And the journey that started 24 weeks ago came to an end. 24 weeks ago, we met \” Fareeda \”, a college student belonging to a lower middle class family with big dreams and a remarkable talent for writing. The girl who dared to dream of one day becoming a celebrated writer. 24 episodes down the road, the story reached full circle when Fareeda was awarded \” Tamgha E Husnay Karkardagi \” by the Government of Pakistan and was also acknowledged as an established writer by her colleagues, seniors, friends and foes :)

We witnessed the transformation. The tranisition of Fareeda becoming \” Rashk E Hina \”. The story of her triumphs, her highs and her lows, the friends that she made and the people who deceived her and the life lessons she learnt along the way.

In this drama, I have two favorite parts. The first was the realistic approach with which the writer and director dealt with the story. It was so believable and so relatable. Although Fareeda was a dreamer, her life was anything but a farytale. Her writing was not just her passion and her life-line, it was also a source of income for her family. All of them only encouraged her writing when it started to pay off. That is the kind of attitude you would expect from a lower middle class family, that is struggling to make ends meet.

My second favorite, characterization. These days very few dramas have characters that are memorable. Stories can be similar but it\’s the dialogues and characterization which, at the end of the day leaves an impact on the viewers. This drama had a number of memorable characters. The three main characters Fareeda, Shaukat and Shehreyaar were very carefully crafted. They had their own personalities which was evident through their dressing, the way they talked, how they behaved and every change in the character was a part of their transition process. Very convincing and believable.

The characters did develop as the story progressed but in their own way. Like we say in Urdu \” Insaan ki aadatain badal jaate hain, Us ki fitrut nahi badalti \”, this was exactly the case with Fareeda, Shehreyaar and Shaukat. While the viewers felt sorry for Fareeda for being stucked with an idiot like Shaukat after watching the last episode, I am grateful she preferred that idiot over a complete jerk like Shehreyaar.

Coming back to the realistic approach, Fareeda was torn between Shehreyaar and her kids. The only way she was even thinking about being with Shehreyaar was if her kids would still live with them after they got married. I am so glad she stuck to her guns and that proved to be the \” litmus test \” which showed Shehreyaar\’s true colors, he appeared to be a superficial, selfish and self-centered man. And that made the decision very easy for Fareeda. Lucky for Shaukat, because quite frankly, he didn\’t even have one single deed on his part that would have redeemed his years of cheating on Fareeda with other women.

The last episode concluded the story, gave Fareeda and all of us closure but for me the most important and praise worthy scene in this episode was the scene between Farhaan and his mother. The conversation was simply brilliant. It was the sum of Fareeda\’s entire married life as well the story of majority of married women in our society. Full marks to the writer for that single conversation.

Another point that needs to be appreciated was how Fareeda was dealing with this entire scenario. She was desperately trying to get out of this unhappy marriage but not even once did she raise her voice, behaved badly or disrespected her parents, good for nothing husband or even her manipulative saas. Wow, that shows her level of maturity. If only people would learn from such quality dramas that issues can be resolved in a much better way if only people were willing to sit down, talk to each other and more importantly, listen to each other.

Well, to sum it all up. We all got an ending which was in a way expected but none the less it was a nice ending. Fareeda is still a success story as far as her professional life is concerned, her kids are safe and happy and well Shaukat also promised to mend his ways, all in all, a good ending :)

Bravo Team Digest Writer, please take a bow :)

~Written by Kiran