Brief biography of mohsin hamid was born in Pakistan, but he spent much of his

CHAPTER 6
Saeed’s father says his farewell to his son and Nadia the following day, leaving the house without telling them where he’s going so that they can’t follow him. After double-checking that they have everything, the couple leaves the house, too,
walking to the rendezvous point and wondering all the while if the agent has set them up and sold them out to the militants,”
which they know is a possibility. When they arrive, they discover that the meeting place is in an abandoned dentist’s office, an office that has long since been raided of its painkillers and other medicines. Inside, they encounter a man dressed quite similarly to a militant, but he only tells them to sit in the waiting room with several others, all of whom are too tense to speak.
When Saeed and Nadia enter the waiting room of the dentist and
see the other people waiting in silence to be transported somewhere
else, readers witness a strange kind of connection, one predicated
on fear and the desire to escape. Indeed, these people are all in the
same situation, seeking passage out of the city in order to save their
lives. In this way, they’re connected to one another emotionally and
circumstantially by the very same horror they’re from which they’re
running.
When Saeed and Nadia are called into the dentist’s office, the agent stands before a black door that used to lead to a supply closet. You go first he says to Saeed, and although Saeed originally planned to go ahead of Nadia, he suddenly changes his mind, thinking that it’s probably more dangerous for her to go second. No, she will he declares, but the agent doesn’t care, merely shrugging and looking at Nadia, who walks toward the door—not having considered ahead of time who would go first—and is struck by its darkness, its opacity, the way that it
[doesn’t] reveal what is on the other side, and also [doesn’t]
reflect what is on this side, and so feels equally like a beginning and an end Nadia turns to Saeed, squeezes his hands, and steps through the door.
The process of escape is portrayed in this moment as both a
“beginning and an end On the one hand, Nadia looks into the black
door and knows it will take her to anew life in a foreign country. On
the other hand, she also knows that the door will take her away
from everything she’s ever known. As such, Hamid frames migration
as a complicated emotional process, one full of contradictory
feelings.
“It was said in those days that the passage was both like dying and being born Hamid writes. This is what Nadia feels as she moves through the blackness, gasping and “struggle[ing]” to emerge on the other side, where she lies cold and sore on a bathroom floor. Right behind her, Saeed fights to come through. Ashe does so, Nadia looks around and sees that they are in a public restroom. Once Saeed fully exits the portal, the couple hug until they feel their strength return, at which point they stand up. Saeed wheels around, as if wanting to go back through the door, but he simply pauses in front of it before walking away.

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