I was humming the tune of the OST of Sunn Leyna today, and boy, did it bring back memories. In particular, I remember having looked as forward to this soap serial in 2005 as I had looked forward to Kuch Pyar Ka Pagalpan in 2011. And honestly, at least KPKP had a memorable script and characters. Sunn Leyna turned out to be a complete disaster.

But first, let me elaborate on the “soap scenario” back in 2005. For me, it was a time of total relaxation (no responsibilities apart from studies). I would lounge in front of the TV and watch a little bit of all the soap serials from 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm on Geo, ARY and Hum TV. Trying to counter the Star Plus influence, there were mainly soap serials on air with drama serials coming on the weekends. Star Plus soaps were the rage, and one of the “in” couples (as we found out from our masi) were Kashish and Sujjal, played by Amna Shariff and Rajiv Khandelwal.

When ARY announced that they are casting the two in a soap serial along with such famous names as Javed Shaikh, Saba Hameed, Imran Abbas, ZQ, Qazi Wajid, Maira Khan and others, I was elated. I have always been a sucker for romantic stories and after watching the promos, my expectations went up several degrees.

However, when the drama serial actually started, it was a total let-down. There was, quite literally, no story at all. Maira likes Imran; Imran is always running after ZQ, who likes Rajiv, who likes Amna and it took me quite a while to figure out what Amna wanted. Honestly, she’d beat Daneez and Kiran any day for being one confused character.AND if you thought Mujtaba was affected only by Daneez’s tears, you can check out the way Imran was influenced by Maira’s. It was more hilarious than romantic. The side tracks were totally boring too!

Oh, and did I mention this was a ‘half’ Six Sigma production? I mean, there was no Six Sigma in those days – it was simply “Samina Humayun Saeed Production” – but it had all the characteristics for which we have berated KPKP for weeks. The editing was sloppy. It was obvious that many scenes had been deleted. There were severe issues of continuity. AND the level of physical intimacy between the characters was sickening. Honestly, it was shocking and didn’t even add anything to the romantic factor between the lead couple.

So why am I writing about this? Well, it is simply because I watched the video of the title song and remembered feeling severely let down. Apparently, both 7th Sky and Six Sigma at that time thought that the way forward was to cast Indian actors/actresses. But with one flop drama serial after another, it didn’t really work. And hence, Sunn Leyna also went down the drain. The OST was excellent though and hats off to Sajjad Ali/Waqar Ali.

Written by Drama Buff ([email protected])