There are a lot of powerful women in Marasim and but none of them are caricatures, each has limitations as well as deep internal imperatives. Gaythi Ara may well be motivated by the psychological damage of her past but she loves her son enough to feel his pain and accept that he has indeed paid a heavy price. Daud is increasingly frustrated and distraught over his break up with Momina: taking his anger out on any moving target.

Momma on the other hand seems to have moved on. I say ‘seems to’ because all her taunts and attempts to flaunt her new Fiancé actually point in the opposite direction. A wiser girl would have waited out the storms of anger and doubt allowing the love between her and Daud to do the rest.  But there lies the problem; she is used to success especially with the opposite sex and coming in second place tastes a little too much like defeat for her. Again a fabulous job by the lovely Sonia Hussain, who has managed to soften what, might have come across as a harsh character by a little underplaying.

Daud and his mother have two conversations in this week’s episode and both made for excellent viewing. It was a pleasure watching such good actors performing  such well written scenes, Saba Hamid and Ahsan Khan share such amazing chemistry and brought nuance and depth to each dialogue. We have plenty of weeping women on screen and we weep with them, but this is the first time I have felt moved by a male protagonist’s distress since Humsafar.  Ahsan Khan is a star but in this serial he proves again and again what a good actor he can be. By the end of this episode Daud finally begins to see his mother has a point, if Momina had really loved him why would she have moved on so quickly?

So far the weakest link in the chain has been the Nayab and Zain characters. Urwa has a slightly scary white glow about her which is either make up or the lighting but otherwise her Nayab is convincing enough as the typical sabir larki ,whose beautiful eyes fill with tears every now and then but never a word of complaint is heard . Call me a Cynic but I think Nayab and Zain’s Idyll is about to be broken , Gaythi Ara has asked for her rishta and Almas’ awful husband Imdad got an unexpected  promotion involving a move to Dubai. I really like the fact that Almas actually refused Gaythi Ara at first, thinking of her sister’s feelings rather than wealth or convenience.

Marasim is the Saba Hamid show and she has done it complete justice. Any less of an actress would have brought the whole thing crashing down. Great direction by Owais Khan and a well plotted narrative make this one of the “must watches” of the week

written by Sadaf