At two o’clock in the afternoon, Islamabad’s roads were jammed with traffic, and the continuous honking of cars filled the air. A black Prado stood among the long queue of vehicles, with Zaid Qadwani behind the steering wheel. Wearing sunglasses pushed up on his forehead and his sleeves rolled to his elbows, he was busy discussing an important case over the phone. Just then, a skinny girl of around seventeen or eighteen knocked on his car window. Wearing a loose, dirty kameez with messy hair falling over her eyes, she looked innocent enough to fool anyone. “Hey, sir! You want me to clean your car?” she asked in a broken accent. Distracted by his phone call, Zaid nodded absentmindedly. The girl eagerly wiped his windshield with an old cloth, somehow making it even dirtier, and then stretched out her hand. “Done! Now give me my money!” Without looking at her, Zaid handed her a hundred-rupee note. She stared at it as though he had insulted her. “Hey! Have you lost your mind? I charge five thousand rupees for cleaning a windshield!” she exclaimed, waving the note in the air. “Give me the money quickly, or I’ll make a scene and accuse you of harassing me!” Zaid immediately ended his call and turned toward her in disbelief. Five thousand rupees for a windshield she had made dirtier? And now she was threatening him, too? Stepping out of the car, he towered over her with his six-foot frame and said coldly, “Go ahead. Make a scene.” The girl’s confidence vanished instantly. As she stammered, “L-look, sir, I was just—” Zaid shifted slightly, revealing the black gun tucked into his waistband. The moment she spotted it, she clutched the hundred-rupee note and ran for her life, weaving between cars before disappearing into the crowd. A deep smile spread across Zaid Qadwani’s lips. Five thousand! The girl certainly had courage. Yet something about her face seemed strangely familiar. That evening, when Zaid returned home, he found his mother, Tasmina Begum, sitting in the lounge with her prayer beads, gazing sadly out of the window. When he asked why she looked so upset, she confessed that she was missing her younger sister, Sameena. Years ago, Sameena had fallen in love with a man her family disapproved of and secretly married him, prompting their grandfather to disown her. Tasmina had continued contacting her sister in secret, and eventually learned that Sameena had given birth to a beautiful little girl named Gul Bahar. But one day, all contact suddenly stopped. When Tasmina tried to find her sister, she learned that Sameena and her husband had died in a road accident, while their daughter had mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
With tears in her eyes, Tasmina took out an old photograph of Gul Bahar, who had been around seven or eight years old when she went missing. The picture showed a little girl with curly hair, mischievous eyes, a tiny mole on her cheek, and a charming smile. “She must be a grown woman now, Zaid. I wonder where she is and what kind of life she’s living. What if she’s hungry or has no one to care for her?” Tasmina whispered painfully. Zaid tried to reassure his mother, but as he looked closely at the photograph, a sudden thought struck him. The girl at the traffic signal! Her sharp eyes, mischievous attitude, and the tiny black mole on her cheek matched the child in the photograph. Even her stammering words—“L-look, sir”—came rushing back to his mind. His heartbeat quickened. Could the troublesome girl who had tried to extort five thousand rupees from him actually be his long-lost cousin? Without revealing his suspicions, Zaid told his mother that he had to attend to a case and hurried out. He returned to the same traffic signal, parked his car nearby, and waited. An hour passed, then another, until he finally spotted the girl sitting in the shade of a small shop across the road. She was sipping sugarcane juice while repeatedly examining the hundred-rupee note and muttering to herself, apparently complaining that she had done five thousand rupees’ worth of work but received only a hundred. Zaid nearly burst out laughing at her ridiculous audacity. After finishing her drink, she carefully tucked the note inside her kameez and walked into the crowd. Zaid decided to follow her on foot rather than risk exposing himself by driving behind her. She moved through narrow streets with remarkable confidence, occasionally glancing over her shoulder. Each time she stopped to check whether someone was following her, Zaid cleverly concealed himself behind a wall or a street vendor. When she finally asked aloud whether anyone was there, then dismissed her suspicion as her imagination, he struggled to suppress another laugh. After nearly thirty minutes, the busy city streets gave way to muddy roads lined with makeshift huts built from plastic sheets and pieces of cloth. Children played in the dirt while women cooked over traditional clay stoves. The girl eventually stopped outside a small hut that had a charpai in front of it, where an elderly woman sat wrapped in a worn white shawl.
“Amma! I’m home!” the girl called cheerfully. The elderly woman raised her head and asked, “Gul Bahar, why are you so late today?” Zaid froze in his tracks. Gul Bahar! The name echoed in his mind as he stood there in disbelief. The mischievous girl who had attempted to trick him at the traffic signal was none other than the cousin his family had been searching for over the years—or at least, she appeared to be. He had followed her all the way to this humble settlement, and now he finally had a name to connect with the face that had stirred such powerful memories. As he watched her standing before the elderly woman, Zaid realized that his unexpected encounter might change both their lives forever. The girl who had confidently demanded five thousand rupees from Zaid Qadwani had absolutely no idea that the man she had tried to fool could be the key to discovering her true family and uncovering the mystery of her lost childhood.
Download Complete Novel By Clicking download Button Below