An Ordinary Man's Guide To Radicalism: Growing Muslim In India [feb 20, 2018] Farooquee, Neyaz

I heard many people saying that one of the terrorists had studied in Jamia School, in my batch. If they were to say I was friends with him, how would I deny it? I had very few friends in school, but who would believe that? You can alter your future, but how do you change your past? -- 19 September 2008, the Batla House encounter. That one day changed the life of a young man from Inderwan Bairam in Bihars Gopalganj district. An over-protected childhood in the village, an ambitious migration to Delhi as a young boy for better education, an undisciplined and shiftless adolescence all of this history is flattened out into one tiny slice of Neyaz Farooquees identity: Muslim. From Jamia Nagar. Who lived practically next door to the Terrorists who had been killed in the encounter. A Potential Terrorist himself? How, after all, does a man prove that he is (and not merely pretending to be) a Normal Human Being? Sardonic and wise, Farooquee scrapes out the unvarnished truth about identity and stereotypes, about life in a ghetto, and the small and big disappointments that make up an ordinary life. A necessary book for our troubled times. Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Prologue: A Person Like You PART ONE 1. A Solitary Exodus 2. Breaking News! 3. Hopes Arrive in New Delhi 4. Primetime Bulletin 5. Tana Tan Sunni and 24 Number 6. Shut Your Doors and Windows 7. Who Do I Play With? 8. Like a Normal Human Being 9. Aaj Karey So Kal Kar, Kal Karey So Parson PART TWO 10. The Hideout 11. Bakchodi Days 12. The Cache of Memories 13. This Side, That Side and My Side 14. You Are As Patriotic As Anyone Else 15. What Happens in South Delhi 16. Rally, Peace Rally 17. Us and Them Stories 18. Radicals in the Aftermath Epilogue: So, You Are Having Tea? I See! Radicalism [mass noun] . . . Bits and Bobs from the Suitcase Notes Acknowledgements