#heeramandi

The narrow lanes of Heeramandi never truly slept. Even at night, the air carried the faint weight of perfume, clinking bangles, distant music, and hushed negotiations that blurred the line between pleasure and power. Chandelier light spilled across carved balconies and silk-draped windows, turning the district into something almost dreamlike, beautiful at a distance, suffocating when you stood inside it.

Rihana Sultana was at the center of that dream.

Her name alone was enough to draw attention in a room she hadn’t even stepped into. Among the tawaifs of Heeramandi, she was spoken of with a kind of reverence reserved for rare things, grace that felt effortless, expression that felt intentional, and a stage presence that didn’t ask for attention but took it without permission. Her performance was a command disguised as art.

That night was no different. The hall was already full before she appeared. Men of influence, wealth, and hidden agendas filled the cushioned seats, their conversations thinning into silence the moment the first notes of music began. The air shifted as the rhythm deepened, as if the entire room had unconsciously agreed to stop breathing too loudly.

Then Rihana stepped in.

The hall had already begun to quiet before she even stepped into it, as if the space itself recognized what was about to happen. The musicians adjusted their instruments with slow precision, testing the air with soft, anticipatory notes. Lantern light flickered gently across carved pillars and silk drapes, turning everything into something almost unreal, like the room was holding its breath without meaning to.

Rihana Sultana appeared without announcement.

There was no dramatic entrance, no rush, no attempt to claim attention. She simply arrived, and the room adjusted itself around her presence the way it always did. Her gaze moved once across the audience, not searching, not acknowledging, but registering, and then she took her place at the center as if she had always belonged there more than anywhere else.

The first notes of “Dil Cheez Kya Hai” began softly, like a memory unfolding rather than a performance starting.

She did not rush, she never did. Every movement felt measured, deliberate, like she knew the exact moment the world would begin watching and had prepared for it long before they arrived.

The opening gesture of her hand was slow, almost restrained, but it carried weight, not force, but certainty. Her wrist turned with a softness that didn’t feel fragile, only controlled, and when her fingers followed the rhythm of the music, it felt less like movement and more like translation, turning sound into something visible.

The shimmer of her attire caught the lantern light as she moved, but it was never the fabric that held attention for long. It was her control.

The way she held silence between gestures, letting the space between beats feel intentional, almost sacred.

The way her shoulders shifted just slightly before she turned, as if even her transitions had thought behind them.

The way her feet barely disturbed the floor, yet every step still carried presence.

As the song deepened, her expression changed with it, not abruptly, but like a story unfolding behind her eyes.

There was no exaggeration in it, no forced emotion. Instead, there was restraint so precise it became expressive on its own.

A faint lift of her gaze during a softer note, a subtle lowering of her lashes when the music dipped into something heavier. She didn’t act the lyrics, she became their interpretation.

Her voice carried the melody as she sang, steady and controlled, and her movements flowed with it as though the sound itself was shaping her body. Each step, each turn, each pause was bound to the rhythm she created, as if the air around her had learned to move with her breath.

Even when her voice softened between lines, nothing in her presence broke, the silence still held structure, still felt intentional, still felt alive. And when she sang again, the sound didn’t overpower anything, it simply continued, seamless and assured, as though it had always been meant to exist exactly that way.

“Dil cheez kya hai… aap meri jaan lijiye…”

The words didn’t feel performed, they felt carried. Her eyes moved across the audience again, slower this time, not lingering on anyone too long, until, almost inevitably, they passed over Uzair.

He was still the same as before.

Still not reacting the way others did, still not leaning forward, not visibly consumed, not offering her the validation the room seemed to expect from him. But this time, there was something different in the way he watched, not detachment, not indifference, but attention that didn’t break when it was returned.

For a fraction of a second, their awareness of each other aligned.

Then she turned away mid-movement, letting the music take her with it again, as if acknowledging him too directly would break something she had no name for yet.

The choreography shifted into something softer. Her arms moved with slower intent now, tracing shapes in the air that felt less like display and more like conversation with the music itself.

The audience remained still, but she wasn’t performing for stillness anymore. She was moving within it, shaping it, controlling it without ever needing to announce that she was in control.

Each step felt like it belonged exactly where it landed, and each pause felt like it mattered more than motion.

And Uzair, watching from where he stood apart from the rest, found himself doing something unfamiliar, he wasn’t trying to interpret her anymore. He was simply watching, as if understanding such grace was impossible.

The audience remained still, but she wasn’t performing for stillness anymore. She was moving within it, shaping it, controlling it without ever needing to announce that she was in control.

Each step felt like it belonged exactly where it landed, and each pause felt like it mattered more than motion. And Uzair, watching from where he stood apart from the rest, found himself doing something unfamiliar, he wasn’t trying to interpret her anymore. He was simply watching, as if understanding such grace was impossible.

The courtyard of Heeramandi held its breath as the final notes dissolved into silence. The chandeliers above still swayed faintly, as if even the light was reluctant to settle.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then the applause began, slow at first, then swelling, filling every corner of the space she had just commanded without ever raising her voice above the music.

Rihana did not acknowledge it beyond what was required. A slight lowering of her gaze, a composed stillness that separated the performer from the person beneath her. Then, as if the moment no longer belonged to her, she stepped back from the center of the courtyard, letting the attention spill away and attach itself to nothing.

That was when she saw him.

He was not part of the crowd pressing forward, nor was he standing where nawabs usually lingered to be seen.

Uzair was slightly apart, near the edge of the courtyard where the lantern light thinned into shadow. He was not clapping, he was not speaking, he was simply there, as though he had remained behind after everyone else had already decided to leave.

It should not have mattered, men stayed behind all the time in Heeramandi.

But none of them stayed like that.

Rihana adjusted the edge of her dupatta as she walked toward the side of the courtyard, her bangles soft against her wrist in the quiet that followed her performance.

When she reached him, she stopped at a comfortable distance, studying him as she always did now, as if trying to figure out what exactly he was doing there without asking directly.

“Tum abhi tak yahan ho?” she asked, her tone light, almost teasing, though her eyes were more observant than her voice.

Uzair turned his attention to her fully, as if he had been aware of her the entire time but had chosen not to acknowledge it until she spoke. “Main jaa raha tha,” he said simply.

Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Jhooth,” she replied immediately, without hesitation.

That made something shift faintly in his expression, not defensiveness, but awareness that she was no longer taking his words at surface value.

“Main jhooth nahi bol raha tha,” he said after a pause.

She stepped a little closer now, just enough to make the distance between them feel intentional rather than accidental. “Tumhe jhooth bolna aata hi nahi hai,” she said, almost like she was commenting on a fact she had already accepted about him.

For a moment, he looked away toward the now settling courtyard, where people were slowly dispersing, their voices blending into background noise again. When he spoke, his voice was steady, but quieter than before.

“Main ruk gaya tha.”

“Achha?” she asked, folding her hands lightly in front of her. “Kis liye?”

A pause followed. It wasn’t long enough to feel uncertain, but long enough to feel deliberate.

Then he said, “Tumhare liye.”

Rihana did not react immediately. Not because she didn’t hear him, but because she was used to men saying things that sounded like that and meaning something entirely different underneath.

With him, there was no immediate second meaning she could find. That unsettled her more than it should have.

She exhaled softly, turning her gaze briefly toward the empty courtyard before looking back at him. “Yahan har koi kisi na kisi wajah se rukta hai,” she said. “Tumhari wajah bas thodi alag lag rahi hai.”

“Main koi wajah nahi dhoondh raha,” he replied.

That made her pause slightly. “Phir kya dhoondh rahe ho?” she asked, quieter now.

This time, he didn’t look away when he answered. “Tumhe.”

The space between them changed, not visibly, not dramatically, but enough that even the air felt more deliberate than before.

Rihana’s expression softened for a fraction of a second before she covered it with something lighter, something familiar. “Tum yahan aise baat kar rahe ho jaise mujhe pehli baar dekh rahe ho,” she said lightly, though her voice had lost some of its teasing edge.

Uzair’s gaze stayed on her for a moment longer than usual, calm but intent, before he finally replied. “Dekha toh hai,” he said, his voice low, “but aaj ke tera kabhi nahi.”

That made her fall quiet.

Around them, Heeramandi continued as it always did. Conversations resuming, life slipping back into its practiced rhythm. But in that small corner of the courtyard, neither of them moved with it yet.

And for the first time since she had stepped into the center of that stage, Rihana found herself wondering not how she was being seen, but why. For the first time it felt like she was being seen at all.

Uzair kept returning after that night without fully admitting to himself that it had become intentional.

At first, he still called it coincidence in his mind. Then he called it timing, then work, then nothing at all. Eventually, even the habit of naming it faded, because every excuse began to feel unnecessary when the outcome was always the same, he would end up in Heeramandi again, standing somewhere within its chandelier-lit courtyards, waiting for a moment he could not logically justify.

It was not the performances that pulled him back, it was her. More specifically, it was the mystery she left behind when she was not performing.

Rihana, too, began noticing the pattern in a way she pretended not to. She never asked why he kept coming, and he never offered explanations beyond the simple ones he had already exhausted. But she started recognizing the rhythm of his presence the way she recognized music cues on stage.

He did not arrive loudly, he did not announce himself, he simply appeared, usually after the crowd had thinned, when the world of Heeramandi had begun to soften again into its quieter, more private version of itself.

Their conversations had grown into something familiar by then, no longer hesitant, no longer carefully measured. There was still distance between them, but it no longer felt like unfamiliarity. It felt more like restraint, something neither of them had fully decided whether to break.

One evening, after a performance had ended and the courtyard had begun to empty, Uzair found her near one of the stone corridors where lantern light fell unevenly across the walls. She was adjusting the bracelets on her wrist, her expression calm in the way it always was after she had stepped off a stage, but something about her hands caught his attention before anything else did.

There were faint smudges of colour on her fingers. Not mehndi, paint.

He noticed it instantly, as if it did not belong in a place like this. “Yeh kya hai?” he asked, his voice steady but observant.

Rihana glanced down quickly, almost too quickly, and closed her hand slightly as though the question itself had made her self-aware. “Kuch nahi,” she replied immediately, too casual to be convincing.

His gaze stayed on her hand. "Dekhne mein aisa toh nahi lag raha," he said.

“Aisa kuch nahi hai” she insisted, but there was a faint shift in her tone now, less confident, more guarded.

Uzair didn’t push at first. He simply watched her, the same way he always did, as if he was not satisfied with surface answers. That quiet persistence alone was often enough to make people uncomfortable, and she noticed it immediately.

Rihana gave a faint, almost dismissive smile as she adjusted the edge of her dupatta, trying to make the moment feel lighter than it actually was. “Tumhe har cheez ko analyse karne ki aadat hai ya bas mujhe hi special treatment mil raha hai?” she asked, her tone playful, but her eyes briefly searching his face for something she didn’t say out loud.

Uzair didn’t respond immediately. He let the silence sit between them, unhurried, as if it belonged there. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, almost matter of fact. “Main har cheez ko nahi dekhta,” he said. “Sirf woh, jahan meri nazar ruk jaati hai.”

That made her pause.

The smile on her lips faltered for just a second before she recovered it, softer this time, less certain. “Aur yahan tumhari nazar ruk gayi hai?” she asked, trying to sound casual, though the question came out quieter than intended.

Uzair’s gaze didn’t move away from her. “Haan,” he said simply.

That made her look back at him. And his entire attention wasn’t on the courtyard, or the fading guests, or anything else around them. It was on her.

She hesitated for a moment longer than she meant to. Then, reluctantly, she said, “Follow me.” It was not an invitation she gave often, so he followed without asking where.

They moved through a narrow passage behind the main courtyard, away from the remaining noise of Heeramandi. The air shifted slightly there, quieter, less performative. Rihana stopped in front of a plain wooden door that did not carry any decoration or indication of importance. For a moment, she stood still, as if reconsidering the decision entirely. Then she pushed it open.

Inside was a room Uzair had never seen before. It did not resemble anything in the rest of the house.

Canvases leaned against the walls in uneven stacks, some covered, some half-finished, some abandoned entirely. Sketches were pinned in careless clusters across surfaces that were otherwise bare. Books and journals lay open on tables, their pages filled with handwriting, notes, and rough drawings of places that did not belong to Lahore, or anywhere near it.

Oceans stretched across paper in loose strokes of blue and grey, cities rose in pencil outlines, unfamiliar and foreign, mountains carved across canvases with a softness that suggested memory rather than observation. Even architecture he did not recognize filled the space, imagining buildings shaped from stories rather than sight.

Uzair didn’t speak immediately. For once, there was nothing in him that tried to categorize what he was seeing quickly enough to respond.

Rihana stood near the doorway, suddenly less composed than she had been outside. “Yeh mat sochna ke main roz yahan baith ke yeh sab karti hoon,” she said lightly, but it sounded more like an explanation to herself than to him.

He stepped further into the room slowly, as if even curiosity needed permission here. His eyes moved across the canvases before settling on one in particular, studying it for a moment longer than the rest. “Tum yeh sab khud banati ho?” he asked quietly.

Rihana didn’t look at him immediately. Her fingers brushed lightly against the edge of a nearby canvas, a little defensive, a little proud. “Haan… main banati hoon,” she said after a pause.

Uzair didn’t reply right away. He just walked a little closer, eyes fixed on a painting of a city neither of them recognized, bridges over water, tall structures fading into light, something that felt real and unreal at the same time.

“Yeh jagah kahan hai?” he asked.

Rihana finally looked at the painting properly, then back at him, as if deciding how honest she wanted to be. “Yeh asal mein jagah nahi hai,” she said softly. ““Main bas sochti hoon ki agar main yahan se bahar jaaun, toh shayad aisi hi jagah hogi.”

For the first time since he had known her, something in her voice softened into something unguarded.

She walked further into the room, slowly now, as if the space itself made her less aware of being watched. “Main yahan sirf perform karne ke liye nahi rehna chahti,” she said, almost under her breath, as she ran her fingers lightly over the edge of a sketchbook. “Log sochte hain mujhe yeh sab pasand hai… jaise mujhe sirf yeh karna aata hai.”

She let out a short laugh, but there was no humor in it. “Lekin mujhe yeh pasand nahi hai,” she said more clearly now.

Uzair stayed silent.

She continued, as if the words had been waiting too long to stay inside her. “Ek din mujhe yahan se bahar jaana hai,” she said. “Duniya dekhni hai, woh sab jagah dekhni hai jo maine sirf kitaabon mein dekhi hain.”

Her gaze moved across the room, not toward him, but toward everything she had built in secret.

“Mujhe aise logo se milna hai jo Heeramandi ke baare mein kuch nahi jaante.” she said softly. She paused. Then added, quietly still, “jaha par mujhe perform nahi karna pade.”

The honesty of it hung in the air longer than either of them addressed.

Uzair looked at her, not as a performer, not as the center of a room, not as something constructed for attention. But as someone who had built an entire world inside a locked room just to survive the one she was trapped in.

And for the first time, he understood that what he had been returning for was never the performance at all.

It was this. The part of her that no one else was allowed to see.

—---------------------------------------------

It was no longer just curiosity that brought Uzair back to that hidden room of hers, and it was no longer a simple habit that made Rihana stay and talk when she should have already retreated into the expected rhythm of her world.

Words that were once light began to carry weight, and silences that once felt intentional began to feel comfortable, as if both of them were slowly circling something neither had fully named yet.

It was during one of those nights, when the lights outside had dimmed and Heeramandi had settled into its slower, more private breath, that Rihana finally spoke about what she usually kept buried beneath everything else she showed the world.

She did not begin dramatically. There was no warning in her tone, no clear shift that suggested she was about to reveal something important. It came out in fragments at first, almost as though she was testing whether the words would even hold once spoken aloud.

Her mother, she explained quietly, had never treated her training as optional.

Every step of her life had been shaped with intention long before she had ever understood what it meant to belong to Heeramandi. She had been taught not only how to dance, but how to exist within the expectations placed on women like her, how to smile when required, how to perform when summoned, how to become desirable enough to sustain the world she had been born into.

Any hesitation, any resistance, had never been met with understanding, only with pressure that grew heavier each time she failed to fully surrender to the role being built for her.

Recently, that pressure had changed shape. It was no longer only about discipline or reputation. It had become something sharper, more final.

Her mother had begun speaking in terms of decisions that could no longer be delayed, presenting her with a choice that did not feel like a choice at all. Either she accepted the future that had been planned for her since childhood and continued to rise as one of Heeramandi’s most sought-after tawaifs, or she surrendered to an arranged marriage that would secure their family’s standing while quietly taking away every dream she had ever held for herself.

That evening, Rihana sat alone in her paint room longer than usual, her fingers still faintly stained with blue oil paint. She was lost in thought, lightly tracing shapes in the air when Uzair’s voice broke the silence.

“Aaj tumne kya banaya hai?” he asked, his eyes immediately falling on her hands.

Rihana looked up at him, slightly startled. “Tumhe kaise pata main aaj painting kar rahi thi?” she asked, genuinely curious.

Uzair’s gaze stayed fixed on her fingers as he replied calmly, “Tum kabhi apne haath se paint achhi tarah saaf nahi karti ho, isliye tumhe dekh kar hi pata chal jata hai.”

For a moment, she just stared at him, as if deciding whether to be annoyed or amused. Then a small smile formed on her face despite herself.

“Tumhe har chhoti cheez notice karne ki aadat hai,” she let out a quiet breath, then finally stepped aside and gestured toward the canvas resting near the wall. “Theek hai, phir dekh lo. Aaj maine yeh banaya hai.”

Uzair moved closer and turned the painting toward the light. It was the ocean again, endless and quiet, where the sky and water seemed to dissolve into each other without end. There were no boats, no people, nothing that anchored it to reality except feeling itself.

He studied it for a long moment before speaking. “Tumne yeh kyun banaya hai?” he asked.

Rihana leaned lightly against the table beside her, folding her hands together as she looked at the painting instead of him. “Mujhe samundar dekhna hai,” she said simply.

Then, after a brief pause, she added more softly, “Main use apni aankhon se dekhna chahti hoon, bilkul kareeb se.”

She let out a small, almost helpless laugh. “Par kabhi ammi ne jaane hi nahi diya gaya.”

Her voice was steady, but something quieter lived underneath it, resignation she had learned to carry too well.

Silence settled between them for a moment.

Uzair didn’t rush to respond. He simply looked at the painting, then at her, as if trying to understand something that had existed long before this conversation. “Tumne samundar kabhi dekha bhi nahi, phir bhi tum use itni sahi se kaise bana leti ho?” he asked finally.

Rihana’s expression softened slightly. “Main use imagine karti hoon,” she replied.

Then she stepped closer to the canvas, pointing gently at the painted waves. “Main sochti hoon ki lehron ki awaaz kaisi hoti hogi, aur jab hawa paani se takraati hai toh kaisa mehsoos hota hoga.”

She turned her head toward him now, her voice quieter but steadier. “Mujhe lagta hai main usse pehchaan lungi, jab kabhi use sach mein dekhungi.”

That sentence lingered in the air longer than either of them addressed.

Uzair didn’t immediately respond. Something in his expression had changed slightly, not loud, not obvious, but enough to suggest that the idea had settled somewhere deeper than conversation.

-----------------------------------------------

The next morning, Uzair returned earlier than he ever normally would.

There was no meeting scheduled, no business pulling him into Heeramandi, and no excuse he could easily offer if anyone asked.

He stood for a moment near the quieter side entrance, as if confirming to himself that he was actually going through with what he had decided the night before. Then he knocked lightly, not loud enough to draw attention, but firm enough to reach her world.

Rihana appeared soon after, she looked at him with immediate suspicion and curiosity. “Tum itni subah yahan kya kar rahe ho?” she asked, her voice low as she glanced around to make sure no one had seen him.

Uzair didn’t waste time explaining. “Aaj tum yahan nahi rahogi,” he said simply.

She frowned. “Matlab kya hai tumhara?”

He met her eyes properly now. “Tumhe samundar dekhna tha na?”

For a second, she didn’t respond. The words took a moment to settle in her mind, as if she couldn’t decide whether to take them seriously or dismiss them as impossible. Then she shook her head slightly. “Tum mazak kar rahe ho, main yahan se aise nahi ja sakti.”

“Tum ja sakti ho,” he replied calmly. “Aaj mere saath.”

That made her pause completely. Her expression shifted, uncertainty flickering across her face as she tried to read whether this was recklessness or something else entirely. “Tum samajh nahi rahe ho,” she said quietly. “Agar kisi ne dekh liya toh…”

“Koi nahi dekhega,” he interrupted, his tone steady. “Aur agar dekha bhi, toh main hoon na.”

There was a long silence between them after that. Not heavy, but charged. Rihana looked at him for a few seconds longer than usual, then let out a small breath like she had made a decision she didn’t fully trust yet.

“Theek hai,” she said finally, adjusting her shawl quickly. “Lekin agar pakde gaye, toh main tumhe zinda nahi chhodungi.”

A faint smile appeared on his face. “Noted.”

They slipped out quietly, avoiding the main courtyards and any space where voices could easily carry. At first, Rihana walked carefully, constantly aware of every sound, every shadow. But as they moved further away from Heeramandi, something in her posture began to loosen. The air felt lighter, less watched, less heavy with expectation.

After a while, she glanced at him sideways. “Tumhe pata bhi hai tum kya kar rahe ho?” she asked under her breath.

“Haan,” he said simply.

“Phir bhi kar rahe ho?”

“Haan,” he repeated without hesitation.

She shook her head slightly. “Tum bilkul pagal ho.”

“Shayad,” he replied. “Lekin tum bhi aa rahi ho.”

That made her fall silent, though a faint smile betrayed her.

The closer they got, the more the city’s noise began to fade, replaced by something softer and unfamiliar. A coolness in the air, a faint salt-like scent she couldn’t quite place yet. Rihana slowed without realizing it.

And then she heard it before she saw it.

The sound of waves.

Her steps stopped instantly. For a moment, she didn’t speak at all. Her breath caught slightly as if she was afraid even breathing would break the moment. Then she took a slow step forward, and another, until the land opened up before her.

The ocean stretched endlessly ahead, moving in steady rhythm under the pale light. It looked nothing like the paintings in her room, and yet somehow exactly like them at the same time. Real in a way that felt almost unreal.

Rihana stood still for a long moment, completely quiet. Then a small, disbelieving laugh escaped her. “Sach mein hai…” she whispered.

She walked closer until she was just at the edge where the sand began. The waves moved forward and retreated again and again, patient and endless, as if they had always been waiting for her without knowing her name.

She finally turned her head slightly toward Uzair. “Tum mujhe sach mein yahan le aaye ho,” she said softly, more of a statement than a question.

He nodded once. “Tumne hi toh kaha tha dekhna hai.”

Her gaze returned to the ocean, but her voice came quieter this time, almost fragile in its honesty. “Main kabhi soch bhi nahi sakti thi ki yeh itna… zinda hoga.”

The waves continued their quiet rhythm, moving forward and retreating as if time itself had slowed down for them. Rihana stood there for a long while without speaking, her eyes fixed on the endless stretch of water, as though she was afraid that if she looked away, it would turn back into something she had only ever imagined.

Uzair stayed slightly behind her, not interrupting, not trying to pull her attention away. For once, he didn’t feel the need to say anything at all. The silence between them didn’t feel empty anymore, it felt shared.

After a while, Rihana exhaled softly, almost like she was coming back to herself. “Main ise kabhi nahi bhoolungi,” she said quietly, her voice lighter than it had been in a long time.

Uzair glanced at her. “Aur ab tum isse sirf imagine karne ki koi zarurat nahi hai,” he replied.

She turned her head slightly toward him, a faint smile forming as the wind moved through her hair. Rihana looked at him for a second longer than usual, then turned back toward the sea, letting the words settle somewhere deep inside her.

As the waves kept moving endlessly ahead, neither of them tried to name what had already begun between them. They didn’t need to. It was already there, in the quiet way he kept returning, and in the way she no longer looked at the world the same after he had shown it to her.

· • —– ٠ 𑁍 ٠ —– • ·

Taglist: