What goes through the mind of a man when he decides to die? When he convinces himself that his life holds meaning only in death? Does he then block all thoughts from his mind and focus only on the end? Or does he reflect on the two realities — the death he’s reaching out to and the life that would soon be lost? Ours Are The Streets takes us into the mind of one such man, a suicide bomber, and the journey is, to say the least, disturbing.
Sheffield-born Imtiaz Raina is, but for his brown skin, as British as any other young man his age. His parents, first-generation immigrants from Pakistan, dote on him. When he decides to marry his white girlfriend, Rebekah, who is pregnant, they happily welcome her into their house. The only condition is that she should convert. Rebekah has no problems with that and is soon covering her head and leading the life of a “Muslima”.
On the face of it, everything seems to be going right for Imtiaz. But this is just one part of his world. There are also the streets outside, which make him acutely aware of his Pakistani origins. The streets that should be theirs too, but aren’t. And this awareness and alienation become even more pronounced in the way his parents react or respond to the world they live in but also try to steer clear of. “Home” is left behind in Pakistan and their “home country” England hasn’t quite accepted them. They too haven’t adapted to it.
The fact hits Imtiaz again and again through his parents’ insecurity, embarrassment and humiliation. When he takes them to a Pakistani restaurant to introduce Rebekah to them and his mother cannot read the menu because it’s in English. “... Abba and Ammi just kept on glancing at each other. The menu were all in English. I’d not thought it through and now you looked all embarrassed... I hated that you felt you were embarrassing me.” Or when the bride-to-be at a hen party throws her arms around his father and breathes beer and cigarette over his face while he suffers the humiliation silently. Or when a passenger pees in his father’s taxi who tries to make light of it.
For Imtiaz’s parents, this is an alien country where they came to to fulfil their dreams. The ambitions were soon pushed into a corner as life became a struggle to stay out of trouble. When he confronts him, Imtiaz’s father tells him: “Uff, what is the point in causing more trouble, hain? A little trouble is part of the job.” But the angst is evident in his voice even though he tries to conceal it in words. The suffering of both generations of migrants, which is all so familiar, clearly comes through.
Imtiaz lives with his parents’ misery until he arrives in Pakistan with his mother for the funeral of his father who has died of a heart-attack while chasing a fare-dodger. He sees the change in his mother the moment they land at the airport in Lahore. She tells off an immigration officer who is looking to get his palms greased. The same meek woman who back in England would squirm at every remotely uncomfortable encounter glares at the officer and says: “Eh, son-of-a-dog, we’re here to bury his abba, not line your pockets. Put the stamp on.” She’s assertive, she’s aware of her rights, she’s in the world where she belongs. A similar feeling sweeps over Imtiaz in those weeks in his village. As the extended family stands together praying after he is lowered into the ground, Imtiaz recalls, “I felt really solid, rooted to the earth. I felt magnificent.”
It’s this quest to belong, to shun his foreignness and prove his roots that leads Imtiaz to Kashmir and then to the jihadi camp in Afghanistan where the sky seems closer and his mind clearer. He wants to make a difference to this world, his world, in whatever way. Like the time he spends hours in a broken-down old fort trying to put back the displaced bricks. He’s aware that his hard work has not changed the structure much, and tomorrow his efforts might not even be noticed, but there is the satisfaction of having done his bit.
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Imtiaz’s radicalisation appears to be solely a result of a desperate attempt to shun his foreign tag and to belong. He simply appears to be drifting along with his more radicalised village friend Aaqil, unquestioningly, to prove both to the others and to himself that he’s not a vilayati but one of them. It’s almost as if he’s living up to a dare.
Back in England, the disconnect with the world around him and the world from which he has returned grows sharper. Towards the end, as he moves closer to his mission, to blow himself up Meadowhall, a bustling shopping centre in Sheffield, he appears to lose grip over what is real and what is in his mind. The delusions and the paranoia ultimately consume him. There are situations he sees that don’t seem to have occurred, people that don’t seem to exist (like security guard Tarun) and events that appear imagined (like his suspicion that his wife is having an affair). The mental illness that appears to push him towards his mission does not escape the reader.
Ours Are The Streets could have easily slipped into being yet another story of a suicide bomber. Worse, it could have been a commentary of sorts. Thankfully, it isn’t. Author Sunjeev Sahota, though a British-Asian but a non-Muslim, succeeds in creating the many emotions and realities that Imtiaz lives — his passion for his wife, love for his family and the conviction for a cause that he somehow doesn’t even seem to have thought over deeply. It’s a tricky subject, deftly handled by the first-time writer whose style moves between being lyrical and melancholic.
The story of jihadi Imtiaz Raina has been narrated entirely by Imtiaz Raina. It’s the story he writes every single night, when his mind is not too messed up to write. It’s the story he’s leaving behind for his wife Rebekah, daughter Noor, ammi and even his dead abba in the hope that they will understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. What begins with him sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper struggling to get started ends with him begging his abba not to leave his side. In between, the desperation to get rid of his own inbetweenness runs through. In the end, it’s just painful to see a man degenerate this way.
OURS ARE THE STREETS
Sunjeev Sahota
Picador India
VI + 314 pages; Rs 450
