Har Jayi Novel by Iqra Sheikh

About this novel

Har Jayi (Urdu: ہرجائی) by Iqra Sheikh is a long romantic Urdu novel that begins at the moment a man realises he has lost the girl he spent months hurting. She has left the house, and he is standing in the lounge shouting at the servants, demanding to know why nobody stopped her.

The servants are huddled in a corner, too frightened to answer, his eyes are red with anger, and then his mother, Sadia Begum, speaks from behind him: she told them not to stop her. He can’t believe it. How could she let the girl go, knowing he is incomplete without her? Sadia Begum’s reply is quiet and heavy. She has silently watched everything he has done to the girl, “Dani”, and today, for the first time, the girl asked her for something. She couldn’t say no.

جس سے نفرت کا دعویٰ تھا، اسی سے عشق ہو گیا۔

He tells his mother she shouldn’t have done it, that he won’t let the girl go so easily. Sadia Begum warns him not to force anything on her again; give her time, she says, and she may come back on her own. But she knows her son. Whatever he decides, he does, whether or not the other person wants it. He insists the girl is his, only his, and drives off with his mother’s words echoing in his head. And he knows she was right. Five months ago he openly hated this girl. Somewhere in those five months the nafrat disappeared, and he fell in ishq with her. Sometimes he wishes they had met in some other way, in other circumstances, and imagines how beautiful life could have been.

The story then turns to another scene. A girl named Haram walks into her Mami Maria’s room with her eyes lowered, nervously twisting her hands, and Maria’s face fills with dislike the moment she sees her. Even her simple green suit irritates her.

The title, “Har Jayi” (the unfaithful one), fits a story about pride, cruelty and a love that arrives too late. Iqra Sheikh opens with the hero’s regret and then lets the reader discover, step by step, how things came to this.

You can read Har Jayi online here or download the complete PDF for free. More novels by the same writer: Sitamgar Hi Humsafar Tha, Be Inteha and Mera Yaar Bedardi, or see all Iqra Sheikh novels and our Iqra Sheikh novels list with a short guide to each book.