Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 310

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "A Dutiful Boy: A memoir of secrets, lies and family love," by Mohsin Zaidi.

‘What if the non-believer is a really good person?’ I asked, without waiting to be called on. I was thinking of Superman. Superman was my hero. He wasn’t Muslim but he helped everybody. 

The young preacher smiled sympathetically in my direction. ‘They still won’t go to heaven,’ he replied, shaking his head gently, as if damning somebody to eternal hellfire was as straightforward as saying yes or no to a cup of tea. 

‘OK …’ the cogs in my seven-year-old mind still turning, ‘but what if you have a non-believer who is better than a Muslim? Then what happens?’ 

His arms now crossed as he sat up to look at me more purposefully. ‘The Muslim will answer to Allah for his behaviour. The non-believer will be punished for failing to embrace Islam,’ he said, in a tone slightly sharper than before. 

That still didn’t sound fair. ‘OK … What if you get a non-believer who has been really, really good and never heard of Islam. What happens to them?’

 

Frustrated with my childish inquisitiveness, he snapped back: ‘That wouldn’t happen these days because of technology,’ and then he moved on. 

As we were ushered into the men’s hall for the main sermon, the conversation left me uncomfortable, like I had swallowed something without chewing.

Go on, Mohsin. Say it. It’s time. I … I’m … I … I’m g-gay, I said to myself. I was overcome with a rush of exhilaration while the fluttering emotions in my chest searched frantically for a place to settle. I said it loud enough to make it real but so softly it didn’t touch the walls, or the carpet or the bed. I didn’t want it to tarnish the room. Saying the words made me feel like I’d been released from the dark pit of my imagination, allowed for a moment to stretch and scream. I let myself imagine him. A man who might love me, who might hold my hand one day. That was enough, just to picture him, for a brief moment. 

The relief was short-lived. What would I do? I would do nothing. I could feel the angels on my shoulders scribbling furiously. I would tell no one. I would work hard, get a job, find a wife and have children just the way Allah had planned. I could never tell anyone my secret. I found the dark pit this emotion had emerged from and folded the feeling, and myself, back inside. I felt the stone-cold lid shut me in; this was a familiar darkness. A darkness that comforted my eyes after the blinding light.

‘You know, I’ve figured out why you’re so sexy. You have Western features and brown skin,’ he announced. ‘It’s that combination of East and West.’ 

‘You think that without my “Western features” I wouldn’t be attractive?’ 

‘That’s not racist!’ 

‘No?’ 

‘Of course not. If I was racist I wouldn’t be here, would I?’ he said triumphantly. 

For gays, I was too Muslim. For Muslims, I was too gay. For whites, I was too brown, and for my family, I was too white. It was time to create a space where I could just be myself. And to do that, I had to bite the bullet and move out of the house because it no longer felt like a home.

‘You know, I was so upset when she told me,’ said the woman with the samosa. 

‘Yes, I was also very, very upset,’ replied the other. 

‘But now I see that this is normal. I love her completely!’ 

‘Yes, yes, me too, completely normal.’ 

Asian mothers could compete over absolutely anything.

GQ magazine had voted ‘criminal barrister’ one of the top ten sexiest professions in the world but it didn’t seem to be doing much for my love life. When I boastfully told people I was a barrister they assumed I was working in a coffee shop.