Mohsin Hamid

But it does mean that the idea of self in the land of self-help is a slippery one.

Slippery can provide access to what would chafe if entered dry.

Then again, maybe she does. Maybe she fears it.

Possibly he exits the compound and makes his way to the ridge behind which he prefers to defecate, squatting low and squeezing forcefully to expel the contents of his colon. Possibly he is alone, or possibly he is not.

He sees the labor by which a farmer exchanges his allocation of time in this world for an allocation of time in this world.

Textbooks, those whores, are particularly explicit in acknowledging this, and it is with a textbook that you, at this moment, after several years in the city, are walking down the street.

Parts of his mind not responsible for control over the tissue and bone of his vocal apparatus wander far, far away.

Focus on the fundamentals. This was Underwood Samson’s guiding principle

We built the Royal Mosque and the Shalimar Gardens in this city, and we built the Lahore Fort with its mighty walls and wide ramp for our battle-elephants. And we did these things when your country was still a collection of thirteen small colonies, gnawing away at the edge of a continent.

Is he praying, you ask? No, sir, not at all! His recitation—rhythmic, formulaic, from memory, and so, I will concede, not unlike a prayer—is in actuality an attempt to transmit orally our menu, much as in your country one is told the specials.