Bhakaran By Mawra Farukh

About this novel

Bhakaran (Urdu: بھکارن) by Mawra Farukh is an Urdu social romance about a proud rich family and a girl raised by a cruel stepmother. Their two worlds could not be further apart, and the title, the beggar girl, tells you how the story begins.

On one side is Zulekhan, a nawabzadi from an old family of nawabs, where wealth has been a servant of the house for generations. When wealth stays in a family that long, the writer says, pride comes with it, and Zulekhan is a goddess of pride. She hates poor people and won’t even speak to them; servants are kept only if they come from a good background. Her two children, Areesha and Bilal, have taken after her. Bilal has spent six years in London for higher education and has just come back, setting out to see Pakistan.

ایک طرف نوابوں کا غرور، دوسری طرف ایک بن ماں کی بچی۔

On the other side is Reshma. She was four when her mother died, and two months later her father, Nawaz, married again. He did it to give his little girl a mother, but his new wife Atiya is a cunning woman who keeps him away from his daughter. All day she makes Reshma work, and just before Nawaz comes home she bathes her, puts her in clean clothes and sits her on the charpai as if she’d been looked after all day. At first Nawaz worried that a stepmother might mistreat her, but Reshma never complained, so he stopped worrying. Atiya even wakes at five to make his breakfast herself, sweetly telling him to let the child sleep, and the moment he’s gone she drags Reshma out of bed in the dark.

Mawra Farukh draws a sharp line between privilege and helplessness, and the title hints at how far Reshma may fall before these two worlds meet.

You can read Bhakaran online here or download the complete PDF for free. For more social stories, read Baition K Kabil Nahi Mashra or browse our Romantic Urdu novels.