Intimacy – that elusive shape-shifting dæmon that we seek in others. There is no greater intimacy than simply being understood and understanding someone else. Above all, that is what all the characters were seeking today.
Kuku keeps Khurram at arm’s length rebuffing him every time. Though she is hurt time and time again by his false promises, she has to concede that he still is faithful. What Kuku was seeking in her relationship with Khurram was not just a cure to her loneliness, or even togetherness, it was intimacy. This need is what led her to Mansoor.
Perhaps the hurt coupled with her need to be understood is what propels her back to Mansoor like an addiction with its fogginess masking her realities and pulling her into a self-centered imaginary world where she is understood.
Kuku is still strong enough to not to be swayed and doesn’t let Mansoor have his way. She does not want to hurt Laila nor does she want the title of the other woman. Despite herself, she realizes that though she hates Mansoor, she can’t stop loving him.
Mansoor for his part, seeks the same intimacy with Kuku because he believes they are can’t live without one another. He admits to being a weak man who had to give in to society and its pressures but still knows that while he was unable to break these rules, he can still bend them.
However, as Laila finds out, he still holds that some rules are meant to be obeyed.
I applaud Bee Gul for dealing with the issue of marital rape in a mature and sensitive fashion, highlighting the implicit force in his demand and anger at that rejection and Laila’s saying no – at least the first time. Her bewilderment, followed by a puzzled and guilt laden apology and confused state now compels her to see his compliments in a different and unflattering light.
Laila’s romantic notions, already being chipped away, begin cracking as she realizes how different her friends married life is and are shattered by the uncomfortable insight that her relationship is founded on the shifty grounds of personal pleasure. Where and to whom can she even voice her discomfort?
That personal level of intimacy – who ever tells us anything we need to know? And why not? Our religion doesn’t shy away from it but tradition and its binds keep it under wraps and time and time again, we must wade our way through the unknown.
Usually books and whispered conversations from friends help and perhaps in this day and age, a Cosmo or two (ok 24) but when will we be free to speak in sure measured tones to take part in open healthy conversations and knowledge of intimacy and separate consent from coercion?
Alishba Yousuf, Sohail Sameer, Iffat Omar and even Fawad Khan (yes, you read right, read on) are fantastic together. Their shared chemistry has the familiarity of couples – new and old – as well as the tightly coiled makings of a catastrophe.
Our relationships with others are mirrors that reveal our true selves. These smudged, and foggy mirrors that help us find, accept and love ourselves and others. While Kuku expects this in her relationship, does she reveal herself too? And if she is unwilling to reveal herself, won’t she always be disappointed and remain alone?
Mansoor’s mask slipped in that one honest but brutally hurtful moment when he handed Laila the phone to talk to his ‘friend’. Even his mother let slip the veneer of a perfect life in that one intimate telling moment with her bahu about her recollections and her reining in of Mansoor’s father.
As for Khurram, I am going to take umbrage with the caricaturization of his character. Bad enough that you gave him suspenders, and those dance moves, must you now also accompany his presence with a laughter track? No wonder he’s not getting any love.
Clearly he’s a failure, but must everything about him be a failing? He loves and cares about Kuku in his own way – an overgrown teenage with a penchant for loud music, inability to keep promises, and unable to jump start his career. He could have been a loveable failure, even a charming one, and as he notes he might be a bad guy but he’s not unfaithful (although be-laboring alert – again)
Re-silvering old and streaked mirrors is a time consuming and expensive process and can never truly restore a valuable antique to its original beauty. Can we the audience and all the characters too, learn to accept these discouloured markings and flaws; heal and move on to be true to themselves and to one another?
Kudos to Team Pehchan for asking these questions and more that no one else does.
MM (aka A musing Muslim)
