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.