Mahira’s Khirad was in pain, pleading, forlorn and gorgeous in white, yet no match for Atiqa Odho’s perfectly composed “Mummy” with the awesome arched eyebrows. Mahira’s pleas in Humsafar, “Mummy, please yeh aap kyun kar rahi hain?” bought traffic to a halt in 2012. Atiqa Odho – the Iron Mummy-in-law in Humsafar Silently smitten by Salahuddin, (Hamza Ali Abbasi) Maya Ali’s character puts up with the sinister nuttiness of her husband (delightfully played by Gohar Rasheed) and this goes on for what seemed like endless episodes. I had to abandon watching Man Mayal because of Maya Ali’s plaintive calls of “Salahuddin!” ringing in my ears. I was fascinated by these dramas from home, but it was almost as if a furtive invisible circle was being drawn around me.
#HUMSAFAR DRAMA KHIRAD DRESSES TV#
Mahira in Sadqe Tumhaare is the tormented daughter and Maya Ali in Man Mayal is eternally suffering and suffocated…įact is, out here in the Pacific north-west, my rain-drenched sensibilities find solace in the flavours of my home faraway and Pakistani TV offerings plays play a pivotal role. Kashaf in the throes of a heady romance with Fawad Khan’s Zaroon finds it impossible to reflect joy (hard to believe) while Sanam Baloch in Durre Shahwar plays the passive daughter-in-law to a hilt. Even Sanam Saeed’s Kashaf (supposedly a strong woman) in Zindagi…and her Ruhina in Diyar-e-Dil were both women with repressed pain and barely concealed bitterness that lasted more than twenty-four seasons each. Strong women with a clear voice and opinions are more often than not portrayed as bad or “teez, badtameez” charactersĪnd then a thought struck me: every drama that enthralled me had, at the crux of its storyline, a woman in distress. Smitten as I was, I began to explore other little gems of drama: Zindagi gulzar hai, Dastaan, Durre Shahwar and more. Part of it was Fawad Khan’s easy charm and subtle, brooding good looks and part of it was the storyline: an unlikely match, stirrings of romance, crackling chemistry and a passive-aggressive ma-in-law. Much to my delight, three episodes down, I was hooked.
#HUMSAFAR DRAMA KHIRAD DRESSES FULL#
And then one Ramzan night when not a soul was stirring and I was comfortably full of pakoras and Rooh Afza, I decided to experiment with Humsafar, the mother of all dramas, the one that marked Pakistan’s return to great drama-dom. I was told on many occasions that our dramas had become really good but I refrained from exploring what seemed to be a plethora of episodes tumbling out of Hum TV and others. For a while I refused to be caught up in the whirlpool of Pakistani drama offerings.