Don't tell me to go anywhere; this is my home!

The Perfect Gentleman; Imran Ahmad (2012)

This is one book that most boys who grew up in a community where they are a minority can relate to. Here a Pakistani Muslim family moves to the UK in the 70s for better life and here is the description of the young boy who saw the world from his lenses. On one hand, he feels he feels very part of the country yet his fellow neighbours and everyday people who come in contact with him insist that he is different.
He narrates the uneasy times when he was heckled for being a 'Paki', almost missed his footing on a bus when the bus driver decided that he had enough with foreigners in the country especially when the economy was bad in the mid 70s.
Throughout his life he had an identity crisis with what is considered as norm in his family and what is practised in the country on the whole. He has a constant struggle with his religious belief taught by his parents and that of the one thought in the missionary and grammar schools. The recurring theme in his life is who is the real God, is it Allah, Jesus or Father of Jesus? What if he chose the wrong God and be eternally damned in the afterlife?
But then, I do wonder too, whilst reading through the book, why being in the 'correct' religion is a constant nag in people's life. Some people just accept the religion they are born into and do best with what they have. Religions with many names can never replace God with no name!

The ultraconservative religious groups (both Christian and Islamic) are of no help but confuse his standings. He wonders if animals have souls or are they just soulless automated vessels!

Growing in a predominantly White community, his likes and dislikes mirror that of his peers. Dressing like his idols, Simon Templar and James Bond (tall, dark, handsome with a longish nose), he daydreams of blondes falling flat at his feet. 

His conservative upbringing and religious convictions, however, makes him meek when it comes to things related to interactions between sexes. He just dreams on about the girls (mostly whites) who came in his life. They eventually went on their own ways. 

After reading all about his escapades and near misses in his academic life and later in his working life with Unilever and General Electric, we read that he finally met his life partner through matchmaking. Unfortunately, we are also made to understand that it did not quite work out. He, probably to respect the parties involved, decided not to dwell much into his post engagement life. It stops short just before the the matrimonial plans.

The book aptly ends with the answers to most of the questions that riddled in his mind throughout his life. The heartaches, hard knocks, death (of his cat, Star) managed to enlighten him on many things in life. At the end he accepts many inputs from other religions of the world as no one is superior to the other. There are many good things and bad things in all cultures. 

I could not understand why some people are so fixated with finding 'The Truth' and why do they the Truth is a single truth via a single path. Why can't they accept that 'all roads lead to Rome' and the truth is fragmented as whatever is told to us is heresy and we all know how some people is so insistent and cocksure about somethings as if they had an audience with God himself!