This episode excites more Hassan (Fawad Khan) and Bano (Sanam Baloch) scenes (which we’ve been deprived of recently), more excruciatingly aggravating scenes of Rasheeda (Saba Hamid) and Sultana Khala’s plotting, and of course, more scenes of Bano’s depressing mental condition.
The first scene is the one to excite our anger. Sultana Khala, reading the letter from Rasheeda Khala, decides that she and Rabia (Mehreen Raheal) must go to Lahore straight away. Really? If somebody writes to you saying that their son does not, in fact, want to marry your daughter, and is in love with someone else, you should have enough shame to back off. But of course beloved Sultana Khala doesn’t realize this concept, and does the exact opposite of what she’s supposed to. Rabia manages to bring some sense into the situation, and says that if Hassan doesn’t care about her anymore then she doesn’t want to see him; Sultana Khala does what she’s best at, and ignores the poor girl.
The next scene brings to tears to the eyes of Hassan and Bano fanatics everywhere; for regular audience members, this scene causes just a smile. Hassan stops walking at the familiar sight of a bottle green colored dupatta, one exactly similar to the one Bano wore the first time they met. There must be something magical about that first Hassan and Bano scene when Hassan gazes at her from the window. It’s been shown enough times, and manages to extract a grin from us everytime we watch it.
When Hassan brings the clothing to Bano, it doesn’t exactly heal her wounds as he seems to have expected it to. She looks away from the clothes, saying instead “In kapron ko pehen k me pehli wali Bano nahi ban sakti. Tum kyun mujhe talash karai ho?” Despite Hassan’s pleads, Bano refuses to wear the clothes.
And then Hassan goes to Rasheeda Khala, who gives him the bad news: Sultana and Rabia are coming to visit. But before we can get too angry about this, we’re spared by Bano returning, dressed in the green dupatta.
“Dekho Hassan, mainay tumhare laye we kapre pehen liye. Kya mein pehle wali Bano lagrai hoon?”
“Usse bhi ziada khubsurat.” This is a scene where you really have to feel for Bano. Her dialogues here make my heart break. “Pehle wali Bano banney k liye mujhe apni Bibi chahiyen, apne ghar wale chahiyen. Kya tum unhe la saktay ho?” If you try for a second to fathom what is going out inside Bano’s head, here’s what I think you’ll find: Her trauma and misery over the conditions she’d been living under in the past 5 years; the images of her family members’ dead bodies, probably eating away at her heart; and finally, faint memories of her life before it was thrown into pieces. With all these terrible thoughts pooling in her mind, nobody can really expect Bano to ever be normal again. She’s only a shell of her former self.
The next day, Rabia and Sultana show up. Sultana Khala’s hateful glare at Hassan as she steps out of the train makes my blood boil. How can she penalize the poor guy for attempting to give his one true love her life back? Thankfully, Rabia doesn’t follow her mother’s example, and instead chooses to look away at the sight of Hassan. The discussion the two have is pretty much the same thing repeated over and over from Rabia: “I love you; iss sab mein mera kya kusoor hai?”
After meeting Bano, who spills her heart out to her, Rabia decides that it would be best to leave, but of course her daen mother says no, and convinces Rabia to act warmly towards Bano, just so that Hassan will redevelop his feelings towards her. When Sultana tells Rasheeda Khala her plan and Rasheeda Khala replies with “Kitni samajhdar ho tum,” I kept thinking “not samajhdar, chalak!” She cares so much about her daughter that she’s ruining the already tarnished life of a poor girl who….there’s really no words to describe Bano’s sacrifices. Rabia can get any guy she wants, but Sultana and Rasheeda are being selfish because of their children. They aren’t realizing that what they’re doing is wrong.
In the next episode preview Bano finds out about Hassan and Rabia’s engagement. And she…it’s too painful to say it. She runs away. I fear that what happens in the novel will take place in the drama as well by this point. I can’t stand the thought of Bano dying and Hassan marrying Rabia, but I’ll have to wait a couple more Saturdays until I find out.
I can’t believe that there’s only 3-4 more glorious episodes of Dastaan left! But I’ll wait anxiously for each coming episode like I’ve done with the previous ones! Hats off once again to HH for his superb directing, and especially to Sanam and Fawad for wowing us once again with their wonderful acting. And we can’t forget Samira ji, who gave us these wonderful dialogues that we think about all the time. Anxiously waiting for Saturday,
– Noorie
P.S : in my episode 18 review I mentioned that Bano was Rasheeda Khala’s niece; this was a mistake. Rasheeda and Bano’s father’s family were just good friends, no relation whatsoever
