Wo Safar Jo Tery Nam Tha by Anabiya Khan

About this novel

Wo Safar Jo Tere Naam Tha (Urdu: وہ سفر جو تیرے نام تھا) by Anabiya Khan is a complete Urdu romance about Aina, the eldest daughter of a struggling family. She goes job-hunting to support her mother and sisters and runs into a man who seems to belong to another world.

The novel opens with money worries. “Beta, your Baba’s medicines are about to run out, and the rations at home are finished too. When will you get a job?” Aina’s mother asks. Aina – Noor-ul-Ain – sips her tea and says she’s trying; a job isn’t fruit she can pluck off a tree, but she’ll go and see a few places today. Then her younger sister Nadia holds out her hand: her teacher hit her yesterday because the fees haven’t been paid. Seeing the stick marks on her little sister’s hands, Aina’s eyes fill with tears. How can a teacher be so cruel to a child?

Their mother Sajida explains that the teacher beat her for the fees, which haven’t been paid for two months. Aina is upset that nobody told her – she could have borrowed the money. Their mother says through tears that nobody lends money to the poor, and the sisters try to comfort one another. Aina comforts them: she has applied in a couple of places; today a multinational company has called her for an interview. She tells her mother not to send the girls to school today and to pray for her. “Whatever happens, I’ll find a job.”

گھر کی ذمہ داری، بہنوں کی فیس، اور ایک بڑی کمپنی میں انٹرویو۔

At the company office, Aina’s heart sinks at the long line of candidates. She has dropped her sisters at school and come straight here. Then a shiny Mercedes, the kind she has only seen in dreams, pulls up, and a dignified older man steps out. Aina gets up and greets him; he looks at her from head to toe without replying and walks in. She wonders what he thinks of her – maybe that she’s some uneducated girl. She prays silently: “Ya Allah, I really need this job.” Just then she collides with someone and falls – and a voice says, “I’m sorry, ma’am,” belonging to a very handsome young man.

Anabiya Khan writes with warmth about poverty, sisterhood and self-respect, and the title – “the journey that was in your name” – promises that this chance meeting will change Aina’s life.

You can read Wo Safar Jo Tere Naam Tha online here or download the complete PDF for free. More by Anabiya Khan: Haq, Chahat and Khula, or see all Anabiya Khan novels.