- Setting bad examples
Curse of an ailing heart is to be feared. An evil eye can cause great destruction. Beauties meet beasts. Divorce is a must-have. Halalla is convenient. Transgender could ‘choose’ to live. Prostitutes must be killed!
Khuda ki Basti (1969) has been one of those esteemed dramas that bagged its writer great honour. Shaukat Siddiqui was given not only many titles and awards but also the honour of meeting the then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who acknowledged the contribution of the serial in instilling in public the political thought of that time: roti, kapra or makan. The socio-political ripples created by the subjects represented in dramas like Laag (1998) and Khuda Zameen Sey Gaya Nahe Ha (2009) were of the same magnitude. However, the dramas that can stimulate thoughts and impact behaviour are bygones now.
What an average Pakistani viewer gets in the name of drama is half-boiled pseudo Sufism that pathetically reinforces patriarchy – Alif, Allah or Insan (2017) and Khuda or Muhabbat (2011) – or a frustratingly confused individualism that encourages conformism – Rungreza (2017) and Mubarak ho Beiti hui ha (2017). Leaving behind the false hope of a “happy ending,” an overdose of over-simplified, over-glamorised mystically patriarchal viewpoint of the rapidly destabilising Pakistani society, a covert representation of the overt stereotypes, is the last hope of this society to get hold of the slipping-like-quick-sand family system of Pakistan.
Setting aside what happens on the not-so-serious “serious” channels, the writer targets entertainment channels which have successfully glued – with serious, moral plays – not only the house- and office-women but also a large chunk of male viewers. (I am not competent enough to comment on the apathetic incessant attempts to generate situational humor in comedy serials!)
The writer had the honour of watching some highly-recommended TV dramas. The distance from these artless projects of the notable production houses, she was told, kept her in a fool’s paradise. However, after watching these (and other) dramas, she can confidently say that she only wasted her time and that it was a life-unchanging experience. (I won’t have improved an iota had I been a regular viewer, in my prime years, of this sentimental garbage). The writer does not claim that hers is the last verdict on contemporary TV drama and does wish for exceptions to what she watched.
The skeptic writer starts watching a drama with firm belief of its being useless. Half way through, she is almost convinced that the problem is with her, not with the story. The end metamorphoses her to the extent that she can no more reconcile with her before-watching-the-drama self. Conformism, imbibing clichés, is not only what the drama does; it also confuses one.
First, one has to decide – since the regular viewers have a long list to select from – what to watch because watching Rungreza at dinner time could upset Khayam (the Adam for whose sins his progeny suffers) and Mamou (the good woman who never learns from her mistakes) or upraise many a Sassies (the woman with the endless task of self-discovery). One also has to decide – if one can do that – with whom to relate with: the petrifying mother or the agonizing mother-in-law. However, most of the writers make sure that the viewer could somehow relate with all the mishandled, misrepresented characters which are essentially good at heart, ending up better than those un-relatable, rarely admired, bad characters whose beguiling happiness and conniving joys are momentary.
Mubarak Ho Beiti Hui Hai (2017) and Teri Raza (2017) are written for two different audiences. The first is for the illiterate, labour-class housewife with children who have no choice but to bow down to whatever her husband commands (the second marriage offer in the drama is for the actress Saima, not for the character of Naheed!). Their only hope is education. However, the drama fails to show how the street-schools are making illiterates fool in the name of education. The glorious end of the virtuous hard-working mother is stereotypical, for its foundation lies in wasting her youth by remaining single.
The second marriage promises no comfort as evident from the experience of Naheed’s husband. He also suffered because he deprived his first wife and daughters their due share. Is the writer suggesting that the second marriage can become a success if the man keeps the first wife and her children in the loop? The drama also fails to “enlighten” the audience on the determination of sex with x/y chromosome coming from father: the dramatist is obviously not interested in fixing the rubbish this society believes in (or perhaps she does not know it herself)!
The skeptic writer starts watching a drama with firm belief of its being useless. Half way through, she is almost convinced that the problem is with her, not with the story
The second drama, Teri Raza, is meant for those literate, working wives who have got something up their sleeves while entering the wedlock and have the audacity to take it out in their good-for-nothing post-marriage life and eventually get married for the second time (first it was to please Allah; then it was to please themselves). Since personal choice challenged the will of Allah – Istakhara – and of parents, it was obviously going to fail the woman. As far as man is concerned, he can easily get away with any of his wrong doings, and remain untanned. What became of Rameez? What should be the punishment of Imtiaz, who creates all the drama? Nothing befalls the man who not being contended with his wife’s surrendering to the will of Allah divorces her because he wants her love! Suhana is the role model of beautiful and rich half-office-, half-house-wives who are destined to succeed in whatever they aim at.
Teri Raza has crossed all limits in taking from woman the right to marry by choice, giving the young generation a very strong message: the love of a man, Imtiaz, is more legitimate than the love of a woman, Suhana. Imtiaz did not do Istakhara before sending the proposal: only Suhana is doomed because her family did it. It becomes even more insane when an independent, career-oriented girl starts relating her life with the fall of Suhana and a good-for-nothing sadist house-wife starts devouring the plight of the fallen women.
The indecisiveness of Pakistani society on love is evident in contemporary drama that is exhausting its potential in legitimising good love and tabooing bad love. A woman can marry the man she loves, but it is essentially doomed (not to mention the destructive role of in-laws). A man can marry the woman he loves because his love (just like his body) is strong enough to mar any mountain. A woman will have to pay back with her honor if she disapproves the love of a man while the man who rejects the love of a good woman eventually (re)marries her, or the dramatist takes the woman to another man with whom she can frequently visit the former. The love of a transgender is as thwarted as their selves.
In Alif, Allah aur Insan, Shammi, a eunuch’s love remains unattended (the writer forgets that she mentioned that Guru found Shammi as a baby boy. His gender was normal, his upbringing abnormal). Nazneen is a literal representation of “fallen woman”: her stereotypical portrayal shows her stupid enough to compromise everything she had for her (frequent) lovers. However, she suffered not because she disapproved Shahzeb’s true love (it was the curse of Nigar Begum!). Neither it occurred to her to ask Allah for forgiveness unlike her ex-husband Basit, who caused the death of his whole family. Shahzeb forgives the lovers and ties them in the knot (meanwhile, Nazneen has passed the stage of Halaala!). The miscalculations of a woman are sins, rather cardinal sins, not to be forgiven by the viewer or the dramatist.
On one hand where the trouble lies with not taking a man seriously, taking a man seriously invites greater disaster, i.e., Reena Begum leaving behind her brothel house for Nawazish Ali’s sweet nothings ends up committing suicide for he never made their nikkah public or named their daughter his. Both, loving a prostitute or loved by a prostitute, are lethal. The good love of Khayam turns bad when he falls for a prostitute-cum-actress, Sonia Jahan! While the love of Nigar Begum proves fatal for Shahzeb, who was forcefully taken to the brothel. The writer forgot to share her insight on what is the ‘right’, curse-free way of handling a prostitute’s love and how to avert her curse.
There are also two versions of the so-called prostitute: if she is Fouzia Batool, who is extremely disappointed with her family, she gets killed dreaming of marrying her love; if she is Rani Bibi, she has to commit suicide because social approval weighs more than the wellbeing of her daughter (killing Nigar begum, another prostitute, should have made her more guilty than selling her body, but the writer, being the ‘serial’ killers, has no remorse for such murder). In a brothel one must get killed even if not by envy than by love. Unfortunately, the prostitutes die of society. The suffering of Sonia Jahan is so widely anticipated that the writer and the audience forget that Khayam legitimised his too-good-to-be-true love for the woman with nikkah. Does marrying the wrong woman change social perception? No. May be killing Fouzia Batool, before marriage, was the right thing?
Perhaps because of her personal disapproval of the doomed lot, the writer could not generate a parallel narrative in which the society realises or even confesses its share in punishing a woman as per prevalent standards, instead of leaving her conduct to God. Munah of Baghi quickly goes through a flashback of memories which does not show whether he feels guilty of or gets haunted by his evil deed. Rameez of Teri Raza, who takes up fraudulent ways to grab money from his wife’s parents, is shown a failure till he is married to Suhana. The moment his wife goes back to her first husband, his character disappears.
Nibah (2018) is the struggle of a working woman, Sofia, in adjusting herself according to the wishes of her parents who are lured into making one wrong choice after another for her. There is so much confusion in the characters of both father and mother that the viewer gets baffled at each dialogue they utter. The father inquires if his daughter has met her ex-husband, she affirms, and he deserts her company without listening to further details. Instead of asking his own daughter to file a divorce, the next day he silently goes to her husband and implores him to divorce her. The writer must consume many episodes before taking the drama to the happy ending of second marriage.
Zun Mureed (2018) hinges on the life of a working woman, but the portrayal is flawed and incomplete. The only problem that Tabassum, an efficient employee, faces is time constraint. And the only problem she ever faced (other than the routine burden) was a one-time beating which was so much for her that (after her husband locked himself in a room) she called the police, not her brother, for ‘protection’. Interestingly, all these years of blind love, during which she raised two children, she remained oblivious of her husband’s opportunist and manipulative nature.
Abnormalities and ailments in Pakistani society are still caused by evil eye, imprecations (bad-dua) and tears (silent curse of a wailing heart). Sadiq of Mubarak ho Beiti Hui Ha gets an abnormal son because he broke Naheed’s heart; Malik Sahab (Nazneen’s father) becomes bed-ridden because Shahzeb blamed (cursed) him for his unfortunate marriage and recovers only after formally getting pardoned by Shahzeb. Nazneen’s fall from glory is due to Shammi’s curse on the night of Nazneen’s elder sister’s wedding.
The bad example of forced marriage is reinforced with Nazneen’s and Sohana’s first marriage, with a warning that impertinent girls who do not bow before the prudent decisions of their parents only bring shame to their families/parents. Nevertheless, the examples of good daughters get over-shadowed as the problems in Sofia’s life are created by her parents’ imprudence.
The writer is compelled to draw the conclusion that all these dramas (and others) are written while keeping in mind the audience that watches them. Had the writer any insight into the dynamics of drama writing, s/he would have done more than climaxing each episode.
