Mera Chand Mere Samny By Noor Malik

About this novelette

Mera Chand Mere Samne (Urdu: میرا چاند میرے سامنے) by Noor Malik is a short Urdu novelette set in a village near Jhelum just before Ramzan. A sarpanch’s family and their city-educated son are heading toward a familiar cousin-engagement dilemma.

The story opens on an afternoon at the end of April, with the weather turning pleasant. The people of Ima Bari, a village near Jhelum, are content because Rajab Shah sits as sarpanch. The monsoon rain has fallen all night, and at four in the morning the azaan rings out from the big mosque. Villagers wake and do wuzu, men head to the mosque for jamaat, the women pray at home and prepare breakfast, and the birds seem to be praising Allah too.

At the haveli the rule is simple: work may wait, but namaz comes first, and even the servants pray before starting their chores. Rajab Shah himself prays in congregation with everyone. He believes Allah has made no difference between people, so who are humans to create one? That is why he has been sarpanch for twenty years. The haveli isn’t crowded: just Rajab Shah, his wife Aasiya Begum, their son Ubaid, who is studying at a university in the city, and Aisha, the daughter of Rajab Shah’s younger brother Wahab Shah. After Wahab Shah and his wife died in a car accident, Aasiya Begum raised Aisha like her own daughter.

رمضان کی آمد، گاؤں کی حویلی، اور شہر میں پڑھنے والے بیٹے کا دل۔

Ramzan is only days away. When Rajab Shah returns from prayer, a smiling Aisha brings him water, and he gently asks where her Bari Ammi is. Meanwhile, in the city, Ubaid tells his friend Shams that this time he’ll spend Eid at home – and he’ll talk to his mother about Romaisa. Shams reminds him that he is already engaged to his cousin. Ubaid only shrugs: she isn’t his type, a village girl who may not even have studied further. Shams, whose own parents have gone for Umrah, decides to stay back in the hostel while Ubaid packs his bag for the village.

Noor Malik combines village warmth, faith and a classic love-versus-family-promise setup, and the title hints at who will turn out to be the real “moon” in Ubaid’s life. A short, sweet read for Ramzan and Eid.

You can read Mera Chand Mere Samne online here or download the complete PDF for free. More by Noor Malik: Meri Zindagi Ho Tum, Insanon Ki Duniya Main Haivan and Piya Ke Iqrar Rang Niraly, or see all Noor Malik novels.