Shart Novel by Nimra Anwar

About this novel

Shart (Urdu: شرط) by Nimra Anwar is a short, bittersweet love story told by a man who realises too late what he threw away. The title means “the bet”, and that bet is where all his regret begins. It opens with a couplet about a love he found and still couldn’t keep, a love that was both his beginning and his end.

The narrator, Shehzad, admits it plainly. Sara loved him with all her heart, and he was careless. He did whatever he liked, never thinking how one person could love another so much. Back then, his own wishes were all that mattered. Now he can’t sleep. Every night he lies awake remembering her, while she sleeps peacefully, because she belongs to someone else now. Once, he says, he never felt anything; now he feels it all, and he finally understands what love is.

ایک شرط جو جیت لی، مگر محبت ہار گیا۔

The truth comes out slowly. Sara was part of a bet he made with his friends, a bet he won in their eyes. But somewhere along the way she became his love. He remembers the day she asked him to open his eyes and confessed, shyly, that she loved him, the girl who once meant everything to him. Shehzad was his parents’ spoiled only son, a little wayward, used to getting his way. And when he sees how Sara has turned an ordinary man’s home into a paradise, he knows exactly what kind of wife and life he lost.

Nimra Anwar writes this one as a heartfelt confession, full of guilt and longing. It’s a short read, but it lingers, especially for anyone who has learned the value of someone only after losing them.

You can read Shart online here or download the complete PDF for free. More by Nimra Anwar: Dard e Dill, Khan Zada and Mera Ishq Namukamal, or see all Nimra Anwar novels.