The lyrics of a famous Hindi song were the ones came to my mind when I completed the second novel in the Cairo Trilogy. As the song goes, this novel talks about descending into recesses of one’s soul because of unrequited love.

हम बेखुदी में तुमको पुकारे चले गये	
	हम...
	हम बेखुदी में तुमको पुकारे चले गये
        साग़र में ज़िन्दगी को उतारे चले गये
	हम...

This story is all about getting carried away with the idea of love; but more than one incident, this is either infatuation or lust.

We meet teenaged Kamal here; all grown up and about to start his university/ college education. Here, the novel gets slightly language and concept heavy because of all the ideas in Kamal’s mind. May be it’s his age and the idealism comes with that age, but he chooses his vocation by heart than head.

The kind of books he reads and that impacting his line of thinking, even his daily activities come quite detailed here. May be the books plant the notion of platonic love bordering on worshipping in his mind. At this point in this story, we can clearly see where Kamal’s heart is destined to be. Somehow, due to his philosophical views and confusion between love & infatuation; we can not fully empathise with his heartbreak. The heavy prose, Kamal’s too-much-out-of-book-worldview doesn’t let readers lend him a sympathetic shoulder to cry on.

And there is Yasin; the one who is always making choice based on his primal needs than head or heart. After ruining his first marriage and then running away from the second; he makes the next choice based on his lust only, but here his paths cross with his father rather unknowingly.

So, we come to Ahmad Abd Al-Jawad who is all glorious and pious when the story starts; but this book displays his descents more vividly. His exalted status and revered personality comes rapidly crashing to earth when, like his eldest son, he decides to make choices based on lust. He is saved from the brink of utter collapse, but in the name only.

Against the background of these stories, we get more details about the families of Sugar Street. The moody, unpredictable nature of the book leads us to the crashing blow of an end.

Yes, the third and final novel starts by weaving all these stories together. Let’s conclude the last part of the trilogy review then.