…

No matters. This book does take me back 10 years. Much has changed! I can barely recognize the younger impressionable Kishuki at this point. Nowadays, I am battling with issues daily. Issues! What a foreign concept that would be to a younger Kishuki! I am no longer certain of my smarts. I have doubted the purpose of life many times over. And I have taken a most cynical view on romance. Once in a while, I still flinch when I see something too out of line from where I came from – take, for example, Columbia’s president’s welcoming speech to a guest this week, but this happens almost never.

What does it take for me to rediscover my own cultural identity, I wonder? Can I retain one while living in the other? If I cannot, where do I go from there? I was reading Obama’s first book very recently. He was describing some sentiments expressed by the more fundamental African-Americans. Let me paraphrase: when you go to their universities, go work in their corporations, you become assimilated. You become part of them. In return, you give away your root. And if they are nice to you, it is because they can. They have the power to be gracious. I was upset. I ended up not finishing the book. I doubt he can provide answers to that line of logic.