Khamoshiyan (Season 2) novel by Sidra Sheikh

About this novel

Khamoshiyan Season 2 (Urdu: خاموشیاں سیزن ٹو) by Sidra Sheikh continues the long Urdu family saga of Khamoshiyan with a painful memory. A mother leaves her five-year-old daughter outside an orphanage with a letter, promising to come back soon.

The woman who wakes up from that dream, drenched in sweat, is Aneesha Esham Ahmed. She is a successful fashion designer living in America, married to Esham Ahmed, a well-known businessman, and mother of the twins Areez and Noor-ul-Ain. Esham asks again who Hoor-ain is, since that name comes out of her mouth every time she wakes. Aneesha only reminds him that he promised never to ask. Then the twins burst in, worried and squabbling over which of them is bara, and Aneesha watches Noor-ul-Ain and wonders whether the daughter she left behind would have grown up just as tall and beautiful.

ایک ماں کا راز، ایک بیٹی کا نام، اور برسوں کی خاموشی۔

In another house, Waleed Shah has gone back to being the hard, maghroor man he was in business, but with his children Arsh and Aashi he is a different person. Mehr-un-Nisa tells him that spoiling them like this undoes the tarbiyat (upbringing) Hoor-ain gave both children over five years. Elsewhere, Dr. Jahangir Alam refuses the Rathore family’s money to drop a case, telling them all their daulat can’t buy him.

From these first chapters it’s clear that Season 2 is about the things the characters never say out loud: a mother’s raaz, a name no one may question, and families held together by khamoshi. That is what the title means.

If you haven’t read the first part, start with Khamoshiyan (Season 1). You can read Season 2 online here or download the complete PDF for free. More of Sidra Sheikh’s work, including Dharkan, is in the Sidra Sheikh novels list.