Roshan Sawera By Bisma Khan

About this novelette

Roshan Sawera (Urdu: روشن سویرا, “a bright dawn”) by Bisma Khan is a short, cheerful Urdu novel about a lively family and their trip to the village. It opens with a brother-and-sister squabble over a locked laptop and ends its first chapter with the whole family heading to the countryside.

“Bhai, meri baat sunein!” Zimal comes flying down the stairs. Her brother Zamin is busy with the TV and doesn’t even look up. When she plants herself in front of him and demands to know who put a password on her laptop, he flicks the channel and says that if she already knows, why make a scene? He has his reasons: last week she knocked his phone off the bed and never said sorry, and when he complained she told him to do what he liked. So he did, he tells her in English with a teasing grin. “Now it’s my time, dear sis.”

بہن بھائی کی نوک جھونک، بابا کی خوش خبری، اور گاؤں کا سفر۔

Zimal threatens to tell Baba. Zamin, perfectly relaxed, tells her to go ahead. She soon finds out why he’s so calm: the maid, whom everyone calls Bua, says Mujtaba Sahib went out early in the morning and nobody knows where.

Then the front door opens and Mujtaba Sahib’s voice rings through the lounge with a salam. Zimal runs to him, ready to deliver her complaint, but he hugs his gudiya and announces that he has good news for both of them. Tomorrow night they leave for the village, to Baba Sain’s, for a whole week. Both children forget their fight and jump for joy.

At 109 pages it’s a light read, full of family warmth and nok jhok.

You can read Roshan Sawera online here or download the complete PDF for free. More by Bisma Khan: The Night Stalkers and Rishtay Sang Muhabbaton Kay, on the Bisma Khan novels page.