Another week, another interesting episode as Saim and Halima’s marriage continued to unravel. Seeing the many problems between the couple it appears that this relationship never really stood a chance. It’s not just the differences in their education, thoughts, and likes and dislikes, but the fact that both don’t realize that a relationship needs work, a lot of time and effort to understand each other. It seems that from day one the very complexed Saim had decided that Halima was not educated and unsophisticated, hence unworthy of his attention. Halima, on the other hand, decided that being a good wife meant maintaining a well-run household, cooking good food and keep the mother-in-law happy. Once these opinions were formed, nothing seems to have been able to budge both parties out of their respective corners. Saim never helped Halima gain confidence by praising her efforts, or tell her how he liked things done. Halima also has been unable to mold herself into the kind of wife Saim desired. This gap in communication has left the door wide open for others to enter and create havoc – enter Shumaila.
Shumaila is a very interesting character. Here is a girl who is being handed the opportunity of a lifetime to gain an education and make something of her life. But interestingly, all she wants to do is to hang out with friends and look for a husband. Typically, in our serials, girls from Shumaila’s background are shown as desirous of getting a degree and working, while their parents force them to get married. Here, it is completely opposite. Shumaila’s entire family is behind her to get her medical degree, but all this silly twit wants to do is to find a husband – why?? I’m at a total loss to understand the reasoning behind this. I understand that she is a foolish girl who probably views life through rose-colored glasses and is in all probability blind to her sister’s miserable life, but still I wish we had more of an insight in to her character, and most importantly she should not have been shown as a final year medical student. As a doctor in training, I’m sure even the most witless person would have been hard pressed to ignore the harsh realities of life. Granted that it was easier to show her as a doctor so as to create some compatibility with Saim, but again this makes Shumaila’s character a bit hard to swallow.
This incongruity aside, I like the way different issues of marital life are being highlighted by Faiza Iftikhar. We see many day-to-day realities depicted, and the character maintain their ambiguity. Even as I feel sorry for the naïve and abused Halima, I want to shake her really hard for her blindness to what’s going on right underneath her nose. Similarly Saim’s mother is seemingly good, but is she? Shumaila is an idiot, but I keep wondering what is it about her past that she is continually looking for a man to love her. Has she grown up with the feeling of being unloved and unwanted by her parents? Has she always felt inferior to her sister? Mawra is doing a great job as Shumaila. Saba Qamar is good as Halima, and Junaid Khan is doing justice to the very complex character of Saim.
So far Yahan Pyar Nahin Hai has been holding my interest, but now with Shumaila having shown her hand openly, rather than spending too much time on continuing to show Halima as a victim, I would like to see her coming into her own and finding her voice, such that there is a lesson to be learnt here. We have seen way too many dramas with stories dealing with husband/wife/other woman triangle; I hope this one is different in that rather than just talking about it, we are actually shows a solution to the problem. Looking forward to seeing what Faiza Iftikhar and Fahim Burney have in store for us next week…
Written by SZ~ [email protected]
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