Ali Shingri is serving in Pakistan’s army just before the unexplained plane crash of Dictator Zia Al-Huq in 1988. Shingri’s father committed forced suicide at the hands of Al-Huq’s goons and Shingri is intent on murdering the dictator as revenge, only he has to wait on line behind other would-be assassins in a farce of magnificent proportions and exceptional skill.
Pakistan’s army and their supporters in the CIA are lampooned as a dope-smoking American agent trains Shingri, his poetry-obsessed best friend, and their peers to master a silent bayonet spectacle. Noses get broken and Zia Al-Huq doesn’t get stabbed. The paranoid, hyper-religious dictator, however, is banned from his wife’s bed when she realizes her husband is enamored by the cleavage of an American journalist sent to interview him. The ambitious head of the secret police–also anxious to kill the dictator–cannot decide what to wear on the day the plane is set to disappear.
A Case of Exploding Mangoes demonstrates the power, and difficulty, of finding the right balance between mockery and excess. Right now, we could use that kind of book for our dictator.