Rocket ki Maina by Isha Gill

About this novelette

Rocket Ki Maina (Urdu: راکٹ کی مینا) by Isha Gill is a short Urdu cousin romance and comedy about Nehal, a cheeky girl with pet parrots. She talks more to her parrots than to people, and her serious cousin Ashar keeps catching her at exactly the wrong moment.

The story opens with Nehal coaxing her birds. “Rocket, eat your choori! Look how lovingly I made it for you, and you won’t touch it. Maina, you explain it to him!” When her mother Safina calls her for the third time, Nehal grumbles, only to be told she spends the whole day chatting with her parrots and should go put the pot on the stove. When she sees the vegetables are shaljam gosht again, she pulls a face – and then hears that her cousin Ashar is coming, who loves that dish. “Amma, the day he comes, I’ll know,” she mutters.

In the kitchen she complains dramatically to Saveera: on the day of her wedding she’ll stuff herself with shaljam gosht so she never has to see it again! Then she helps herself to a plate of kebabs from the shelf. Saveera laughs that the dishes are being made for Ashar, and the two bicker about whose “hero” is coming and who is jealous of whom.

طوطوں سے باتیں کرتی نہال، شلجم گوشت، اور اچانک آتا ہوا اشعر۔

Ashar arrives, greets his Chachi Jaan, and Safina welcomes him warmly, scolding him for staying away so long; he explains he was busy and came for work. Safina tells Nehal to bring him a glass of water. Saveera teases that Nehal will probably throw it over his head instead of handing it to him, and Nehal hands it to him with exaggerated manners – something she would never normally show. “How are you?” Ashar asks, eyeing her sulky face. Later, the girls are in the kitchen discussing their parrots, Rocket and Maina, who have been sad for two days, when a voice behind Nehal asks, “Who’ll be sad? Rocket – or Maina?” Ashar has been standing there all along.

Isha Gill keeps the story playful and fast, full of cousin chemistry and household humour.

You can read Rocket Ki Maina online here or download the complete PDF for free. More by Isha Gill: Tu Man Talbat, Qabool Hai and Heer, or see all Isha Gill novels and more cousin romance.