“Ever seen a bullet-smashed windscreen? The hole at the center throws a sharp clean web around itself and becomes crowded with tiny crystals. That’s the metaphor for my world, this city: broken, beautiful and born of tremendous violence.”
In this book, Bilal Tanveer, like a spider weaves its web, has very intricately described the lives of 5 individuals in the city of Karachi (Country:Pakistan). Their stories cross each other at different points in time and even have a common focal point: a bomb blast in the city. The author has elegantly explained how the lives of these individuals are connected and affected by the bomb blast even though not all of them know each other but are connected in one way or another. Like a piece of puzzle makes a picture whole, these individuals play a part which,without them being aware of it, makes them the puzzle pieces of each others life stories. Every character has a part in other persons life one way or another. After reading this novel, readers will understand that from a bird’s eye view, all of us have a role in each others lives and we affect each other to a various degrees unknowingly. Everyone has his/her own significance in this world, only a few of us realize that.
Even the smallest step one takes in his/her life can change the course of said life immensely.
The butterfly effect. The power of minute actions to bring about tremendous changes over a period of time. If you aren’t well aware of this concept, then you will be by the time you finish reading this book. Just like a drop of rain creates small disturbances on still pond water or as we call it Ripples around the point of disturbance, similarly our actions create ripples. Not any ripples but ripples across time which even after we cease to exist continue to propagate and effect anything that comes in their path. And unlike the ripples created by a drop of water, these ripples of human actions, either constructive or destructive, good or evil, never really die out. Unlike the momentary presence of water ripples, they get more powerful and widespread over a period of time.
