Khamoshiyan by Sidra Shaikh

About this novel

Khamoshiyan (Urdu: خاموشیاں) by Sidra Sheikh is the first season of a long Urdu family saga about a haveli heir and an orphan girl. Waleed Shah is the proud son of a haveli, and Hoor-ain comes from Aashiyana Orphanage, a girl his family will never accept.

The novel doesn’t ease you in. It opens on Waleed Shah and Malaika, a relationship conducted in secret, with Malaika asking how long they’ll keep meeting like this and when they’ll marry, and Waleed brushing the question aside. Then it cuts to the orphanage. There’s music and clapping, and the girls are dressed up for a mehndi that the whole place has been decorated for. Hoor-ain is so happy she can’t believe it’s really happening.

یتیم خانے کی ایک لڑکی، حویلی کا غرور، اور وہ باتیں جو کوئی کہہ نہیں پاتا۔

Behind the celebration, the pressure is building. The orphanage’s rules say Hoor-ain is turning eighteen and can’t stay any longer, and she can’t be taken away without a nikah. Someone promises Razia Maasi that he’ll come back the next day with the maulvi, and asks her to look after his amanat until then. At the haveli, things explode. Waleed is held back by his own family, begging his brother to untie his hands because she’s waiting for him. Baba Sain calls the girl he loves a bazaari woman, and the family can’t believe a girl from a yateem khana could become their bahu.

Sidra Sheikh writes in short, sharp lines of dialogue, and a lot of the drama is in what the characters leave unsaid, which is where the title khamoshiyan (“silences”) comes from. This first season runs to 1,571 pages in the PDF, and its story carries straight on into Khamoshiyan Season 2, where Waleed Shah and Hoor-ain’s names come back years later.

You can read Khamoshiyan online here or download the complete PDF for free. Also by Sidra Sheikh: Dharkan, on the Sidra Sheikh novels page.