Adhori Chahat by Jia

About this novel

Adhori Chahat (Urdu: ادھوری چاہت) by Jia is a long, complete Urdu romance about a quiet nineteen-year-old who lives in her daydreams. The heroine, also named Jia, lives more in her imagination than in the world around her, until real life demands her attention.

The novel opens with her friend Hania running all over the place looking for her. “Jia, kahan ho? I’ve been searching for you forever!” Jia, a simple girl of nineteen, sits lost in her own thoughts. She’s wearing a knee-length black frock, her black hair falling to her shoulders, and the dimple in her right cheek shows whenever she smiles. As usual she’s thinking about the beautiful moments of her life – moments that, as Hania points out, may never actually happen. “How many times have I told you,” Jia says, “stop commenting on my personality,” and she heads up to the rooftop.

It’s evening and the view is lovely: the sun is setting and birds are flying home. Jia is watching them when her mother, Kanwal, calls from downstairs, annoyed – there’s so much housework, and here she is sitting upstairs again! Jia hurries down and gets to work.

چھت پر ڈوبتا سورج، گھر لوٹتے پرندے، اور جیا کے ادھورے خواب۔

We learn about her family. Every morning after Fajr, her father, Rehman Sahib, goes to his small hikmat shop. Jia is his youngest daughter; he has already fulfilled his duty toward the two elder ones by marrying them off. Jia is sensible and mature, she sees the world in her own way, and she is always lost in thought, looking for a way out of her troubles. At home she speaks very little.

Then there’s a knock at the door, and an irritated Kanwal sends Jia to open it. It’s Hania again, complaining that Jia never bothers to send even a single message – she could die waiting! Their easy, teasing friendship adds warmth to the opening.

The title, meaning “incomplete love,” suggests that Jia’s dreams will soon meet a story that doesn’t end the way she imagines. A good pick for readers who like gentle, emotional romances with a dreamy heroine and a simple, middle-class family setting.

You can read Adhori Chahat online here or download the complete PDF for free. You may also like Meri Dastan E Muhabbat by Mehak Roshan and Tera Ishq Meri Jannat, or browse more romantic Urdu novels.