Zindagi Gulzar Hai is a wonderful and amazingly written social romantic Urdu novel by the exceptionally talented Umera Ahmed.
The novel has the privilege of being the first book of the writer which she wrote just to improve her writing skills without ever knowing that a writer lives within her. Umera Ahmed has wonderfully sketched the social difference between the upper class and lower class, gender difference and turning diversity into opportunity in the novel.
The novel is not merely bounded within a sole moral idea, but is based on various themes. It focuses on faith in God and putting efforts when antecedents are against you. It’s a wake-up call to our society that relationships often require comprise and sacrifice. Without these, neither life is a blessing nor does it bring joy.
Zindagi Gulzar Hai (life is a rose garden) compels the readers to think how blessed they are, as they often don’t realise this. The novel explains the hardships of a young woman who has not much in her life, but a good character and intelligence. Ahmed has shown the readers what treasure one can be if they do have moral values and quality of goodness.
Zindagi Gulzar Hai revolves around the life of Kashaf Murtaza and Zaroon Junaid who are diametric to each other in every sense. Kashaf Murtaza is an average looking girl from a middle-class family and has a lot of responsibilities. She has an extremely unsatisfied life due to the financial constraints which affects her self-esteem badly. She is disturbed about everything that happens to her, but refuses to give up.
On the other hand, Zaroon Junaid belongs to an elite class family. He has every great thing in life and an unshakable self-confidence. The only thing missing in Zaroon’s life is a close knit family that has enough time for each other.
They both meet in college. They literally hate each other and debate over petty things. The novel whirls around Murtaza’s miseries and the hard work she does to reach to a designation as big as a civil superior police officer.
One of the most unexpected things is the marriage of Junaid and Murtaza. I adore this novel for its uniqueness and lovely method of engaging the audience.
The hatred between Murtaza and Junaid ends up in marriage.
The writer is a student