Effects of the Atomic Bomb (Simile)
"Those who were close, it stripped to the bone so they were just skeletons. The ones further away, it peeled off their skin, like grapes. And now that they have this New Bomb the Americans won't stop until we're all skeletons or grapes" (15).
These words are spoken by a young boy in an airstrike shelter in Nagasaki. They are telling rumors about the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima several days before. Here, the boy uses a simile to describe the bomb's effect: it peels back the victim's skin, like peeling the skin of a grape. He also uses the words 'skeletons' and 'grapes' to metaphorically describe the extent of the injuries from the atomic bomb.
Kite Strings Attached to Air (Metaphor)
"'This Pakistan, it's taking my friends, my sister, it's taking the familiarity from the streets of Dilli. Thousands are leaving, thousands more will leave. What am I holding on to? Just kite-strings attached to air at either end'" (114).
In this passage, Sajjad uses a metaphor to compare the futility of holding on to his concept of home to the futility of holding onto kite strings that are not connected to a kite. This metaphor demonstrates the emptiness that Sajjad finds in his home, a place where, as he describes it, "soon the ghosts would outnumber the corporeal presences among his intimates" (108).
Ships in like Grasshoppers (Simile)
"Perhaps it was the memory of the cat, which regarded all forms of insect life as prey, that did it—when Harry walked through the rusty gates and the harbour came into view all he could think was that the swarm of wooden sailing boats with their riggings painting chaos against the sky looked like grasshoppers lying on their backs, waving their insect limbs in the breeze" (162).
In this simile, Harry compares the image of boats in a harbor to grasshoppers lying on their backs. Harry's logical connection to the grasshoppers via the word "prey" suggests that he has a complex relationship with these boats. As we learn a few pages later, there is a good change that they are being used to transport weapons brought by the CIA to Afghanistan: "How many of these men in this harbour, he wondered, were involved in smuggling arms bought by the CIA and transported by the ISI from the Karachi docks to the training camps along the border?" (165). Harry's comparison of the boats to grasshoppers prostrated on their backs suggests that he sees them as in a precarious position, waiting to be snatched by a cat. Harry, who is a CIA agent, walks among the Karachi docks like that very cat, aware of secret machinations beneath the surface, knowing these ships are headed to a war where human lives are being lost.
The Sound of the Azan Entering the Home (Simile)
"The morning of Raza's departure from Karachi, Hiroko woke with the dawn azan as was her practice. She loved to hear the echoes of Arabic dropping gently into the courtyard like a lover stealthily entering a home, undaunted by the knowledge that today again his beloved will turn him away—her rejection of him so oft repeated, so tenderly repeated, it becomes an expression of steadfastness equal to his" (219).
In this simile, Hiroko compares the sound of the azan (call to prayer) to a lover entering the home of his beloved, where he knows that he will be rejected. In this comparison, Hiroko is the beloved, who converted to Islam merely as a convenience so that she may marry Raza. Nevertheless, day after day, the sound of the azan enters her home and she consistently, yet "tenderly," rejects it.
Mosque as Body of a Saint (Metaphor)
"It was not the shrine with the many-coloured tiles to which Raza paid attention—or of which Abdullah had talked when he spoke of coming here each Friday with his family before the Soviets cleft them from the body of the saint they had venerated for generations" (323).
Here, Abdullah uses a metaphor to compare the experience of the Soviets tearing his family out of their mosque to being torn out of the body of a saint. In this metaphor, their religious worship is given bodily form, heightening the Soviets' violence.
