“As I am pulling on my seat belt, she begins to tell me about her son, who is a year younger than mine. He has 'behavioural problems', odd and difficult moods. He is being tested for several illnesses, attention deficit, autism and something else, I forget."
The woman driver, who offers the narrator ride, is conversational as she gets into a one-sided dialogue before the narrator has wholly descended on her seat. Seemingly, the question on her son’s mental disorder is arduous, so revealing it to the narrator mollifies her affliction. The woman’s self-disclosure provokes empathy in the narrator and the reader.
“As I sit there, I become aware, amazed even, that nothing I might do, or attempt to say, will make any difference to this woman. I was brought up to be polite. In fact I believe that if I am rude, I will be hated.”
The narrator submits herself to the exertion of accommodating the compulsively-talking woman. The woman is not cognizant that she is agitating the narrator, because her abnormal chattiness is a disorder. Being discourteous towards the woman would be in contradiction of the narrator’s ideals; hence, she falters from walking out on the woman when she has the chance.
'I can't understand it!' he burst out. 'Everything is going from his room. And I can't talk to him any more. We were not father and son - we were brothers! Where has he gone? Why is he torturing me?'
Ali’s radicalism wrecks the brotherly bond between him and his father. Their bond is disengaged because their stances are distinctly irreconcilable. Parvez is infuriated by the son’s adverse, apathetic comportment.
“The Western materialists hate us…Papa, how can you love something which hates you?"
The fundamentalist dogma induces the followers by capitalizing on the rhetoric of hatred. Ali is persuaded that the Western nations loathe Islam, so, he is vindicated for abhorring them. Ali’s proclamation endorses that extremism is principally grounded on the West versus Islam antagonism.
“Then he dragged the boy up by his shirt and hit him. The boy fell back. Parvez hit him again. The boy's face was bloody. Parvez was panting. He knew that the boy was unreachable, but he struck him nonetheless. The boy neither covered himself nor retaliated; there was no fear in his eyes. He only said, through his split lip: 'So who's the fanatic now?”
Parvez batters his son, in the resolution, so the story culminates in an antagonistic tone. Although Parvez is assured that the assault will not amend his son’s radical mind set, he strikes him to discharge his exasperation. Ali’s query as regards the fanatic, is anticipated to shift the tag of fanaticism to his father.
