Dishing it out

An in-depth look at your favourite drama serials.

ISLAMABAD:

Quite a few new dramas have hit the air recently and one of them is “Thakan”. The story for this serial revolves around Sadaf, the sole breadwinner for her family, which includes her mother, grandfather, brother Fareed and sister Mehak. Sadaf has another sister Deeba, married with three children and a fourth on the way.

Sadaf is seen constantly doling out money — to provide for everyone else’s needs. The family has a hard life and all the members need to be selfish to an extent. The problem is that they have no consideration and appreciation for what Sadaf is doing.

She’s already physically and mentally exhausted, but the salary from her factory job isn’t enough so she takes another job as a salesgirl which keeps her out late, resulting in a hurtful interrogation about where she was and what she was really doing.

Her grandfather wants Sadaf to get married soon but her mother ignores anybody who mentions the idea. In next week’s preview it seems when someone does come to see Sadaf, her mother deliberately sabotages the rishta. Written by Faiza Iftikhar, it’s a promising drama and it will be interesting to see when and how Sadaf breaks away and stops being as selfless as she is now.

I had high hopes for “Mata e Jaan Hai Tu”, mostly because of director Mehreen Jabbar and writer Farhat Ishtiaq, the woman who brought us the epic “Humsafar” story. Set in New York, it starts out as the story of two sisters Haniya and Yameena, hit by tragedy when their parents die in a car accident. Haniya moves in with her grandmother and soon meets Ibad, who came to New York from Karachi to attend graduate school.

But now, I am beyond bored of the traditional Haniya (Sarwat Gilani) and dutiful Ibad played by Adeel Hussain. I can’t put my finger on it but it is some combination of Gilani and Hussain’s severe lack of chemistry combined with bad dialogue and excruciatingly slow pace. Their scenes together don’t move the story along, the dialogue doesn’t establish anything new and there’s no character or relationship growth.

My guess was that the idyllic holiday has been dragged out to the forefront for some awful incident that will tear the two apart. However next episode’s promo indicates that Haniya shows up in Pakistan soon after Ibad leaves, rendering the past two episodes to be even more pointless — unless there’s a time jump involved.

Haniya’s brother-in-law Adam is facing jail time for attacking estranged wife Yameena so he offers to give back her money and sign the divorce papers if she agrees to drop the attempted murder charges. “In this country we have a very fair legal system,” says Yameena’s lawyer. But I don’t think she feels like justice was served. We probably haven’t seen the last of Adam either, because when he gets out of jail he’ll be penniless and his anger will be directed at her.

It is a bit frustrating to see Shandana continuously doubt her mother when she says her life wasn’t always as perfect as it seems now. “Dur e Shahwar” tells the story of Shandana’s mother, Shahwar as she recalls the early days of her marriage to Mansoor, because her daughter is having problems in her marriage to Haider.

I don’t think it’s possible for Shandana to comprehend that her father, who she has only seen as the perfect devoted husband, could have ever possibly been anything like her husband Haider, who she is so miserable with now.

What makes “Dur e Shahwar” work is great storytelling, each episode unfolding small reveals. The story is never stagnant, each scene and dialogue have purpose in telling Shahwar’s story, mapping out relationships and marriages, and in fleshing out characters.

I was struck by how truly ashamed and remorseful Shahwar’s husband Mansoor was about once having turned away his father-in-law, but at this point it really doesn’t make much of a difference to her. While we have a sense of who Shahwar is and how she copes with her circumstances, I find Mansoor hard to read and I’d like to think he’s a more layered character than the cold uncaring guy we’ve seen in flashbacks. It will be interesting to see his journey from that man to the one we see in the present day.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2012.