'Shame' begins deceptively, not as a political allegory but with a miraculous birth, as if we were to have the fabulism of 'Midnight's Children' all over again, only more so. Three sisters, Chhunni, Munnee and Bunny, give birth jointly to a child of prodigious gifts called (no relation) Omar Khayyam. Locked away in the upper storeys of a mansion, Omar, who sleeps a mere 40 minutes a night, teaches himself Arabic, Persian, Latin and voyeurism. Aged 12, he descends by dumb waiter to the outside world and impregnates a girl whom he has put under hypnosis….

Omar promptly disappears to the fringes of a narrative dominated by the rivalry of two men. One is Iskander Harappa devotee of stud poker, horse-race fixing, French food, opium and women, who, at 40, goes serious and becomes leader of the Popular Front and then Prime Minister. He is based unmistakably on another playboy-turned-politician, Zulfikar...