Rangrez

Mohabbat ki tamana hai to phir wo vasf paida kar

Jahan se Ishq chalta hai wahan tak naam paida kar,

Agr sachcha hai mery ishq mein to ay bani Adam

Nigahe Ishq paida kar jamal e zarf paida kar

Main tujh ko Tujh se ziada aur sab se ziada chahon ga

Magr shart yeh k apny andar meri Justaju to peda kar,

agar na badloun teri khatir har ik cheez to kehna

Tu apny ap mei phly andaz e wafa to paida kar

-Iqbal

The sun was just starting to shine in through the drapes. Basking the room in its light. The drapes filtered the rays though. The room looked all warm. A few shades in the shape of stars could be seen on walls due to star-shaped wind chime.

It was a time she cherished, but today she was not up to witness it. She was fast asleep. black midnight locks strewn across the sheets and pillows, face hidden beneath her hands and legs poking out of the blanket.

One would not say that she was elegant at all. but the sound of her caretaker or as she affectionately called her ‘Khala’ came into her ears telling her it was time to wake up, she whined a bit in her spell.

Peeking out of her hands from one eye she noticed on her digital table clock it was, in fact, a Saturday, hence why was sleeping so late and not up and about to go to her college.

"Hume sone den na Khala, aaj to hafte ka din hain na,” she whined, with a throaty voice but still sounding as if silk.

(Let me sleep Khala, it is Saturday today)

“Get up Biba, it’s your father’s order, all of you girls have to be present for breakfast today,” Chand bibi, the haveli’s head servent and caretaker for the girls in the Sheikh Haveli, she had been a mother figure since the Arisha had been born, and took care of the girls as a mother when they lost theirs.

Arisha heard her father’s request and was up in one moment. ” Why did you not wake me earlier?” Arisha asked in a hurry and ran to the bathroom to freshen up. meanwhile. Chaand Bibi had gone to her walk-in cupboard and taken out a few traditional Indian suits, all a bit for show, all of them in a Gharara style, all of them never worn before.

Chand bibi satisfied with her work went to wake up the other two girls before she went to check on the breakfast. the Sheikh Haveli was up in shambles today. It was rare for Farhan Sheikh to eat breakfast at the Haveli, rarer still to eat with his daughters.

It was a complete shock for Chand bibi to make a proper breakfast for him, but when he asked her to wake the girls up, because he wanted them present at the breakfast Chand bibi nearly lost her composure.

If it were any other person of the Haveli, Chand would have told them the girls were really in need of the sleep or made some excuse to save them. But one person no one ever went against in the Sheikh Haveli was Farhan Sheikh.

He was a man that needed everything to be in his control, always had been, except for a few years when he had been with his wife, Rubina. He had gone soft and had been genuinely happy that was until his wife’s health the started to dwindle, and after three girls she could not fight anymore. She had wanted a boy but instead with each pregnancy she lost her health, she loved all her daughters, but she knew, how much a son would mean to her husband.

Today Farhan Sheikh did not even look at the face of his daughters, especially at his oldest daughter, Arisha. She was said to be a copy of her mother, and he blamed his daughters for the loss of his wife.

Arisha rushed out of the bathroom freshened and bathed. She looked at the clothes laid out for her. She instantly rejected them. Arisha had never been one to wear pretty dresses and dress up like a girl. She was ones, but then her mother had always told her in her last days to try and be the son for her father, be the support of the family, and to protect her sisters as a brother would.

So, as the years went by and Arisha grew up she became a tomboy, she took the responsibilities as her mother had wanted her to. She looked after her sisters, tried to love them like a mother, teach them like an elder sister, and protect them like an elder brother.

She looked out for her cousins, even if they did not speak and had a rift with her uncles family. She looked after the Haveli, and it’s people.

She tried so hard to be a son, that she forgot to be a daughter, she forgot to be a girl.

Arisha dressed up in her jeans and top. She had always had fun irking hand bi, whenever she told her to wear traditional Indian more often. What she did not take into account was the fact that she was having breakfast with her father.

After 10 years.

Arisha arrived downstairs to her living room for one of the maids to subtly sing her towards the formal dining room. She huffed, of course, her father would want to have breakfast there.

She went to the dining room, where she found her youngest sister Inaya, peeking inside.

Arisha tapped her sisters back making her sister jump with surprise. Arisha asked the silent question with a raise of her eyebrows, as to know what exactly her sister was up to.

Inaya pointed towards the room, both Arisha and Inaya peeked back inside the room to see their father already seated with a few files in front of him and tea next to him. Inaya was scared as she had not ever had any contact with her father save a Salam sometimes, but that too on her part she never got a reply. She had been too young to remember her father as a happy man. She was still young only 14.

Arisha on the other hand remembered when it had been only her, and her mother had been somewhat healthy. She remembered her father then, he used to be happy. He used to smile at her mother and play with her. His eyes used to light up when her mother walked in a room. She remembered how happy he had been when Maira har younger sister had been born.

She also remembered when he started losing his smile, when stopped playing with her, and when he started looking as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

She could remember when he had a tiny smile when he had held Inaya for the first time. and she remembered the only day in her life that she had seen him cry it had been the day they had lowered Rubina in her gave.

She remembered he had cried holding her once, and left with her mother’s body, and she also remembered the look on his face when he came back. It had been 14 years since that day and that look had left his face, but never his eyes.

It had been that day that her father had last spoken directly to her when she had gone to her parent’s room late at night. he had been staring at Rubina’s picture. and had called her to sit with him. They stared at the picture for Allah knows how long. Finally when the sun had just started to rise on the horizon. He had looked at her and said, one thing to her.

“Never fall in love, Arisha jaan, Kabhi Ishq mat karna,”

That was the day she had decided not to ever fall in love. She had seen love at its most beautiful and at its most ugly. She had seen what love had done to her father, and she had decided never to be in that situation.

Little did she know that fate and Allah had something else written in her destiny. It is said in the Quran, that everyone is made in pairs, and Arisha was just about to mee her match.