Zindagi Ki Talkhiyan By Fatima Rizwan

About this afsana

Zindagi Ki Talkhiyan (Urdu: زندگی کی تلخیاں) by Fatima Rizwan is a short Urdu afsana about a grieving family and a father who remarries quickly. He decides to remarry only a week after their mother’s death, and his children, especially Ahmad, struggle to accept it.

The story opens in darkness. A young man lets himself in with his own key and is greeted only by silence. Faint moonlight falls across the courtyard, the house so quiet that you’d never guess people live there. Once, his mother would have been sitting on the charpai in the courtyard, waiting for him no matter how late he came. Now she is gone. He sits heavily on her empty charpai, touching it as if searching for her, then rests his head on the damp edge of it, his tears flowing.

Then the bombshell. “I’m getting married again – I hope none of you object,” Zafar Sahib announces at the dinner table. His children stare at him in disbelief. “A second marriage? Ammi passed away only a week ago,” Saima says with difficulty. Saniya, a little younger, asks why he needs it. He insists he doesn’t need it for himself – the house and the children need a woman’s care, and he is very lonely. Ahmad, his face red with anger, says he doesn’t need a second mother. Zafar Sahib’s tone hardens: he’s not asking for permission, he’s informing them. “Try to understand,” Saima pleads, but he gets up and walks away.

ماں کی خالی چارپائی، اور باپ کا دوسری شادی کا فیصلہ۔

The writer comments that Zafar Sahib’s mistake wasn’t the remarriage itself but the haste; he gave his children no time to grieve. Ahmad, a twenty-one-year-old who loved his mother dearly, cannot accept a stranger in her place, though he decides to accept fate. He goes to his father’s room and finds him removing his mother’s photographs from the wall – a sight that wounds him deeply. Later, his friend Hammad asks whether it’s true his father is remarrying, and their exchange turns sharp. And when the girls come home one day, a woman in bright clothes is sitting with their father – their new stepmother – and none of them knows how to greet her.

Fatima Rizwan writes honestly about grief, family change and the bitterness of life the title promises.

You can read Zindagi Ki Talkhiyan online here or download the complete PDF for free. You may also like Talkh Zindagi Ki Haqeeqat and Dard Ka Daman, or browse more Urdu afsanay.