Charagh Sham Say Pehly Novel by Huma Waqas

About this novel

Charagh Sham Say Pehly (Urdu: چراغ شام سے پہلے) by Huma Waqas is a long, complete Urdu family saga set in a small Punjabi village in 1986. An old haveli there holds a family history that goes back to Partition, and its secrets shape every life in the story.

The novel opens with a vivid picture of Mithan, a remote village near Dunyapur, sinking into darkness. Its narrow streets are full of dust, most of its houses are made of mud, and above them all stands Haveli Hakim Qasr – the grand home of Chaudhry Hakim Deen, the village lambardar and naib nazim, famous throughout the area. Electricity reached most homes only three years ago, and even now it often disappears for hours or days.

Huma Waqas walks the reader through the haveli piece by piece: the huge wooden gate that opens only for big occasions, the long corridor lined with charpais where visitors wait all day to meet Hakim Deen, the inner iron gate that opens before Fajr and closes after Maghrib, the brick courtyard with its neem and peepal trees and a small vegetable garden. In the middle stands a fountain where Tari Bua, the old servant, hangs the haveli’s biggest lantern every evening after Maghrib. Tari Bua lives with her two daughters, Shammo and Sakeena, in a small mud house at the back, but spends all her time in the haveli.

ایک پرانی حویلی، ایک لالٹین، اور تقسیم کے دنوں سے جڑی ایک کہانی۔

Then the history begins. Chaudhry Hakim Deen comes from a family of hereditary landlords who were already living on this side before Partition. At that time, a family from Mithan migrating to India lost every one of its members except a twelve-year-old girl. Hakim Deen’s father brought her home; she embraced Islam, was named Khadija, and was later married to his only son. After Khadija, Chaudhry Hakim also married Ismat Ara, the woman he had once been engaged to – and with that, the stage is set for a family drama shaped by loss, loyalty and two marriages under one roof.

This is a slow, atmospheric opening for readers who love rural settings, haveli life and stories that span generations.

You can read Charagh Sham Say Pehly online here or download the complete PDF for free. More by Huma Waqas: Maqsoom, Mahween and Ajab Bandhan, or see all Huma Waqas novels and our Huma Waqas novel list with a short guide to each book.