“Mein tumhein khud maaf kar raha hoon”
“aap ki iss ala zarfi ka shukriya…….ab hum chalein ?”
Now that Hareem’s operation is successful Asher realises that his wife and daughter may leave at any moment. He tries to connect with Khirad who cuts him off at every point because she has quite sensibly decided never to rely on this man again. The scene where Asher takes he hand and Khirad pulls it away, covering it with her duppattah stood out for me more than the later sequences of Asher sitting on the stairs or even of him crying in front of a mirror in the hospital washroom. It took a long time for someone as supposedly intelligent as Asher to finally question the events which led to his current state of misery. He just cannot reconcile the simple, honest girl he married or the dignified, honorable woman before him with the conniving woman he saw at Khizar’s apartment. However that level of critical thinking doesn’t last too long, one glimpse of Khizar and a few choice words from his mother set him straight back to square one.
When I first watched this episode I was quite literally hopping mad, “akhir Kiyun ?” I shouted at the TV screen. After watching countless drama serials and Bollywood movies I had been conditioned to expect reconciliation the moment ‘The Man’ realises his mistake. Most of them allowed for a few dialogues expressing some perfunctory doubts on the injured heroines part as in “Aap ney mujhe bohat satiya hay Murad/Abdul Wajahat” before she forgives and forgets. Although I have to give Asher full credit for being able to “forgive’ his wife for what he thinks is full on adultery and admitting that despite that he still loves her; this time around I could not help feel disgust for his sheer arrogance in not doubting his version of events. Not once does he ask Khirad what her side of the story was except as a sneering taunt about what happened to her honesty?
Fawad and Mahirah were amazing in the sequence by the shore which required so many changes of mood and expression, all of which needed to look spontaneous. Asher swings from comand, to plea to anger and again to plea and again to anger and finally desperation as he tries to gather his scattered emotions. Endearing one minute and exasperating the next he began to sound like an unhappy little boy whose toy wouldn’t work. Being a failed literary snob I would like to compare it to Darcy’s initial proposal to Elizabeth Bennet in its passive aggressive, subtly insulting intensity and tone. Khirad was quite right in rejecting Asher while it did my feminist heart all kinds of good to see the look of control and power on Mahirah’s face.
As usual we must spare a moment for Sara and her descent into a self-destructive spiral of spite and jealousy which will not allow her to live in a world where her wishes are not fulfilled. Again I wonder whether her Zarina did the right thing by never addressing how ridiculous Sara’s assumed victimhood was; neither did she try to right the wrong she acknowledges she had a part in.
There are times when we have to support the better side of a person no matter how much we love them. The promos for the next episode pointed to another suicide attempt and this was not part of the novel. I still wonder if Humsafar would have been better if they had stuck to the original story for Sara. 
written by Sadaf
