Family, Love, and Loyalty Theme Analysis

At its heart, The Buddha of Suburbia is a classic family drama. As Karim grows up and comes of age, he watches his parents divorce and his best childhood friend enter into a sexless marriage. Throughout the novel, Karim questions constantly what family truly means and how loyalty functions within a family unit. Though his conclusions at the end are somewhat tenuous, Karim comes to understand that loyalty doesn't always mean the same thing throughout an entire marriage, and he discovers that loyalty and respect are at the heart of love.

At the beginning of the novel, Karim positions his parents as bored and unhappy with their marriage, though they're generally loyal to each other. He suggests at that point that his parents will never betray their unwavering yet unhappy loyalty because they've bought fully into the suburban mindset: according to Karim, this is a mindset predicated on the prioritization of boring stability over happiness. When Karim realizes that Dad is in love with Eva, an ambitious and sexy social climber, he's simultaneously curious and terrified for the future of his family. Because this is the first time Karim sees that his father desires someone other than Mum, it's an understandably shocking experience—Karim hadn't considered at that point that it was even possible for Dad to have ever desired someone other than Mum. Further, Karim quickly begins to hate and feel betrayed by Dad for leaving Mum. This reaction suggests that, at least when it comes to relationships that directly impact him, Karim values loyalty and stability over love and passion.

On the other end of the spectrum, Karim watches his best childhood friend, Jamila, enter into an arranged marriage when her father, Anwar, blackmails her by going on a hunger strike. Karim has mixed feelings about this. He first reasons that Jamila would never give into such patriarchal bullying, but later he conceptualizes the marriage as a choice that would allow her to rebel from within a system she'd ultimately like to dismantle. Regardless, Karim recognizes that Jamila chooses to accept Anwar's terms out of a sense of loyalty and love for her family. Despite the fact that her decision to marry seems out of character for her, Jamila makes her marriage work for her. Her husband, Changez, is immediately and completely loyal to and in love with Jamila, which means he's perfectly willing to accept her terms that he sleep on a camp cot and let her live alone in their bedroom and continue her studies. Though Changez desperately wants to have sex with his wife, Jamila remains firm that their marriage will exist on her terms. Over the years, the sexlessness doesn't change between Changez and Jamila, but Karim watches a sense of respect develop between them, particularly after Jamila has a baby with Simon in their communal home. In this way, Karim watches a seemingly backwards marriage grow and change over the course of a decade to become, in many respects, a strong, respectful, and mutually fulfilling one, suggesting again that loyalty is one of the most important elements of strong, fulfilling relationships.

As Karim's understanding of Changez and Jamila's marriage deepens near the end of the novel, he also continues to consider where he stands in relation to his own parents. Karim eventually realizes that he's guilty of abandoning Mum when she needed him the most after the divorce, and he similarly makes sure to never allow Dad to forget that he abandoned Mum. However, as Karim sees his parents both become relatively happy people with their respective partners, he realizes that definitions of love and loyalty change over the course of a relationship, just as they did for Jamila and Changez. At the end of the day, however, Karim comes to understand that a sense of loyalty is what makes a family.