Reading Dickens Gave Me, An "Untouchable" Kid in Pakistan, Great Expectations
I grew up a nomad in Pakistan, part of a caste that was considered untouchable. I scavenged garbage, begged on the streets, and learned to read Urdu by picking up discarded school books that my mother, a housemaid, would bring me from the homes of rich kids in Lahore. Books soon became my weakness; I would …