Pepper in Blossom

Peace is an ideal shared by many, but its realization is beset by countess and seemingly intractable practical problems. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East, for example, has ramifications all over the world. Politics and conflict aside, however, there is a primeval commonality between people as members of the human family. A white man with Jewish roots falls down on a jetty in a Muslim neighbourhood in a largely Christian country. A young Muslim woman rushes to and gives him first-aid. After helping him back to his hotel, with a friend, they think the matter is ended. They are however destined to meet, much without their design, and become fast friends. The man is a tourist, a musician and student of philosophy. He has keen interest in the lives of the locals and takes time, between tourist trips, to check them out, in this way the novel suggests that beyond conflict, when people are not actively involved in war they live out the ideal of human family. Muslims, Christians and Jews interact for long without their differences coming to the fore, but reality is never far. At just any time, with disastrous and tragic consequences, bitterness flares and we are brutally remained that war and violence are as old as human history, and will in all likelihood always be with us.