After a British guest impregnates one of the three Shakil sisters at their party, a son named Omar Khayyam is born.

The three Shakil sisters install a dumbwaiter in Nishapur and withdraw completely from society to protect their secret.

Omar descends from Nishapur in the dumbwaiter on his first day of school while a hostile crowd waits to shame him.

Omar hypnotizes a schoolgirl named Farah and rapes her; she becomes pregnant and is expelled from school in disgrace.

Omar wins a significant medical scholarship and leaves Nishapur permanently to begin his career as an immunologist in Karachi.

After a cinema bombing kills Bilquis's father, a military officer named Raza wraps his coat around her and they become betrothed.

Sufiya Hyder is born the wrong sex; her furious father Raza pokes her and she immediately blushes with shame.

Sufiya contracts a dangerous fever that permanently leaves her with the intellectual development of a young child.

Sufiya, overcome by an inner Beast, massacres hundreds of turkeys on a neighboring farm and falls gravely ill afterward.

Omar Khayyam Shakil arrives to treat the ailing Sufiya and falls in love with her despite her mental age.

Omar and Sufiya marry in a quiet ceremony; the marriage is never consummated, and Omar satisfies himself with Sufiya's ayah instead.

The Beast awakens fully in Sufiya, who escapes into the night, rapes, and decapitates four young men.

Raza Hyder overthrows Prime Minister Iskander Harappa in a military coup and ultimately has him executed.

Sufiya escapes from her locked attic room and vanishes into the countryside while rumors of a white panther spread.

Sufiya tracks Omar down at Nishapur and kills him; the house then explodes, destroying everything and everyone inside.

Pool 1 follows the most critical events in Shame, beginning with Omar Khayyam's mysterious birth inside the isolated Nishapur mansion and his shameless emergence into the outside world. It traces his debauched life through his abuse of Farah and his celebrated medical career, while establishing the relationship between Bilquis and Raza that drives the political narrative. The pool charts Sufiya's tragic arc from her shame-filled birth through her transformation into the violent Beast, culminating in her disastrous marriage to the much older Omar. It then follows the political upheaval as Raza seizes power from Iskander, paralleled by Sufiya's escalating violence and her escape into legend as the white panther. The pool concludes with the novel's devastating finale at Nishapur, where Sufiya tracks down Omar and kills him before the house explodes in a final conflagration between shame and shamelessness.

The core story of shame, power, and destruction in a fictionalized Pakistan.

Mr. Shakil dies and his daughters discover he squandered the family fortune, forcing them to sign away their remaining assets.

Young Omar grows up alone inside Nishapur, wandering the mansion at night and earning the nickname Little Bat.

A bomb destroys the cinema owned by Bilquis's father Mahmoud during partition violence, killing him and permanently scarring Bilquis.

Bilquis and Rani Humayun live together under the matriarch Bariamma while their husbands pursue military and political careers.

Bilquis's first pregnancy ends in a devastating stillbirth, driving her and Raza to try for another child immediately.

Raza has the owner of a local cinema killed after suspecting the man of having an affair with Bilquis.

Raza and Iskander have a furious public argument over a woman named Pinkie and permanently sever their friendship.

Omar's younger brother Babar becomes radicalized, joins a revolutionary movement in the mountains, and is killed by Raza's soldiers.

Omar returns to Nishapur after learning of Babar's death and witnesses his three mothers receive the government's notification.

Haroun Harappa publishes an exposé about his father Little Mir's private dungeons and crimes in a Western magazine.

Good News Hyder falls in love with Captain Talvar Ulhaq after watching him play polo and begins a secret affair.

On the day of her wedding to Haroun, Good News shocks her entire family by openly declaring her love for Talvar.

Rani presents her daughter Arjumand with prophetic shawls she has knitted, which depict the brutal crimes of Iskander's government.

Good News Hyder takes her own life when she discovers she is pregnant again and cannot face another birth.

Omar, Raza, and Bilquis escape an angry mob outside their home by disguising themselves in burqas made from Bilquis's shrouds.

Pool 2 covers the significant secondary events that give the main plot its texture and depth, beginning with the decline of the Shakil family fortune and Omar's solitary, voyeuristic childhood inside Nishapur. It moves through the partition-era violence that shapes Bilquis and Raza's early lives, including the family tensions and petty cruelties that accompany their rise to prominence. The pool explores Babar's radicalization and death, Haroun's damaging exposé of his own father, and the turbulent romantic choices that define Good News's life and ultimately lead to her suicide. It captures the political fallout of Iskander's downfall through Rani's revelatory shawls presented to Arjumand and the slow unraveling of Raza's theocratic grip on power. The pool ends with the desperate flight of Omar, Raza, and Bilquis from the capital, disguised in the very burqas that Raza's regime forced upon women.

The supporting stories of family scandal, political betrayal, and hidden grief.

On his twelfth birthday, Omar demands either to leave Nishapur or to learn the identity of his unknown father.

The three sisters agree to let Omar attend school on the sole condition that he never allow himself to feel shame.

Omar befriends a schoolteacher named Eduardo Rodrigues, who encourages the isolated young student to pursue a career in medicine.

Eduardo accepts responsibility for Farah's pregnancy and flees town with her, publicly blamed for the crime Omar committed.

Bilquis announces to Rani and Iskander that her unborn child is destined to be a son who will marry their future daughter.

Raza wins military fame after a notable victory and is quickly promoted, becoming close friends with Iskander Harappa.

Bilquis gives birth to a second daughter named Naveed, nicknamed Good News, after failing again to produce the son Raza demanded.

After using brutal tactics to protect gas fields, Raza is stripped of his governorship and reassigned as Minister of Education.

Arjumand Harappa rejects marriage entirely and earns the nickname Virgin Ironpants while dedicating herself to her father's political career.

Raza finds a blood-soaked burqa in Sufiya's bedroom after the murders, understands his daughter is responsible, and secretly burns it.

Omar and Raza drug Sufiya unconscious and lock her in the attic to prevent further violence from the Beast within her.

Iskander is placed in solitary confinement and goads a prison guard into shooting him before his official execution by hanging.

Bilquis dies from malaria in her room at Nishapur while Raza lies feverish in his own bed, unaware of her death.

Omar's three mothers accuse him of dishonoring Babar's memory by befriending Raza, the man who ordered their son's death.

The three Shakil sisters force Raza into the dumbwaiter and kill him with its blades, then vanish from Nishapur forever.

Pool 3 focuses on the key turning points and revelations that quietly alter the entire course of the novel, beginning with Omar's demand to leave Nishapur and the condition his mothers impose — that he must never feel shame. It traces the consequential moments of Omar's youth, including his relationship with Eduardo and the way Farah is publicly scapegoated for the crime Omar committed, foreshadowing his lifelong shamelessness. The pool follows the early political decisions of Raza and Iskander as they climb to prominence, and captures the moment Arjumand sacrifices her personal life entirely for her father's ambitions. It then charts the series of shocking discoveries — Raza's secret burning of the bloodied burqa, the decision to imprison Sufiya, and Iskander's defiant death — that accelerate the novel's violent conclusion. The pool ends at Nishapur, where Bilquis dies of malaria, and Omar's mothers exact their revenge on Raza in the machine that first connected the family to the outside world.