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Please use this thread to discuss Chapters 10 - 28 (covering MANSOOR AHMED'S RESPONSE TO TERROR and AYUB AZMI'S RESPONSE TO TERROR).

How is your reading of the characters and situation changing with each perspective presented?
What do you think motivates each of the characters in their actions and their responses?

Chapters 10-22

This section read better to me than the first part. The narrative feels more localized as Mahajan veers our focus onto Mansoor; who, I'll be honest, has been on my mind since the preliminary pages.

I wondered mostly about where his path would take him since he was the one that made it out of the blast...What does his future entail? It warmed my heart to learn he made it to the states for education purposes, and broke my heart upon his return back to India. Mansoor, when describing his involvement (as a victim) in the blast of 1996, always seemed as if he was just telling a story; and not telling "his" story as if it was part of him, as if it was something that happened "to him..." He was removed from it. I couldn't understand why, other than it being a defense mechanism; but then Mahajan writes,

After a certain point the violence in your life acquires unreality through repetition (142),

which definitely helps put things into perspective for Mansoor because he's told his story too many times.

I was quite taken aback by Mahajan's raw honesty about the realities which plague India, or rather, the realities that have continued to plague India since before 1948...The ongoing war between the Hindus and Muslims Specifically, Mahajan doesn't mince words about the rise and power of a little old sweet man (he looks sweet to me) named, Narendra Modi. He, who gives Hindus hope to make India great... at the cost of Muslim oppression...And the poor! Sound familiar? That's because it is. In the book, Modi is still the , and

he and his administration had stood by in localities..., are with swords, petrol bombs, tridents, and water pistols to spray fuel, had set upon , burning them alive, tearing infants from their mothers and fetuses from wombs, raping women, killing a thousand. And they had realized that the Indian government wouldn't protect them, that in fact it had an incentive to demonize and exterminate them (144).

I can't imagine this type of division in a country like India, not perpetuating terrorism, instead of suppressing it...Pushing young impressionable and lost muslims towards a life of uncertainty, or worse...extremism.

In fact, I wonder if this isn't slowly happening to Mansoor; who is finding himself enmeshed in his religion, choosing an addiction to Islam to his addiction for pain? There are a couple of places that lead me to believe there may be some sort of self inflicted sabotage at play, despite the peaceful (yet misogynistic) teachings of Islam through Ayub; although, I'm not completely sure?

The members of Peace For All were not radicals. They were eminently reasonable people, students engrossed in careers, people who wanted to be Indians but had discovered themselves instead to be Muslims and had started to embrace their identities. In their alienation, their desire to be included in the mainstream, Mansoor recognized himself (144).

Eventually out of loneliness and rage, Mansoor returned to volunteer for Peace For All

The more he realized the connection between the mind and the body, the more he wished to keep his mind clean. If you had horrible thoughts...in your head-how could you be healthy, happy?Your body exploded. You became the bomb (171).

This alienation Mansoor recognizes in himself; the rage that brings him back to the group, and what seems to be a self-destrustctive mindset, all give me a little pause when it comes to Mansoor. Also, keeping in mind how Mahajan leaves this young man at the end of this section, looking upon himself with great guilt, as a poisonous person...unworthy of God...dark, small, pathetic person, an ugly person who shouldn't have lived, I am hoping Ayub or somebody else is able to see the pain Mansoor is still enduring and saves him from ...himself (179-80).

There's something else too, Ghandi's advice to the Jews of Europe when faced with Hitler, committing a mass suicide...This has been brought up twice in the book, so far. Curious to see how it all pans out.

By the end of chapter 22, I feel great sadness for Mansoor and his people. His perspective, but mostly how I read him to be evolving, really has me rooting for an outcome I won't be disturbed by. I was under the impression he found himself a little bit of peace, but it look as if it may have just been a bandaid. This is some solid reading, a great grouping of chapters in this section!

Chapter 23-32
Wait...WHAT? I believe I may have come across the that unpredictable and surprising aspect of the novel! While I had reservations about Mansoor's path and his associations, I didn't give much thought to Ayub's life, other than questioning his intentions while Mansoor forges a relationship with him. I didn't realize how quickly Ayub would unravel, and to such extremes, upon learning Tara was returning to the States. I clearly failed to take notice of a presence, the counterpart to Ayub's calming voice of reason self in the previous chapters. Ayub's cathartic moment and what ensues was difficult and frustrating to read; his impression left on Mansoor, maddening; and his demise in the end left a viable image of poetic justice, in my mind. However, Mahajan does't use this brush stroke of demise just for Ayub. Either literally or figuratively, nobody has been spared in this novel. In my first post, I mentioned how the novel in the beginning, felt like an explosion; but here in the end, it's quite the opposite. Ayub hallucinating about a bomb that has been placed inside of him, was perhaps, the penultimate moment for me because it was then I noticed how many of these characters are living with internal bombs of their own; all on the brink of an implosion.