1)

Talking about Punjab region/religion/culture

One of the things that called my attention while I was reading the story was the religion of the characters. It is said theyre Muslims (and therere some references to Allah as the story is going on), however I had the impression they were Hindus, for example boys Father assumes the weak bird has to die because it was its sin and a man cannot change it. Another sign of the Hindu religion is the opinion of not desiring things. So I looked up in the Wikipedia about the Punjabi culture and I founded the Muslim religion is only followed for the 2% of the Punjab population, being the Sikhs and Hindus the predominant religion. Reading more about Punjabis, I have learnt its the second more spoken language in England and the 11th more spoken in the world. And the latest thing Ive learnt about that region and about India is the national bird is the peacock (it appears in the story, is one of the farm animals)

2) Talking about racisms

One of the topics treated in the story is the racism in Australia. I knew about the racism of Australian white people towards aboriginal people, but I didnt know about the racism towards the Indian people. For that reason I looked that topic up on the internet and I found there were racism attacks towards Indians in Melbourne in 2009. Some Indian students were bashed and robbed in train in front of lots of passenger who did nothing to avoid the attack. This crime brings to my mind a similar racism attack happened in Spain. It was some years ago in a tube wagon in Barcelona, when a boy attacked a South American girl sitting there. The crime was recorded by the security camera of the wagon, and it was shown the other passengers looked to another place instead of helping that girl.

I remember this new was widely spread by the mass media and some experts in social behavior explained, no one help the girl because they were afraid of the boys reaction, and passengers were waiting someone else helped the girl first.

Maybe we can discuss now about racism (if you know any similar case). I think practically all the stories in the book treat the topic of Indian racism in Australia. Quite probably the authors suffer it when they were young.

3) Talking about the main characters (the boy)

After reading the book I started thinking about the boys and I get to the conclusion they never had been at school. I have that opinion from the fight with the white children. As the narrator says the young boy (Lal) was happy to see the white children because hehad growth in a world of women and he had no friends. His only friend was the cat and the Rusilla. For that reason I suppose children never had been at school, and this fact is another version of racism.