Adawat By Riaz Aqib Kohlar

About this novel

Adawat (Urdu: عداوت) by Riaz Aqib Kohlar is a long Urdu family romance about two cousins who can’t stand each other. Their grandfather has decided that Haani and Sauban will marry anyway, and the writer reminds us that love or hate beyond its limits gives birth to stories.

The first scene is Haani’s outburst to her mother, Shahina Begum. Marry me to a sweeper, a beggar, a thief, she says, anyone at all, but don’t even say Sauban’s name; you have no idea how much I hate that man. Her mother tells her it isn’t her decision. It is Dada Jaan’s zid, and in this family nobody goes against Dada Jaan. Haani can’t believe it. Her grandfather has always spoiled her, so why is he doing this to her?

نفرت جب حد سے بڑھ جائے تو کہانیاں جنم لیتی ہیں۔

Then the stakes become clear. Dada Jaan has made his order final: whichever grandchild refuses this marriage won’t get a single paisa. Their share of the land and both factories will go to the other son, and nobody in the family will be allowed to speak to them again. Haani wanted to finish her last semester, build a career and one day marry a man who loves her the way her father loves her mother, and that dream suddenly feels very far away. Her mother can only hold her while she cries.

On the other side, Sauban hears the same verdict from his father. He makes it plain that he can’t bear Haani’s family either, and that he will never marry a girl he doesn’t want to see. But his father has no answer except that this is Dada Jaan’s final decision, and that refusing could cost them their home.

The title means “enmity”, and the novel promises plenty of it: two proud young people forced together, bitterness between two branches of one family, and a grandfather who believes he knows best.

You can read Adawat online here or download the complete PDF for free. For more cousin stories, browse Cousin Romance novels and read Harf E Dua, or see all Riaz Aqib Kohlar novels.