Dillo ka Chen by Kainat Zahra

About this novel

Dillo Ka Chen (Urdu: دلوں کا چین) by Kainat Zahra is a gentle Urdu family romance about a devoted daughter and her ailing mother. She carries a quiet wish she can’t bring herself to say aloud, and the title means peace of hearts.

It opens at dawn. After praying Fajr, a young woman raises her hands in dua, and her prayer is full of gratitude. Allah is merciful and generous, she says; He has given her everything she asked for, so how could she ever be ungrateful? She asked for the life of someone dear and He spared it; she asked for peace of heart and He gave it. Then she prays for her mother’s long life, for her brother’s long life, “and…” She stops there. Perhaps she can’t put that last wish into words, the writer suggests, even though her heart prays for it anyway.

دعا میں ہر نام لیا، مگر ایک نام زبان پر نہ آ سکا۔

She folds the prayer mat, takes off her hijab and goes to her mother’s room. “Amma, haven’t you taken your medicine?” Her mother, Asia Begum, says she was waiting for her darling. The daughter scolds her lovingly for not looking after herself; what would happen if she weren’t around to remind her? She gives her the medicine, kisses her forehead, says she’ll ask Amna to make breakfast, and points out the red-strip tablets that must be taken after eating. Her mother, smiling, says she’ll take them, and that she’ll phone someone to ask about a result coming out today.

Kainat Zahra writes with warmth and faith, and the opening is full of small, loving details between mother and daughter. With almost nine hundred pages, the story has plenty of room to reveal the name she left out of her prayer.

You can read Dillo Ka Chen online here or download the complete PDF for free. For more gentle family stories, read Meethi Eid or browse our Romantic Urdu novels.