The short story "My Son the Fanatic" centers around Punjabis who have immigrated to England. Parvez, the father, has adapted to the customs of his adopted country. He drives a taxi, drinks alcohol, watches Hollywood films, and befriends a prostitute. His son, Ali, has been studying to be an accountant and has also adapted well to English customs, but he abruptly experiences a change in his life.
The story does not go into the background of how it occurs, but somehow Ali has undergone a religious conversion. He has decided to become a devout Muslim and observe what he perceives as the regulations and strictures of the faith. This includes praying five times a day and abstaining from alcohol, pork meat, and other things. In some ways, this has a beneficial effect on Ali. He cleans up his room and attempts to behave in a moral manner.
However,...
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this conversion also has a negative effect in that Ali becomes intensely self-righteous and judgmental of his father. Instead of being tolerant and manifesting acceptance of the opinions of others, he has become incisive and even cruel in condemning thoughts and ideas that are contrary to his own. This is why Parvez begins to consider his son a "fanatic" and also why Ali refuses to follow his father's advice. He not only observes strict religious practices but is completely intolerant of any other thoughts or ideas. He thinks that his father has been corrupted by Western civilization, and so he refuses to listen to him.
Parvez and Ali suffer from intergenerational and cultural conflict. Parvez enjoys the material goods and freedom available in England. He is proud of his ability to provide for his family, buy Ali a computer, and send him to college. He is thrilled to live in a place where he can enter into friendships with women, drink alcohol, and eat pork.
Ali looks at his father and what he values with different eyes. He has lived his entire life in England and doesn't understand what true poverty is. He looks at his father and doesn't see someone enjoying the good life but someone who drinks too much and hangs out with prostitutes, someone who has been seduced and ruined by the undisciplined Western lifestyle.
Ali rejects his father's advice because he finds in his father the face of a person he does not want to become. He has no context for sympathizing with his father, because he doesn't understand his background. He feels very little sympathy for England because he feels the English despise the Pakistanis.
For Ali, Islam is an idealized faith that offers an austere purity and instills a sense of pride and discipline in him. It represents the rejection of everything he dislikes in his father.
Both men have points on their side: Parvez perhaps places too much value on material goods, but Ali is overly harsh in his judgments and living in an unrealistic dream world that allows him to throw away the education his father is offering him.