Darashikoh Shezad

Darashikoh Shezad is the main character and primary narrator of Mohsin Hamid’s novel Moth Smoke, which traces what happens to Darashikoh after being fired from his job in the financial business sector. Being jobless leaves Darashikoh without monetary funds and forces him to sell marijuana for income. Moth Smoke details Darashikoh’s eventual descent into heroin addiction, which simultaneously occurs with the romantic affair he has with his best friend’s wife, Mumtaz. After Darashikoh’s best friend Aurangzeb learns of the affair with Mumtaz, Aurangzeb frames Darashikoh for a crime of which he is innocent. In the novel’s final chapter (Chapter 17), Darashikoh sits in a jail cell, having been convicted of the murder of a boy that Aurangzeb actually killed.

Darashikoh is described as “a hard man with shadowed eyes…proud, erect…capable of anything and afraid of nothing” (6). His close friends call him...