After a hiatus of three drama less weeks, this week’s episode of Sadqay Tumharey came as a shock. Amongst all the old fashioned rishteydariya, innocent faces and nostalgia steeped frames of reference was an ugly reminder that human nature never changes. There was never any doubt that Shanno’s mother was the villain of the piece, just how villainous was the surprise. Her manipulations and schemes, the extent of her moral lapses was truly stomach churning but what made it worse was the lack of gravity used to portray them. I am not sure who to blame more; Samiya Mumtaz for her cartoonish, rather superficial portrayal or the director for not delineating the sequences between Rasheeda and Abdul Rehman with more depth.
A few episodes back I found it more than strange that Shanno and Khelu are allowed to sit alone together in her room, while her parents fume downstairs. For a conservative culture like the rural Punjab this seems highly unlikely scenario yet every other episode Khelu waltzes into Shanno’s house against her parents’ wishes and manages to spend some ..ahem .. pakeeza, sufiyana ‘quality” time with his zabardasti ki fiancé and I am left wondering which planet they live on ? I understand that Khalil Ur Rahman Qamar wants to distinguish the love between Khelu and Shanno from the tangled mess of relationships from their parents’ generation but the claims of a ‘higher, spiritual” level of romance are now reaching overkill.
The most important scenes this week were between Rasheeda and Pa ji Abdul Rehman and they were also the most confusing. How does an already suspicious husband send his brother in law and coincidentally wife’s ex fiancé to discuss his daughter’s rishta with the said wife in complete privacy? This too after the wife has just admitted to spending a night at hotel with the man when they were engaged? Khalu Amin accepts Khelu and his daughter Shanno’s love and actually tries to persuade Rasheeda to accept the inevitable. To a certain extent he even understands his wife’s jealousy of her sister and knows about the affair Rasheeda had with Sadiq but he believes her lies about Abdul Rehman in a moment throwing all common sense out the window. Pa ji Abdul Rehman is no less strange, asking his rather creepily, fawning sister in law to close the door so that they can discuss things in private.
Another anomaly is Dr Maqsood’s utter devotion to Khalil. I wish I had such a cousin and it is probably this jealousy that makes me cynical enough to question Dr Maqsood accepting attitude towards Khelu’s little adventures. Here is a Man trying his best to make something of himself by working hard and studying . He is at a critical point with his professional exams for medicine yet he smiles indulgently at his nikamma cousin Khelu who spends most of his time playing cricket or getting into fights over a girl whose parents clearly don’t want anything to do with him.
I cannot help thinking that some of these loopholes in the narrative are there because this story is so close to the writer’s heart that distance has still not given him perspective.
This serial has been very light on content from the beginning and now it reminds of the Indian serials I used to watch where incident after incident would take place without the story moving forward much. Hopefully with the revelations of this episode we will get some movement. This may not make much difference to the average viewing audience which may watch a few episodes and miss some before catching up again but for obsessive drama fans like me ,spoiled by the content heavy hits of the past it is a test of patience.
On the flip side this is an extremely well made ,well edited serial in the ‘Hum TV style’, full of light and colour.The music ,sets and styling of the characters are perfect. The main attraction for me and most of the people I know watching is Mahirah Khan’s Shanno. She consistently holds the audiences’ attention and manages to bring a sweetness and grace to Shanno’s character which has kept me hooked week after week. Adnan Malik is good in parts but many times falls flat for me especially in his declarations of love for Shanno. Farhan ali Agha as Pa Ji Abdul Rehman, Shamael Khan (Dr Maqsood) and Rehan Sheikh (Khalu Amin) never fail to leave make a good impression and make their characters credible.
Many , Many thanks to Kanwal for covering the last three episodes . Much appreciated !
written by Sadaf Haider
