Chapter 1

3rd person's POV

There were two girls that could be seen walking along the roadside of Karachi. It was almost 9AM and the girls were walking hurriedly with their bags on their shoulders. Both of the girls were wearing jeans and knee length kurtas with matching hijabs on their heads. The girl that was the shorter between the both of them was continuously apologizing to the other girl that was glaring at her.

"You always do that, Tasha Appi! It's all because of you that we are late on our first day of university and Annie made us walk all the way to university! All because of you! Seriously, can't you wake up at least on your first day?!" The girl was complaining to the shorter girl with annoyed face.

"Acha na baba sorry! Nhi utha gaya meray say to ab kiya karn! Tm hi utha deti agar itna hi tha jaldi janay ka! Per khair, ab to kuch nhi ho sakta! Ek kaam krtay hain k hum bhaag kr chaltay hain! Mazeed late na ho jayain na! (Okay na I am sorry! I could not wake up so what to do now! You should have woke me up then if you wanted to go early! But still, nothing can be done now! We can do one thing, we can go there while running! So that we don't get more late than we already are!)" the shorter girl said.

It was Mantasha Abid and Zainab Abid that were making their way to the University of Karachi. Mantasha was the shorter one among them but she was 2 years older than Zainab. Zainab and Mantasha are step-sisters but they love each other more than real sisters. Mantasha's parents adopted Zainab after her mother's death.

Zainab's mother was a widowed woman in UK and her in-laws kicked her and Zainab out of their house after Zainab's father died. Zainab was only 4 years old at that time. It was really late at night when Asma Abid and Abid Husain were making their way from hospital because Mantasha was very sick so they had to take her to hospital in emergency.

When the family was making their way to their home, they saw a woman was sitting on the bench in an isolated park at night. No one was in the park and the woman was trying to hush a little girl. Asma told her husband to stop the car and they went to ask the woman. The woman told them about her misfortune and Asma and Abid decided to help the woman and her child. They offered the woman their house and she gratefully accepted the offer as she did not know for how long she can bear her child's hungry cries. All of them went to Asma and Abid's home and they fed the woman and her child. After that incident, the woman, Farhana and her child, Zainab became a part of Asma and Abid's small family.

Mantasha and Zainab became very close while Farhana started doing all the house chores even though Asma tried to stop her but all the work was divided in both the ladies. Farhana was a very selfless person so she did not want to live on some-one else's money for free.

Even though Abid was very rich but still he never tried to get extravagant things. They lived in a normal two story house in UK. They only had a driver and a guard for the house but no maid because Asma believed in doing everything on her own. She believed that a person should do what he/she can on their own and not to become dependent on others.

Asma and Farhana, both taught everything to the girls so that they can be perfect women for their respective future husbands. But there was another unfortunate event when Farhana died in a car accident in UK. Zainab was only 13 while Mantasha was 15. Both the girls were very attached to the woman but Zainab was the most heartbroken one as Farhana was her only family. Zainab started to face depression so Abid and Asma decided to adopt the girl and then shift to Pakistan as the girls were growing up and the environment of UK was not very good to raise two beautiful girls. So, they shifted in Karachi where Asma's In-laws were also living. Asma and Abid bought a new double story house in Karachi. Abid made sure that his wife and daughters were settled in Karachi and then he went back to UK.

Abid was always in touch with his wife and his daughters. Zainab never called Mantasha's mother as mother because she always referred to her as Annie while she called her father as baba as she had been referring to them as that from her childhood so they never forced her to it too. Mantasha made sure to pull Zainab out of her depression. Zainab was a very intelligent girl so she passed her FSc Pre Engineering two years earlier than expected. Mantasha was interested in Designing but she decided to take admission in the same university as Zainab but since there was no program for designing in that university so she took admission in BS TV and Film Production in the same university as Zainab while Zainab got scholarship in that university in BE Avionics.

Now the girls were late because Mantasha woke up late, AGAIN. Both the girls were punished by Asma for waking up late and the girls had to walk to the university and this made them even later than they already were. Zainab was complaining through all the way to university gates. After the girls showed their university cards, they entered the gates and bid farewell to each other as both of them had different departments. It's a relief that they already know where their departments and classes are as they visited the departments and all the classes two days prior.