Daniel P Warner

I read The Caretaker in one day. This intriguing story found me guessing about what really happened to the Indian Army captain in snowbound mountains in the disputed no-man’s land between Pakistan and India. The event so profoundly affected his life that he snuck his family into America in shame.

I liked how Ahmad wove the story of Ranjit’s past into the suspense-filled interactions with a powerful senator and the senator’s wife. He throws Ranjit and his family into seemingly inescapable troubles while ever ratcheting up the intrigue of the story line.

Ahmad also paints an interesting picture of Indian culture and class, both in India and in America. Reading a novel from an Indian’s POV imprinted these ideas on me in a way that reading an article could not.

Ranjit himself is an interesting character study. He is a flawed hero. I wanted him to win, but many of his problems were created by his own bad decisions. If you like real, conflicted, imperfect, yet heroic character studies, you’ll love Ranjit. If you want a pure hero, you might not like what you find.

In the end, he is able to overcome his adversaries and achieve a mostly-happy ending. But he pays one major price for his mistakes that left me feeling sad.