There's a particular kind of quiet that happens right before something becomes real. The kind where you've checked the flex banner is straight for the fifth time, the laptop is open to exactly the right tab, and your team is doing that thing where you're all pretending you're not nervous.

On 17th June 2026, at the Munim-ud-Din Auditorium, Fatima Jinnah Campus, Government College Women University Sialkot, Pakistan that quiet broke into something else entirely.

Every story needs a beginning. This was ours.

Not just our day our moment.

The event itself was bigger than us. A joint celebration alongside the Final Year Project Display, with departments showcasing months of work across the campus. Somewhere in that bigger day, we got our own moment: a dedicated slot to finally introduce Meridian to the people who'd watched it grow from an idea into an actual website.

We'd set up our own stall with our flex banner, our printed brochures, our early product samples laid out for people to actually hold, and a laptop quietly looping our website for anyone curious enough to stop and look. It was the first time Meridian existed somewhere other than a screen.

The speech

When it was time, we walked up to the stage. Not as students this time but as a co-founder of something we genuinely believe in.

A literary and creative platform, born within the walls of this very university. Inspired by our own academic journey, our book translations and magazine projects. We asked ourselves: why don't we build something that lasts? And so we did.

We introduced our tagline

Meridian: where every story finds its place in the world, and what we'd actually built: a space where writers can publish, readers can discover, and creators of all kinds can showcase and sell their work, all in one place. By launch day, we already had over 20 published books, a growing marketplace, blogs, and free reading offers. All proof that this wasn't just a concept anymore.

Then we stepped back. Rather than tell the room everything ourself, we asked them to see it for themselves.

The countdown, the balloon, the launch

Then came the moment it all went down. We were honoured to have our Vice Chancellor, along with deans, heads of department, and esteemed guests, join us on stage for the countdown.

Ten seconds. A balloon pop. And meridianlit.com went live, not metaphorically, not "coming soon" anymore, just live, in front of the people who'd supported the idea from the very beginning.

The reveal

With the website officially live, the lights dimmed and we played the documentary we made ourselves. A full walkthrough of the website, section by section, the same way you'd discover it if you opened the link yourself for the first time. Watching people see it together, in one room, for the first time, hit differently than watching a view count tick up online ever could.

You could feel the room shift the moment people realized this wasn't just a bookstore anymore.

The VC and guests then made their way to our stall. Looking through our products, asking questions, actually engaging with what we'd built.

The people behind it

A launch isn't really about a stage or a banner. It's about who's standing behind it long before the room fills up.

This is also the right moment to say something we don't say often enough out loud: Meridian exists because Saleha Zainab, our co-founder, believed in the idea before any of the rest of us could fully see it. The credit for where this all began belongs to her.

The university also presented our team with certificates of appreciation for the effort that went into making the day happen. A quiet but meaningful nod that the work hadn't gone unnoticed. And because some moments deserve a little extra: we had a custom cake made for the occasion.

What happens now

The balloon's popped. The website's live. The cake's long gone.

But the actual work, the part where Meridian becomes the place every story, every design, every idea finds its way into the world, that part just started.

If you were in that auditorium on the 17th of June 2026, thank you for being there for chapter one. If you weren't, the door's still open: meridianlit.com.

Welcome to Meridian. We're just getting started.