A study in contrasts: Hussein Janmohamed’s Al-Nashir Manji and Parm Sour’s Mansour
(Photo: Matt Reznek)

This style is so hard to pull off. But this creative team is mostly doing it very well — sometimes astonishingly so.

Zahida Rahemtulla’s The Wrong Bashir is a farce. An Ismaili farce.

In the story, a nominating committee selects Bashir Ladha, a philosophy student who can’t decide what to do with his life, to become the next student Mukhisahib, or spiritual leader of the Ismaili population at his university. Bashir’s parents are thrilled; Bashir, who produces a podcast called The Happy Nihilist and can’t remember the last time he attended a religious service, has zero interest in the role — and nobody can figure out how he got nominated in the first place. But, when two members of the nominating committee show up at his mom and dad’s house (where Bashir is living) along with several members of his ecstatic extended family, Bashir gets cornered: he doesn’t want the gig, but he doesn’t want to hurt his folks either. [Read more…]