Revelation and Inspiration

The quest to find the truth behind Muslim belief and a journey of indomitable courage make the subjects of two riveting books, notes CHITRA SUDARSHAN.

This book is very much in the same genre as Sadanand Dhume’s My Friend the Fanatic, and V S Naipaul’s Among the Believers – in that it is a travel journal by a non believer through Islamic lands and societies, and their experience of extremist Islam.  The difference is that Aaatish Taseer’s book, Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands, is an interdigitation of his own life’s journey with the political.

Aatish was born in Delhi out of an affair between Salman Taseer – currently the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab – and the well-known Indian journalist Tavleen Singh.  Aatish was brought up his Sikh grandparents.  At the age of 20 something, Aatish goes to meet his (hitherto absent) father and his step family in Pakistan for the first time.  A little later, in 2005, Aatish, now a journalist in London, writes an article about the Leeds bombers responsible for the 7/7 terrorist attacks. This evokes a strong reaction from his Pakistani father who accuses Aatish of not understanding Islam.  Aatish resolves to find out what it is that made his father – an alcohol drinking, pork eating self-confessed non-believer – a Muslim.  His quest takes him to Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and finally Pakistan. 

His grim portrayal of Muslim communities in the countries he visited – including those in the Beeston suburb of Leeds from whence the London bombers came – is disconcerting and unsettling, to say the least. Taseer observes a gulf between what it means to be a British Pakistani and a British Indian: to be Indian is to come from a safe, ancient society, and more recently, an emergent power.  In contrast, to be Pakistani is to begin with an incomplete sense of nationhood.  In the 60+ years that Pakistan has been a country, it has been a dangerous and violent place, and has defined itself by a hatred of India. 

Not surprisingly, even ‘liberal’ Pakistanis (such as Ziauddin Sardar) have bagged the book because of its critique of Islamism. Perhaps Aatish’s observations of Islamism in the Arab nations and Iran is reductionist and facile.  However, his description of his visit to Pakistan is compelling as it is a subject about which he knows best and is most deeply felt.  The scar of partition of the subcontinent is a scar across his family and his own heart.  That in the twenty first century Pakistan still nurtures myths about itself  and ‘the other’, viz India, is beyond belief: that Hindus are depraved, cowardly and effeminate; that Pakistan was a nation born somewhere in the middle east; that their women are prettier, they are braver etc. Aatish’s account is honest, self-effacing and riveting, and there is a sincere attempt to engage with his subject.  Nowhere does he push a view or harangue the reader.  I certainly found the book riveting.

A book – of a totally different genre, is The Cure – a book that inspired the movie, Extraordinary Measures, (starring Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, and Keri Russell). It was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist of Indian origin, Geeta Anand.  It is the incredible true story of a father’s determination to find a cure for his terminally ill children, even if it meant he had to build a business from scratch to do so.  Geeta Anand, while still a student, and later while working for a pharmaceutical company, did a profile of that father, John Crowley, in The Wall Street Journal, and she expanded the profile into a book and  published it in 2006 as The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million – And Bucked the Medical Establishment – In a Quest to Save His Children.  It is a most moving and inspiring story simultaneously of the love of a father and his refusal to accept the fate of his children lying down – and the birth of a business enterprise.  Anand’s experience working in R&D for a large pharma company meant she had a keen understanding of all it takes to get a drug through the development and approval process – and that inside knowledge adds to the depth of this book.

With deft prose and devastating clarity, Wall Street Journal reporter Geeta Anand has written a wonderful account of this remarkable story of cutting-edge science, business acumen and daring on the one hand, and the indomitable fighting spirit of a family on the other.  This book will inspire anyone who reads it.