Will - Kureishi - 5/11

It was a little difficult to decipher the setting of this story at first and consequently the importance of some of the dialogue.  For example, when Azhar's mother instructs him to tell the bully, "Little Billy, you're common - common as muck!"  It doesn't make sense unless you know that Azhar's mother is a white English woman, and in the England of this story to call someone common is to say they're low class, not well born.  The irony is that for the white school children Azhar is worse than working class because he's part Pakistani, and this insult is ineffectual.  Azhar's mother is at first blind to this.  Kureishi is clearly linking the caste system of India with the class society of England.  Azhar's mother had a place in this class society, apparently higher than that of Big Billy and Little Billy, but she loses her position by marrying someone of another race.  This might elucidate the at first perplexing retort Azhar's mother comes up with, "We're not Jews."  References are made to the Holocaust, and Azhar's father links Big Billy with nazism when he mutters, "Triumph of the Bill." 
Anti-semitism was prevalent everywhere before, during, and after WWII, and in the English caste system depicted in this story Jews are outsiders, perhaps similar to untouchables or casteless people.  Azhar's mother means, "You can't treat me like that, I'm part of society too."  Her situation is particularly painful because she realizes she once had a stable position in society, but she lost caste because of her perceived misdeeds.  She is left an outsider in her community and in her own family.