Moth Smoke

Deeply engrossing and unputdownable.

The story is written analogous to that of Aurangazeb and Dara of the Mughals.

The story starts with the trial of Dara Shikoh who was alleged to have killed a boy. 

Dara and Ozi (Aurangazeb) were close friends from their childhood. Their fathers' had served in the Pakistan army. Dara's father had died in the 1971 war. Dara's education was taken care by Ozi's father. After their school, Ozi was sent to states to pursue his higher education where he met Mumtaz and fell in love and married. They had a child named Muazzon. They returned back to Lahore where his father was living (with all his corrupt money). They were living in a big mansion and life was going smooth until Dara was invited to see his old best friend in his house.

Dara was good at studies during his school but he could not afford to study in US. So he pursued economics in a local college in Lahore. He got a job in a multi-national bank. Life was going smooth until he was invited by his friend, Ozi, to his house. 

When Dara went to see Ozi, Dara was attracted to Ozi's wife (Mumtaz). Because of his behavior with his client, Dara was fired from his job and he became jobless for quite some time. Those were the times where India had started testing their nukes and the tension between the two countries was mounting. The prices were going high in Pakistan (because of possible nuke war) and the foreign accounts were frozen. Dara could not meet ends and so he had started selling illegal drugs. meanwhile Mumtaz and Ozi's marriage started crumbling because she could not love her son and she was guilty about it. She had been writing to a newspaper (She was a journalist) in some pseudo name which her husband didn't know. Dara, Ozi and Mumtaz were going to many parties at that time and Dara and Mumtaz became close which Ozi didn't know. Dara and Mumtaz started having an affair. Dara asked her to divorce her husband but she could not as she was guilty about her son. This made Dara furious.

Dara had been influenced by his drug supplier to rob the high end luxury shops. Since Dara had no money and he was already broke (Electricity being disconnected and he could not tolerate the heat), he accepted that proposal. When they were robbing a boutique, he got annoyed by a child who looked like Mumtaz's son and he shot at him.

Ironically, the trial that he was undergoing was for the crime that was not committed by him but by his best friend Ozi. Ozi had killed a boy while he was driving in his Pajero. He had made the police, using his influence, to arrest Dara for that crime, to avenge Dara's affair with his wife. Mumtaz had left Ozi.

The author tried to illustrate how money, love, lust, greed, social status can become a factor to end a happy go childhood friendship and make them to go for each other's necks.

The Company Of Women

This book is the sexual fantasies of an octogenarian.

The book starts with the divorce of Mohan Kumar, a father of two,a millionaire in his early forties,with his wife. Since he was very active in his sex life, he could control his urge for the bodily needs. He advertised in the dailies for a suitable companion to live with him with no strings attached.

He started living with many women in his house, for short span of time, with each woman. He somewhat started to like each person who he had started to live with. But after some time they could not continue their life because of one or more reasons and the woman had to leave him. He lived with more than five or six women. All were from different backgrounds and no one is related to any other. At the end of each saga, he was very much involved with woman as he asked them to write him after their departure. But no one had written to him and he would start the next affair afterwards.

He lost his mother at his very early age and loved his,conservative Hindu, father very much.He had studied in Princeton, USA. There in Princeton, he had innumerable sexual affairs with all kinds of women. One of them was Yasmeen, a Muslim from Pakistan(Azad Kashmir). They would argue on religions and our general attitudes towards each other country's people. The author was very crisp in his telling of religious concepts and their implications. 

He returned to India hoping for a very good career ahead. His father married him off to a wealthy man's daughter in the Delhi Elite circle. He started his career in some export business and his business started flourishing within some months. He became one of the youngest millionaires in Delhi. But his family life started crumbling. His wife always loathing him and his father. This made his father to leave their house and went to Haridwar (near Ganges) where he lived his rest of the life. Mohan would see his father once in every month on a full moon day. They would go to the 'Har Ki Pari' ghat to see the small floating puja lights in the Ganges in the fading twilight. This would always give him some peace and solace.

People started to gossip about him as a womanizer.He doesn't care for people bitching about him behind his back. He was enjoying his life as he likes.

The same sexual affairs which gave him pleasure, gave him the incurable HIV virus. He was dejected once he knew about that. After fighting the disease for 2 years, he took the easiest route, suicide (may be the most philosophical route,as said by Camus) to his death.

The author was very clear in his writing as Mohan was very clear in his sexual needs.He didn't commit any rape or molest any woman. May be the society which he had lived would spoke him of as womanizer but he didn't care for those things. He lived his life as he likes. But at the end he had gone with no one at his death bed. Price of being a social outcast in the society.