In the 21st century, the formulaic family narrative has become a staple soap opera style romance offering us traditional roles for women reproducing stereotypes and framing gendered norms in Pakistani society. In these dramas, the production quality is sleek but the content has moved away from the assertive, liberal heroines of the s to pious and cautiously modern women who are good sisters, wives, and daughters.
These popular narratives seem distrusting of the secular radicalism of Progressive writing and offer their own distinctive brand of family sagas emphasising the significance of male-female relationships to reiterate a heteronormative society while critiquing the conspicuous consumption of the elite classes as a sign of moral degradation.
Given the current boom of Urdu drama written by women and the cultural export of serials such as Zindagi Gulzar Hai to Arab countries, Europe, and India, it is instructive to look at the story of domesticity that is being told through the representation of the neoliberal family in a global marketplace.
The flow of capital is depicted uncritically and seen as a necessity in the uplift of social deprivation. In many ways, the crop of new dramas can be seen as allegories of the post-colonial nation that reiterate the need for strong families to fight against the persistent threat of broken homes, and they project women at the centre of the crisis of families.
Most noticeably, the women from the lower middle-class homes, the heroines of these shows, are groomed by their mothers whose husbands have either passed away or entered into a second marriage.
There is a strong focus on cousin marriages in some dramas, highlighting the challenges of modernity and the rising urbanisation of Pakistani society. To my mind, the most notable feature of contemporary Urdu drama is the conflict between tradition and modernity and the moral divide between the elites and the new urban middle classes as they respond to and get absorbed in the process of growing urbanisation.
Middle-class morality is underpinned by a somewhat conservative attitude to gender roles in terms of how women come across visibly and the attention they pay to the tarbiat training of their children. The new Pakistani woman who emerges from these television serials is one who is pious, hardworking and capable of negotiating the transitional society she lives in.
Through the microcosm of her home and domestic life, she reflects the traditional values of family and community intrinsic for good citizenship. Her subjectivity is increasingly conflicted by her collusion with neoliberal elites through a good marriage. Khirad appeals to a wide spectrum of audiences with her long glossy hair, traditional clothes and pious demeanour, while Asher is the dashing trustworthy dutiful son.
Their love story is punctuated by the lyrics of the Urdu ghazal and its story of unrequited love. Written in memory of the events of , it articulates a bittersweet unrequited love and remembers the pain of separation:. Voh humsafar tha magar us se hamnawai na thi He was our fellow traveller but there was no love between us. Ke dhup chaon ka alam raha, judai na thi We were not separate but remained in a state of sunshine and clouds.
Whether viewers actually make the historical connection between the ghazal and the time it was written in can only be speculated on. The relationship between music and memory is a powerful one as is historical amnesia in the hands of national ideology. The serial producers have gone for a light touch and emphasised romance over social commentary. In the end, the serial advocates empathy and forgiveness as a way forward.
Asher forgives his mother who has gone from monstrous to mad and love is restored. Visualised through the microcosm of familial lives, Humsafar marks the journey of a nation riven by social hierarchies, and the open heart surgery of the daughter Hareem represents the allegory of a broken nation nursed back to health through love. Which is nice in a way, because it gives back female power. But this show feels different about it. For one thing, there are mothers of both daughters and sons.
It just gives them a bigger interest in life, a more self-sacrificing interest in life, outside of the traditional romance storylines. And more power and confidence within themselves. Sure, right now Khirad is the primary caregiver for her daughter.
But Ashar is a nice guy and he feels an immediate connection to his daughter as soon as he meets her, and he shows himself to be more than capable as a caregiver as well. Ashar looks at the pictures and documents and sleeps on it, and finally drives over to the address Khirad left for him. He catches the ball and gently offers it to Haseen before he even recognizes her, because he is nice and likes children.
And as soon as he recognizes her, he gives her a hug and responds to her affection in just the right way, kindly and loving but without scaring her.
And he immediately tells her that she should start packing her things because she will be moving in with him tomorrow. Really, set aside all the other soapy parts of the show, this is just about the best vision of shared custody I have seen on film! Both parents have this huge dramatic past.
And yet they are careful not to let it spill through to their relationship with their daughter or each other as co-parents. Or to let their personal issues color their mutual trust in each other as parents.
Khirad went to Ashar for help because she had faith in his essential decency. Even if he was a failure to her as a husband, she believed that she knew him well enough to know he would care about his daughter. And Ashar shows the same trust in the essential decency of Khirad. That he may believe she cheated on him, but he also knows she would be a loving and responsible mother and he should not separate mother and child. And so, after his immediate impulsive suggestion of Haseen coming home with him, he modifies it to be an invitation for Khirad and Haseen to stay with him while Haseen has treatment for her heart condition.
This is also where the showrunners start sneaking in their little subversive class messages. And yet she knows that her wealthy ex-husband could just wave his magic wand and save her, if he chose. After living independent and proud for years, she has to bend and ask for help because it is something that just cannot be accomplished in this society without extreme wealth.
And so, at the end of episode 15, we are in a new reality with Khirad and Ashar sharing a house and sharing care of their daughter. Episode 15 was primarily about Khirad and Ashar, letting us know what was happening with them. Now, in Episode 16, the world begins to expand outward again. She is still sure that someday Ashar will love her, and that she will never want anyone else. Khizad is still around too, calling Sarah from America, sure that she will marry him someday. But mostly the world is still Khirad and Ashar.
In the early scenes of their marriage, they built a little world within their bedroom, their private space inside the house. Now, with Fareeda temporarily gone and Haseen having her own room, the whole house has become a sanctuary for their relationship. They interact awkwardly around Haseen, reading her stories together, giving her medicine, meals, planning outings. They are both still restrained and formal with each other, but they are learning to relate and trust again, a little.
This tiny world continues to be the main focus through out episode 17 until it receives its first challenge when Sarah chances upon the little family at a restaurant. She is immediately angry, and Ashar pulls her away to protect Haseen from her wrath.
Sarah also spreads the word to Zarina and Fareeda as to what has occurred, bringing in outside powers to threaten our fragily reunited family. But on the other hand, there is also a lovely sequence either in this episode or the next some of them blur together a bit at this point when he first begins to think about the struggles she must have experienced in the past few years and his culpability in them.
And again, it has a tiny class message to it! Ashar agrees, but asks for clarification since he understood that the Chaiwalla was estranged from his wife.
But, on the other hand, how can he look his children in the face if he is not there for their mother at this moment. This is such a nice practical moment of feminism! Forget work equality and that kind of stuff, a simple appreciation for the dangers of pregnancy in a partially developed place or heck, in a developed place!
And to have it come from the voice of one of the lowest of society and resonate with one of the highest is a nice reminder that the relationship of father-mother-child is universal.
We, the audience, know that she called Ashar one last time while suffering labor pains and fearing for her life and the life of their child, and it was his rejection of her at that moment that made her forever cut off contact. But again, none of this means she does not trust him as a father. Not because he is a better parent than Khirad, but because he is just as good and has proven himself trustworthy and most of all he is rich! In the same episode where Khirad makes her sacrificial decision as a mother, we are again reminded of her opposite counter-part, Fareeda, who is incapable of making such a selfless and clear-eyed judgement, but is also driven by concern for her child.
Fareeda returns and confronts Ashar, asking why he has taken Khirad back into the house and their lives, and what makes him believe this child is his. And then the sound gets a little wonky and Fawad Khan super overacts and over-emotes! But it is nice in concept. She presented Ashar with an assortment of factual items and offered to have a DNA test done, and he thought it over and then quickly realized the truth of her statements and naturally fell in love with his child and brought her home.
As any decent person would have done. That is what this first confrontation is about. All along, Fareeda has been expecting her plan to work because she relied on everyone being as petty as she.
She wants Ashar for himself, so she does everything to get him. But Khizad, he just wants to make himself into a better person so he is worthy of Sarah, to do what she wants to be happy. And, perhaps, if Sarah were married and committed to someone else, as Ashar was, then he would quietly go away. It is an honorable devotion. Sort of. Kind of. Episode 19, so close to the end! Khizar calls Sarah, and Ashar slowly begins to have doubts about his vision of what happened 4 years ago. Two incidents happen, one in the present and one in the past.
Well, his memories of the past come up and incidents start occurring in the present. Fareeda is rude to Khirad and cruel to Hareem. And Hareem innocently reports this to her father. Both of these incidents are around Hareem and get back the essential thing that Khirad can understand in Ashar and his mother cannot. Hareem is an innocent who carries no sins with her.
And Ashar can see that and love her for it. Which Khirad knew he would. And because he loves and and knows she is innocent, he trusts her and believes her. Oh, and we also get to see Khirad stand up for herself some more! Back 4 years ago, she just sort of endured. But now she understands what is happening and has found within herself what she truly cares about, her dignity, her daughter, and nothing else. Okay, finally, we are 5 episodes in to this section and things start just clicking along!
Which is what finally brings her parents together. As I said, all along they have been presenting Khirad and Ashar as excellent co-parents. And as the episodes flowed by, the became more and more of a team. From trading off interactions, one in the room at a time, they slowly became partners in making sure Hareem ate and took her medicine and was happy and healthy.
And now that the time has arrived to explain what will happen during surgery, they are doing it together, in perfect harmony, explaining in a way that lets her know she is loved and safe. During surgery the bond just strengthens. Khirad is suddenly inconsolable, after being the strong one all these months, and Ashar helps keep her together while they wait. And it is this bonding experience that makes him, finally, start to look at her in a new light.
Also, a proposal! Things are coming to a head! Ashar sees him leaving the house and his mother quickly lies that Khizar was there to ask them to let Khizad leave the house and marry him.
Going back to how Khizar is surprisingly noble, what Sarah sees as pressure and Fareeda sees as blackmail, is him innocently thinking that Fareeda really does love him as a son and want to help him, and that Sarah actually does love him.
Fareeda tries to present the proposal as temporary, as just another step on the journey all three women Sarah, her mother Zarina, and Fareeda are taking together. But this is too much, finally too much, for the other women to see through.
Zarina, interestingly, has already begun to express doubts. Not guilt, exactly, but doubt that she was truly helping her daughter by feeding her obsession. And Sarah becomes hysterical at the thought of marrying someone else, especially when she briefly thought it was finally her proposal from Ashar. Her heart is further broken in the next episode, when Ashar comes to see her and begs her, once and for all, to move on.
Or maybe it would have ended the same way, with her once again sinking into depression. But forget all of that, Romantic Drama!!!! All over the place in Episode 21 as we near the home stretch. The majority of the episode is Khirad and Ashar having a heart to heart.
And, okay, this is when I start to forgive Ashar. If you think about it, Khirad spent the past 4 years knowing her husband failed to trust her but was otherwise faithful, and knowing she truly loved her husband, and having a child to raise. Her devotion to his memory and failure to move on, that was just sort of a given. I initially began watching Humsafar thinking it would be a good time-pass. I had read the story a while back and enjoyed it. For me, the last episode epitomized everything that was exceptional about this serial.
Direction, dialogues, camerawork, acting, editing, all surpassed the benchmarks set by the previous episodes. I loved the way she showed maternal concern and began to doubt the wisdom of her emotional decision to leave Hareem in Karachi.
The way she hurriedly brushed past Ashar in her concern to get to her daughter as soon as possible was beautifully done. The heart-to-heart between Ashar and Khirad was just what the doctor ordered; both of them finally verbalizing feelings, thoughts, and questions that had previously remained unsaid, even in happier times.
Finally they had learnt the value of communicating; egos were put aside and souls were bared. The long-awaited confrontation between Ashar and Fareeda was nothing less than explosive. All those dialogues I had read long ago took on a life of their own— every line from Ashar felt like a whiplash.
After the novel, I had always wondered about what had happened to Fareeda, and the tender moment between the mother and son was a perfect wrap up to that thread. Last night I had wondered what the last scene would look like — would it be worthy of drawing the curtains on this epic serial?
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