A small Karachi neighbourhood, Chakiwara is humdrum and unspectacular to all appearances. But inside its shops and at the street corners, there is curious business afoot.

Chronicling the drama that unfolds daily is Iqbal Hussain Changezi, bakery owner and collector of writers and geniuses. He has his eyes on out-of-work comedian Chakori, apprentice to a Chinese dentist, even as the town's mostly unsuccessful healer of physical and spiritual maladies prepares to unleash his top-secret invention, the love meter.

Muhammad Khalid Akhtar presents a world at once familiar and peculiar but always surprising, his unforgettable characters keeping alive the old ways in a quietly changing Karachi in post-independence Pakistan. Love in Chakiwara and Other Misadventures is a true testament to the wit, sagacity and quiet brilliance of one of the greatest storytellers of his time.