Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
The main character is an investment banker, but he loses his job and social standing and embarks on a downward spiral. His descent also mirrors the political downward spiral of Pakistan during the 1990s.
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid.
This book is the most similar to my own because it explores the life of a junkie in Pakistan who also enjoyed an upper-class lifestyle. The main character is an investment banker, but he loses his job and social standing and embarks on a downward spiral. His descent also mirrors the political downward spiral of Pakistan during the 1990s. It’s set in yet another country, in a different social milieu in which addiction exists, but in a lot of ways Pakistan is very similar to Bangladesh. Both countries have a big divide between the rich and poor and drugs are a taboo topic, about which there is little understanding. Young people in both countries are scoring from the slums and probably using the same drug chains of Afghanistan and India.
It’s a very lyrical and beautiful book, though I don’t believe Mohsid Hamid explores what it takes to get over addiction.
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Social psychologist Shazia Omar is the author of Like a Diamond in the Sky, a novel about Bangladeshi addicts. Omar is a founding member of Writers Block, an organisation that aims to promote the works of Bangladeshis writing in English. Drug addiction, she says, is a growing problem here. Many people are taking a drug called yabba, which comes from Thailand and is similar to speed. ‘It’s an expensive drug so it’s the well-off young people who are doing it. A lot of those I met while researching the book didn’t realise they were going to get hooked. None of them knew how harmful it is,’ she says. Having spent a month doing research in a rehab centre in Mumbai, she concludes that love, and not a punitive approach, is the answer to overcoming addiction.
