? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an allegorical narrative of the South Asian experience in the US. The novel opens with the first person narrative of our protagonist, Changez, sitting at a cafe in the Lahore market and having a chat with an American who happened to be in the same cafe. Changez talks about his privileged background in Pakistan and his eventual success at Princeton. He adds his own joy with getting a job with Underwood Sampson, a financial advisory that specializes in mergers and acquisitions of developing firms and the life that he led while he lived in New York. 9/11 happens, and as expected, he begins to describe the drift in his sentiment towards the US and his eventual repatriation to his homeland. Even though the novel does not endorse fundamentalism or terrorism you can feel it peeking its ugly head from page to page, which shows how even the most placid and lucky can look down that rabbit hole and eventually fall in. The novel’s symbolism is obvious but the effect of the first-person narrative makes the storytelling personal and a difficult read to put down. The book would make a great summer read and a good introductory text to the South Asian/Western experience.

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