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"'...There just isn't that much work these days.' Another French inhale. 'We have more people than we need right now. And the boys we're hiring have connections worth more than their salaries. We're just giving them the respectability of a job here in exchange for their families' business.'"

Moth Smoke, p.56

Mumtaz gets ready for a boxing workout at Daru's house. "The front door opens and Mumtaz steps in, wearing track pants, expensive-looking running shoes, a T-shirt, and big shades" (Moth Smoke, 123). I didn't draw the her sunglasses because she put it away with her rings on a table while Daru was wrapping her hands with boxing tape.

#mumtaz #selfmade

Daru went to the doctor after he got beat by Shuja's father and his father's bodyguards. His doctor told him that he "only have a concussion, a dent in my skull, a broken nose, a broken rib, a compound fracture of my left forearm, cuts totaling seventy-one stitches on both legs, one arm, my neck, my shoulder, my eyebrows, and the spot where I bit through my lips. I'm missing one front teeth. The small finger of my left hand was partly torn off..." (Moth Smoke, p. 200)

#injureddaru #selfmade

"‘Do you know what happens when you detonate a nuclear bomb under the desert?’ she asks. ‘No.’ ‘The sand turns to glass.’"

Moth Smoke, p. 131

Rickshaw is the cheapest mean of transportation, usually for "the masses". It doesn't have AC like cars and it can carry up to 8 people including the drivers. Murad Badshah owns a rickshaw business.

#rickshaw

Suzuki, on the other hand, is mostly used by poorer population, which include Daru. It still have AC, but the engine isn't as powerful as a Pajero. There are times where Daru was left behind when Daru and Ozi went to Punjab Club, simply because his Suzuki cound't catch up with Ozi's Pajero.

#car2

Pajero is the type of car that Ozi and other "elite" members of society use to commute.

#car

The population from Karachi is the highest; however, Mohsin Hamid decided to choose Lahore as the city where the story takes place. This provokes a question: why did he choose Lahore? Is it because he's from Lahore himself?

#map2 #provocativeqs

This is the the moth I spotted in my bathroom. As you can see, it is approaching the only light source in the room, just like what the moths in the book do.

#moth #selfmade

This is the map of Pakistan, with Lahore being the place that the story happens; Karachi being where Mumtaz was from, and Islamabad being the capital city of Pakistan

#map #selfmade

All humans are born equal and free and that their behavior and character are determined by the society that they spend most of their time in.

When Ozi and Daru were still in school together, they were best friends. They did everything together. The only thing was that Ozi did it first, and Daru followed. He gave him “his first cigarette, his first blue video, his first joint.” (Moth Smoke, 208). In addition, Ozi also “helps him pick out his first leather jacket” (Moth Smoke, 208) and “teaches him how to use gel and pull a one-eighty” (Moth Smoke, 208). They were classed as the popular kids that were too cool for school. However, things changed by the time they pursued higher education in secondary institutions. Ozi, with the money from his so-labelled “corrupted dad”, went to the United States to study, left behind Daru who wasted years in a local college that he didn’t even like. Now when Ozi comes back, his perspective on certain things completely changed. He stops smoking cigarettes. He starts socializing with people in higher class. He throws party without inviting Daru. All of this happens not because he hates Daru, although he has many reasons to do so, but because he meets new people when he’s in America. And they are not just regular people, they are lawyers – they are professionals. In fact, there was even a point where “Ozi was doing sixty hours a week of trusts and estates for a big law firm and, surprisingly, loving it” (Moth Smoke, 162). And that alone has affected how Ozi acts. Both old-Ozi and new-Ozi come back to the same city but they aren’t the same. Old-Ozi only sits around and do drugs while the other Ozi climbs up the corporate ladders. In other words, Ozi has been through that “character-metamorphosis” – a liminal state that he himself doesn’t even realize. From “the very fellow, in fact, who got me started on cigarettes in the first place, when we were fourteen, because he looked so cool smoking on the roof of his old house” (Moth Smoke, 12) to a “wealthy, well connected, successful” (Moth Smoke, 201) young man that make people jealous. Meanwhile, during that time the unsatisfied Daru worked as a banker and later on got fired, descends himself to drugs and involves in criminal activities with Murad Badshah. At the end, he was put in jail for murdering a boy, which he didn't do but still being charged simply because the corrupted government stands on Ozi side. As you can see, Ozi lives in a strong, stable United States, which makes him a confident, open-minded individual who doesn't say anything even though he knows his best friend and his wife are having an affair. Daru stays in unstable, unethical Pakistan where police officers and other powerful authorities suck the money out of citizens. "Give me two thousand, and I'll convince them to let you go" (Moth Smoke, 16). Therefore, it's no surprise that Daru turns himself to dealing drugs and robbing boutiques in order to survive.

#liminal #liberalism #selfmade

My Recommendation

In my opinion, everyone should read this book at some point, preferably before moving out and living on one's own. It demonstrates vividly the average life of an individual who doesn't have a job. I also recommend this book to anyone who still abuse the power of drugs. Even though it makes you feel good about yourself, sometimes even invincible; however, too indifference towards other's feeling is never a good thing. For example, when Mumtaz and Daru were having an affair and everything seems to go well for them, Daru took a hit of heroin and told her that she wasn't a good mother. Clearly, the drugs have made him emotional insensitive. They had an argument and Mumtaz left him.

Besides, as we all know, it will also deteriorate your mental and physical health on the long run. Mentally, you impair your brain's capability to handle stress and pressure from the outside environment without the help of unnatural substances. Physically, you overworked your lung's filter, making it less effective in controlling the breathing rate which eventually decreases your stamina. Even the smoker Daru himself claimed that smoking kills his athleticism for boxing.

In conclusion, to all of my friends and people who follow this blog, if you want to try drugs just to see what they actually are, go ahead but be ready to confront with the negative consequences they bring along.

#recommendation #selfmade

"Mohsin Hamid" by Jerry Bauer

Mohsin Hamid is the author of three novels, Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and a book of essays, Discontent and Its Civilizations.

His writing has been featured on bestseller lists, adapted for the cinema, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, selected as winner or finalist of twenty awards, and translated into more than thirty languages.

Born in Lahore, he has spent about half his life there and much of the rest in London, New York, and California.

Source: http://www.mohsinhamid.com/about.html

#author

"The book explores the idea of how you arrive at truth with conflicting narratives, which is what you do in law."

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/backissues/sum2000/article5.html

This is the trailer of the movie "Daira", which was based on the story line of Moth Smoke. This film was made for Pakistan television.

#movietrailer

"I keep waiting for the fear to come, but it doesn't. In fact, I'm walking taller, grinning, empowered by the knowledge that I've become dangerous, that I can do anything I want."

Moth Smoke, p. 235

"Pakistan is working on two new plutonium reactors and a reprocessing plant."

Ploughshares Fund. LEAH FAE COCHRAN - AUGUST 13, 2012

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