Filhal By Muhammad Shariq

About this novel

Filhal by Muhammad Shariq is a suspenseful Urdu novel about a daughter’s search for her missing father. A mysterious dream keeps returning to her at night, and it may hold the key to what happened to him.

For more than a year, a young woman has been searching everywhere for someone who has disappeared. Today, once again, she leaves the police station with no answers. The SHO speaks to her politely but firmly: he has told her many times that her case is closed, and if she comes here again, it will not be good for her. His words and his attitude feel like a drug that drains all her hope.

She sits on a bench outside the police station and opens a pack of tissues from her bag to wipe her tears. Her father is missing, and despite searching everywhere, no one seems to know anything about him. Just as she takes a deep breath and gets up to leave, a kind voice calls out, “Suno beta.” It is an old, frail constable.

He comes closer and quietly tells her that no one here will help, because everyone is new and nobody knows where the old staff were posted. He is the only one left, and he is retiring next week. For the sake of her late father, who was a good man, he gives her one piece of advice: go to a computer hacker. Only such a person can help her now. Before she can say much, he asks her not to mention his name to anyone and walks away. She sighs, “Uff, ab hacker kahan se dhoondun,” starts her car and drives off, thinking hard.

Elsewhere, at three in the morning, a young man is lying in bed, sweating even in the AC’s chill. He is having a restless dream: a girl in a white dress with a red dupatta is walking towards him across green grass in a beautiful valley full of colourful flowers, but the mist hides her face. As she comes closer, the mist only gets thicker. Muhammad Shariq ties two lives together with a strong sense of mystery.

تلاش جب سچی ہو تو اندھیروں میں بھی کوئی راستہ نکل آتا ہے۔

Read more by Muhammad Shariq: Kaali Pari and Pehla Qadam Ikhtetam Tak, or see all Muhammad Shariq novels and the latest Urdu novels.