Friday, October 26, 2007

An excerpt

Changez thinks, as he is on his way to New York, just when his hometown Lahore and Pakistan are on the verge of an impending war with India..........."On the flight i noticed how many of my fellow passengers were similar to me in age: college students and young professionals, heading back after the holidays. I found it ironic; children and the elderly were meant to be sent away from impending battles, but in our case it was fittest and brightest who were leaving, those who in the past would have been most expected to remain. I was filled with contempt for myself, such contempt that i could not bring myself to converse or to eat."

- The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Mohsin Hamid

1 comment:

Kartick Sitaraman said...

How true that excerpt is of our current day scenario - the fittest, brightest young minds go about minding THEIR business, while the world at large is going to the dogs.

Maybe that's how it had always been, maybe Gandhi, Nehru, Patel etc were all people with some sort of political or social ambitions which the professional working class of the day lacked.

I imagine what may have come off our fight to freedom had the educated working class also participated in the struggle. But then again, if they did, there would be no one left to move the machinery, would there?

To each man, his own fights...