They say good things come to those who wait and it is certainly true of this week’s episode. I was a little disappointed last week but this week’s excellent episode more than made up for it. Everything was just right from the nuanced script, the acting,and the direction; a perfect blend.I never thought that I would say this, but the crew at our current cause celebre , Zindagi Gulzar Hai ,might profit from a viewing of Daagh and learn something . …(she stares darkly into her coffee)
This week we saw a lot more of Fahad Mustapha and his character Murad. He is a distant but essentially loving father, who is affectionate with his daughters. Despite not visiting Umama in the hospital he clearly still loves her and manages to deny his mother’s demand for a second marriage and his sister Rehana’s request to adopt his new born daughter, Soha. It is Umama who eventually breaks down and gives up her precious new born. That had to be among the saddest things I have ever seen and soppy sentimentalist that I am, I cried all the way through. I am a sad case, I cried through a lot of the later episodes of Sheher e Zaat too. I just loved Mehar Bano and Fahad Mustapha today, they were just that good. Umama’s response to Murad’s first mention of the adoption was an emphatic” No!”, and then we see her slowly crumbling in the face of her own situation and her empathy for the sister in law whose plight was possibly worse than hers. Well done Mehar Bano , you had the viewer right there with you, despite looking impossibly young for the role.
I just loved Yusra Risvi and the actor who plays her husband; they are so natural and normal. Rehana has an uphill battle with her own mother in law who insists baby Soha be returned and replaced with someone of “their own blood” i.e. a child from one of Rehana’s brother in laws. There is a very straight forward conversation between Rehana and her mother about the latter’s suggestion for a second marriage for Murad. Rehana essentially reminds her mother that if she would not wish it for her own daughter that why for someone else’s?However,like most older people who are used to getting their own way, her Mother refuses to see any irony in this.
The interesting part of this episode had to be towards the end when we see a dawning feeling of so called’ neglect’ coming over Murad . They have been married a good 10 years and have been parents for the most part. Perhaps the constant criticism of Umama by his mother and the routine of everyday life are wearing him down because for the first time there seems to be a sliver of an opening for Deeba Baji to crawl in. At this point I have to credit the writer Sarwat Nazir, for her subtle depiction of human nature in this story. I had fully expected Murad to be forced into a second marriage but could not see how a grown man could possibly be coerced this way. Umama is so busy being a mother; she may be forgetting to be a wife.,while Murad is so used to be being taken care of he can barely pour himself a glass of milk without breaking something. Fahad Mustapha was so believable through out this sequence, the spoiled only son used to having someone at his constant beck and call , annoyed at being ignored.
Deeba Baji has already heard of the proposal sent by Murad’s mother and it is probably the culmination of her every wish, so she puts on a nice face and visits the family. It seems that her help at the breakfast table will cost Umama dearly in the long run. I really liked this episode but if ever there was a case against marriage and one for living a life of asceticism this story is it. Life for poor Umama is a game of roulette she has already lost. She may be a good bahu, a good wife and a good Bhabi but it is never enough. Humans are ungrateful as a species and when we center our lives on other people’s expectations, failure is inevitable.
Written by Sadaf
