The Crow Eaters

– Freddy – Parsi, philanthropist, businessman, arsonist, pimp, scoundrel, hustler, mis-quoter of Nietzsche, overall fraud and poetry critic has moved his family (including his ‘happily unmodernised’ wife Putli and their children) to Lahore in order to make his fortune. The only real weight he carries is his ‘armoured tank’ of a mother-in-law, Jerbanoo – who alone, it seems, realises Freddy, ‘infernal toad’ that he is, is never up to any good.

‘Ah, well, you look after your needs and God looks after you …’

‘Need makes a flatterer of a bully and persuades a cruel man to kindness. Call it circumstances, call it self-interest, call it what you will, it still remains your need. All the good in this world comes from serving our own ends. What makes you tolerate someone you’d rather spit in the eye? What subdues that great big “I”, that monstrous ego in a person? Need, I tell you, will force you to love your enemy as a brother!’

‘The sweetest thing in the world is your need. Yes, think on it. Your own need –