But You Don't Look Like a Muslim

What does it mean to be Muslim in India?

What does it mean to look like one's religion?

Does one's faith determine how one is perceived?

Is there a secular ideal one is supposed to live up to?

Can people of different faiths have a shared culture a shared identity?

India has since time immemorial been plural multi-cultural multi-ethnic and multi-lingual where various streams have fed into and strengthened each other and where dissimilarities have always been a cause for rejoicing rather than strife.

These writings on and about being Muslim in India by Rakhshanda Jalil - one of the country's foremost literary historians and cultural commentators - excavate memories interrogate dilemmas and rediscover and celebrate a nation and its syncretic culture. But You Don't Look Like a Muslim is a book that every thinking Indian must read.