The Naked Beggar

And Other Stories

Curiosity defines the struggles of an ordinary man to come to terms with extraordinary circumstances in order to discover the exact nature of his identity. Though the characters are fictitious, the land, with its convoluted internal struggle as well as its abysmal darkness of ignorance, corruption, illiteracy, and its defiance and obstinacy to come to terms with this malevolence is very much real.

Curiosity takes its start in an impoverished, rural village in Pakistan where the question of the day is survival, even at the cost of dignity. Abdullah, the protagonist, is a nameless son of a ploughman who sets out to defy the odds and change the course of his life. His odyssey of self-discovery is through the channels of religion and spirituality. Abdullah realizes that his greatest battle is finding a voice in a third world country where poverty is a mans greatest foe. Using faith and spiritual guidance as his weapons, he nurtures his relationship with God and seeks spiritual leaders. As his education increases, so do his questions about the morality and ethics of the society in which he struggles to make his place as a Muslim. A coveted scholarship allows him to move to the US. Here he challenges every assumption he has made throughout his life about the country, its culture and its people.

The questions about life that Abdullah seeks to answer are real life narratives that frame the current political and social position of Pakistan on the global stage. Curiosity is not only a social reformist novel but also a seething satire on modern Pakistani society. It is the story of a traveler who begins his journey without a destination in mind. A traveler who hitches a ride on any caravan that is headed anywhere. It is only at the end of the journey that he realizes that it was the wrong caravan and the wrong destination. All of the people whom he yearns would join him do not share his passions nor his visions to make the land as pure as it couldand shouldbe.