I don't know whether it's because of Empire, but the Indian subcontinent shares a great deal with the British sense of humour, switching without warning from irony to farce to pathos to outright tragedy.
A Case of Exploding Mangoes sounds like it belongs to the tradition of 'Carry on Up the Khyber', and in some ways it does (it enjoys being both silly and naughty), but the story it tells (of the mysterious assassination of Pakistani President Zia, and the mystery that no-one really seemed that interested in finding out who did it) is deadly serious.
As someone who lived in Pakistan during Zia's 'reign', I don't fully recognise the level of opression and paranoia presented in the book, but I have no doubt that the author (like the book's main protagonist, an army officer recruit in those days) saw things from a very different perspective.
It is hard to tell a story when one knows the ending already, but this book does it very, very well. The book even has time to take a crafty side-swipe at US foreign policy in the region: a character called 'OBL' appears at a party organised by the American ambassador to Pakistan and is clearly both an embarrassment and a vital part of America's 'secret' war with Russia in Afghanistan. That he may have become very, very rich through his partnership with the CIA is something best not thought about...
But at the heart of the story is this remarkable relationship between two men (well, boys, really), which grounds all the joking at Zia's expense in something so disarmingly touching that one cannot help but be emotionally invested in the unknown outcomes for these characters.
I would love to have dinner with Mohammed Hanif: I can't imagine that he is anything but as urbane, intelligent, sassy and just plain funny as this book is. So does it describe the state of a nation the way Midnight's Children and Shame do? No. It's having too much fun for that...
Amazon Home
