4 episodes down and I am really glad Faiza Iftikhar has given us a heroine we can be really proud of. Fate has not been fair with Manaal but like they say, if it doesn\’t kill you it only makes you stronger. This is what\’s happening in Manaal\’s case. She is getting back to normal life with the help of her totally non-traditional phoppo. I said we could be proud of Manaal well, Shabnam is a phoppo who can serve as a role model for all the phoppo\’s out there.
I am just loving ZQ\’s interpretation of Shabnum\’s character. Everything from her styling and dialogue delivery. She is an educated, confident and sensible working woman. Not only is she handling her work but is also very tactfully dealing with her rewaitti saas and NAND and a husband who is always trying to please his mother and sister. I am proud of Shabnum too but at the same time, I feel for her. The woman has given her entire adult life to this family but they have made up their minds to treat her like an outsider. The nand is so malicious that she has even brainwashed her nephew and has very successfully turned him against his own mother.
This is Family Politics at its best. An interesting aspect of the story and is a very realistic portrayal of the constant power struggle between women in our society. A woman who is malicious and insecure by nature has played the male relatives of the household to keep her hold on the entire household. Initially it was her brother and now to secure her future, she is playing the victim to secure her nephew\’s loyalties. Saliha is one cunning gal.
Manaal\’s cousin Shujat ( I hope I didn\’t get the name wrong ) is in one word an idiot. An average guy whose life has been affected more than he knows by his phoppo\’s drama queen attitude. She has used him like a pawn and he is still not aware of this very obvious situation. Saliha has turned him against his own mother and now she is using him to carry out her plan of making Manaal\’s life miserable.
Manaal is still trying to move on and adjust in her phoppo\’s dysfunctional family and fate has introduced yet another twist in her story. She met her nana, not once but twice. The girl who had just recently learned about his existence, didn\’t know how to react when she finally ran into him. The emotions just came flooding and she lost her cool.
In this installment we got a peek into Hamdaan Shah\’s house. Unfortunately his family is no better than Shabnam\’s. The only thing that differentiates between them is their social status. I kind of feel for him, the poor guy is still holding on to his daughter\’s memories. By the look of things, I have a feeling she was the only person in his family who understood him, loved him and was loved back by him. Now, that she is gone, Diam is the one with whom he has any kind of emotional bonding. Although he has all the money in the world, yet he is not at peace. Like his daughter, he is also haunted by the past.
I am at a loss to understand why Hamdaan Shah never forgave his daughter and tried to look for her or maybe he did and we will get to know about it in the episodes to come. For now, I am dead we finally got to see Diam in this episode.
The story is progressing nicely, Manaal is learning k eint ( brick ) KA jawab pathar say hi dayna chaheyay in order to survive in this cruel world. But knowing Shabnam\’s family, I have a feeling Saliha jaise khatoon say nibatnay k leyay eint ya pathar kafi Nahi Hoon gay. She will not rest till she gets her revenge and Manaal\’s aazmaish is by no means over.
Looking forward to the next episode.
Written by Kiran
