Dharkan by Sidra Sheikh

About this novel

Dharkan by Sidra Sheikh is a long Urdu novel about friendship, loss and the heart that keeps beating for someone who is no longer there. You can read it online or download the complete PDF free on Crazy Fans of Novels.

The story opens inside a dream. Ishal is running through darkness, tired and searching for a light, for someone of her own who got lost in those shadows. Exhausted, she sinks into a corner, and then a face appears that once made her cry and hurt her badly, and it simply laughs at her. A mocking voice says, “Achha to madam aap yahan chhup ke baithi hain,” and Ishal runs again, calling one name over and over: Saman.

Then the darkness ends. She finds herself in a green, open field beside a flowing stream, and under a beautiful tree sits a girl in a white dress who turns and looks at her with deep love. It is Saman, her best friend. Ishal tells her she searched everywhere, and Saman answers softly that she never left, she was always there, inside Ishal’s dil and inside her dharkan. Ishal calls it a lie, because her heart felt completely empty. When she steps forward, Saman steps back and says this is not a distance of a few steps but of heartbeats, and she prays Ishal never closes it.

Before she disappears, Saman leaves a last request: these heartbeats are my amanat, look after them and never let anyone take your dharkan away from you. Ishal wakes up screaming for Saman. Her mother, Sehrish Begum, tries to calm her down, the lights come on all over the house, her father Haroon Sahab rushes after her, and Ishal runs towards the main gate as the guards block her way. From the very first pages, Sidra Sheikh makes it clear that this is a story of dosti, grief and a girl learning to live with a wound in her heart.

یہ فاصلہ قدموں کا نہیں، دھڑکنوں کا ہے، اور کچھ دوست دل سے کبھی جاتے نہیں۔

If you liked the emotion in this one, read Sidra Sheikh’s Khamoshiyan and Khamoshiyan Season 2, or browse all Sidra Shaikh novels and the latest Urdu novels.