Why are you so Funny?

    Why is it that we find Satirist so funny? I like this humor because of the delivery, staying and maintaining that image of actually caring and being so serious is what I find humorous about it. The ironic qualities also make these jokes hilarious. Luckily, East, West by Salman Rushdie is full of this wonderful humor.

    The book is a composition of short stories. One of the stories a man, Hashim, finds a silvered vial with the hair of Prophet Muhammad inside. Hashim had heard the story of the hair being stolen, the day before, from the shrine at Hazratbal mosque. Though he knew that “the hair must be restored to its shrine” he kept it to add to collection of cannons to butterflies. This relic that usually brings together masses of people, ends up taring apart his family,

    After finding this hair, Hashim has a instant transformation into a righteous man. For the first time in his life, Hashim “began to pray five times” a day, force his family to read passages out of Qur'an two hours a day, and burn all other books that we not the Qur'an. This man has gone crazy over one tiny piece of hair. By the fourth day of this, Hashim's son, Atta, took the hair from his father safe. On the way out, Atta had put the vial into a pocket which had a hole in it. Atta thought it was gone forever until he arrived back at home to find once again his father had found the vial. This must prove that the vial is choosing Hashim to continue to keep it, allowing him to rip his family appart.

    After the daughter and son get a harsh beating, leaving Atta in a comma, the daughter, Huma, ends up hiring a thief to steal the vial. The entire theft is planned so that nothing wrong could happen. First, Huma explains that her father sleeps with the vial under his pillow since he no longer trusts anyone. Hashim sleeps “alone and very energetically” so he should not be sleeping on the pillow with the vial under it.

    The thief arrives and Huma lets the man in. Everything is as she explained to him but as he is approaching the vial, Atta lets out a yell. “Thief, Thief, Thief!” The father dashes out of the room, with sword in hand, leaving the thief inside. Impaling the first thing down the corridor, Hashim realizes he had not killed a thief, but his own daughter Huma. With much disgrace, he turns the sword upon himself. The thief gets the vial, but is later tracked down and killed by Huma's uncle the Deputy Commissioner.

    Rushdie has a great way of showing us that our greed can ruin us. Take a step back and reevaluate the situation. Try to think logically not illogically, which is sometimes impossible when it is related with religion. I think the main reason for this story is that power, in this case a relic, corrupts all. Power seems to amplify all the negative aspects of ourselves. This be in relation to Hashim or the Islamic church worshiping this symbol, you always must remain in control and reflect on what you are doing.