Recently Completed and Current Pak Drama Reviews

Ghissi Pitti Muhabbat

Mainstream Pakistani dramas usually display young men and women as strictly conformist in their superficial roles in society. They are either idolized or demonized. But Samia’s character is very different. She is very much human, a girl with strong individual traits and undaunted will power. The real strength of character is to be true to yourself and to feel proud of who you are. Samia is one such character. We rarely get to see such winning female characters in Pakistani dramas. I want to congratulate the writer for perceiving such a powerful personality for a Pakistani girl. She is a girl who is strong enough to discover her beliefs and live according to her principles. She does not feel shy in upholding her values and does not get discouraged when the mob bashes her for practicing her true identity. I appreciate her character because I respect people who are not ashamed of making mistakes and learning at their own pace. They grow and live fully. The ending of the play could have been different. She could have gotten settled with a partner. Life could have given her better options. But so what? The beauty of the script is come what may she is proud of who she is. She would not compromise on her values, and therefore not give in to the mob mentality. Kudos to the girl and the creator of her character.

Dunk

Dunk is another excellent play about the clash between truth and lies, right and wrong, and a choice to stand up with either of them. Every good drama explores those ideas. The answer to the existential OST question of “mai hun jeewan ke mar jawan ( like Shakespear’s famous line_To be or not to be)” is directly related to the human quest for truth. During this quest, the average minds become so impatient that they are ready to punish the perpetrators even before the nature and severity of the crime are established. They are quick to judge and savagely brutal in trying to teach lessons to the suspected wrongdoers. This reminds me of the people who are ruled by emotions of fear and anger. The majority of our population declared that sentences like castration and public hangings are necessary to uproot sexual crimes. Our mob doesn’t even react only to the person who is suspected of committing a crime, they punish the whole family by alienating and slandering them in the worst possible ways. They are not even ready to spare a 5 or 6 years old child from the scourge of what a suspected parent could have done. At the same time, people tell the confirmed or potential victims not to publicly announce the crime against her. Asking for legal proceedings would bring shame to herself and the family. As if it was her fault that the shameful act was done to her. The drama shows how our people make judgments without making an effort to investigate, understand, and respond to the facts (as in the case of the professor) or fail to make efforts to eradicate the crime (as in the case of the Amal). These people don’t respond; they react to the situations. They don’t use their faculties to think and respond; they rather follow their emotions of pain, shame, guilt, anger, and hatred to make rash judgments. In episode five, Haider’s father is shown shrugging off his responsibility by blaming Haider’s mother for his inappropriate behaviour. He also snubs and rebukes Haider for that behaviour and Haider, in turn, spat his anger and frustration out on the professor and his family, causing the little girl to be traumatized. We have the rigid social codes, the so-called universal values, and heinous standards for individuals. All of these serve the people who create them for their gains. I wish our people are more mindful and creative and stop being perpetrators of such insensitive, and ignorant herd mentality. That is the only way home. To create a society with individuals more sensitive, kind, and empathetic, we have to stop following the herd mentality and start living with a mind more engaged and heart wide open to accept responsibility for who we are and what we do.

Raqs e Bismil

Raqs e Bismil as the name shows is a story of a very passionate lover. But it also focuses on the hypocritical mindset of society. On one hand, the peer sahib is preaching to his followers, “Yeh duniyah dil laganay ki jagah nahi hai to palatnay kay liyay tayyar ho jao. Meri baat samajh rahay ho na. Allah o akbar, Allah o akbar”. On the other hand, for whatever social or political reasons he wants to maintain the status quo, and is not ready to accept even a minuscule change in his family power dynamics. His heart is immersed with the love of the worldly power and position/gains that he enjoys by being the community peer (religious leader) and a male head/provider of the family. On the one hand, he is preaching the futility of worldly gains/pleasures, on the other, he is not ready to let go of his lust for power and control over his family members and the community at large. He is not ready to let her niece marry the person of her choice only because he is not ready to share the power and status of his noble family with any outsider. The obvious disparity between his words and actions makes the play a social satire. We are introduced to the hypocritical mindset of our elite.

Also, his son Musa the protagonist is another example of practicing double standards in the patriarchal society where we have different rules for both genders. Musa is also devoid of any empathy and kindness towards others and is very arrogant by enjoying an elevated social status. Turkish writer Elif Shafak wrote in her novel, Forty Rules of Love, “Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, we haven’t loved enough”. What remains to be seen is if Musa’s personality would transform as a result of his love for Zahra. We will see how things develop in the next episodes.