Ohkay so, to be honest, after watching the first two episodes of this drama, I am more interested to see how far they will stretch & how they will unfold a very typical & predictable story, like I am interested to see what treatment will they give to such a story that has nothing new to offer! The cat’s out of the bag already that we have a hero who is a dream guy any girl would love to be with, sadly, he is married to a ‘psychopath’ (reference: precap of the next episode) & then we have an ideal ‘seedhi saadhi larki’ next door who our hero will fall for because for starters, he has become a fan of her mother’s anda paratha roll already, so I am sure he won’t be able to resist her charm in the future. I actually thought that in this episode, things will improve & they will establish the grounds for what is yet to come in a more engaging way but when the episode ended, I was left scratching my head at what I just saw & I’m still wondering if this drama will turn out to be a good watch in the episodes yet to come because so far, things are looking unattractive & dull already!
Aila & Harib have been married for a few days & Harib has already started seeing that side of Aila’s personality that he was oblivious of, but I am not sure if the writer & the director have done their homework thoroughly when it comes to this track because all the things the characters say do not really go well with the flow of how things are being shown. Harib’s best friend Shehroz knows about Aila’s personality & he himself said that everyone in the office knows that Aila is ‘sar phiri’ & ‘batameez’, we got to know that Aila was working in Harib’s office for 2 years & just after dating for a few months, Harib decided that he couldn’t live without Aila & then time & again we get to hear that Harib’s decision of marrying Aila was a well-thought decision, but then why doesn’t it look like that? Why do I feel that Harib just decided to get married after Aila gave him the attention that he liked while believing that he thought things through? Also, I find it a little hard to believe that Aila succeeded in fooling Harib for months, whereas she just couldn’t control her anger in the first few days of being married to him!?!?!
In this episode, we got to know that Shehroz knows each & every single little detail about Harib’s life & he can even identify the cologne Harib wears just by sniffing it once & we also know that Harib relies on Shehroz a bit too much & tells him everything regarding his life, then I fail to understand that how come Shehroz didn’t prevent Harib from getting married to Aila? I wish that in stead of showing Aila as Harib’s wife, they had shown her to be Harib’s fiancée, because things would’ve made a lot more sense in such a scenario, where even we, as viewers would’ve learned things about Aila along with Harib. Seems like Harib is now exploring Aila’s personality & he is getting to know her & with each passing revelation, Harib is forced to regret his decision because she is someone he never thought she would be. Also, the entire conversation that Harib & Aila had about Harib’s ex-girlfriend seemed a little forced because such things are mostly discussed when a couple starts dating, where they are curious about each other & want to dig in the past of the one they’re interested in, so to see a newly married couple discussing the past didn’t seem justified because when you’re married for like 4 days, you’re more concerned about how you should color co-ordinate your outfits to look like a newly married couple & some cute stuff like that. Also, Harib told Shehroz that Aila over-reacts, so I am not sure if Harib suffers from a short-term memory loss where he completely forgot that Aila might react abrasively after hearing about how much he loved a girl before getting married to Aila.
The one thing that seemed like a right move was a consultation with the doctor, not sure if he was a GP or a psychiatrist, because if he would’ve been a psychiatrist, I am sure Aila would’ve made an even bigger issue by questioning Harib’s intention of proving that she is a psychopath, since she seems to be living on the edge every single second of her life. So, I assume that he was just a regular GP, that Harib took Aila over to. The doctor says that Harib needs to take care of Aila & shouldn’t do anything to tick her off. I actually thought that after doctor’s advice, we’ll see a change in Harib’s attitude but his one-liners didn’t stop & it seemed that he couldn’t care less, even after getting to know that Aila was just being over-protective & possessive about him because she fears losing him. All Harib did was put a band-aid on her forehead & he believed that he did everything but his indifferent attitude is something that I will blame here, before putting an entire blame on Aila, because if she is someone who has no control over her emotions, then it looks like Harib is also someone who despite having a control on himself, doesn’t do much to prevent the damage from happening!
Those who know me know that I never watch the promos, I stay away from the OST’s & don’t read any such articles that are written about the drama that I am about to review, so I had no idea that Hareem Farooq will be playing the character of a girl with psychological issues but in the comments under the first episode’s review, I found out that the team of Sanam & Hareem Farooq promoted the character of Aila as someone who was bipolar & the team also used the ‘awareness’ card saying that they will be raising ‘awareness’ about this disorder but after seeing the first 2 episodes, I am sure that the word of ‘awareness’ was used just as a catch & the writer most certainly doesn’t intend to do anything of such sort, since the attitude of Harib & the scary background music in Aila’s scenes completely suggest that they are only going to show Aila in a negative light & as someone who made it hard for Harib to be faithful to her. I am sure that as the drama will progress, we will be shown that even though Harib didn’t want to, he was forced to cheat on Aila because of Aila herself!!!
Well, some new characters were introduced & I am sure they were also made a part of the story to add some comic relief but I didn’t enjoy watching their scenes & conversations one bit. They are Shaukat Qureshi’s family & they are definitely not happy with Aan’s mother’s decision of moving out from their ‘mohalla’. Aan & her mother’s scenes didn’t offer much too & nor did we get an insight into Aan’s character. All the things that Aan & her mother spoke about have already been spoken about in the first episode, so not much progress was made in their track & nothing much was revealed. I am a bit concerned if things will remain like that since I don’t feel their characters have much to offer. Well we know that Aan’s mother is already quite smitten by Harib & she is looking for a guy exactly like him for her daughter Aan. Yes, one thing that actually grabbed my attention was the change in background music when Aan & Harib interacted with each other, it was definitely used to make things look positive & promising between the two & it gave away what the writer & the director have in their minds regarding Harib & Aan!!!
Overall, this episode was average too & I am still going to give this drama a chance. I hope things will improve but the chances are slim. The precap of the next episode suggested that Harib will be forced to use the P (psychopath) word, well, so much of courtesy & compassion for a girl who is suffering from some psychological issues, right??? Well, now that I have seen Aila’s character, I am not sure if she is bipolar either, because it looks like that her personality is like that where she is stubborn & has no control over her anger. She was also shown as someone who is ‘shukki’ because just after spotting Harib & Aan together, she started accusing Harib of cheating on her!?!?! A person can be bipolar & what not, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that she has to have alllllllllllll the negativity in the world, to justify the actual two-timing that her husband will do on her in the future episodes.
I think the writer or the team of Sanam should’ve done a thorough research on the people with the ‘bipolar personality disorder’ before using this word as it looks like they just used this ‘word’ to make all the negative & ‘been there, seen that’ things look sophisticated & new. Well, even in this episode, it looked like a younger brother was taking care of his elder sister & there was no chemistry between Osman Khalid Butt & Hareem Farooq. When I found out that they will be paired together, I actually thought that chalo, may be we’ll get to see a new pairing & it will be different to what we all are used to, but I think the casting director should’ve reconsidered his decision because Osman Khalid Butt & Hareem Farooq don’t look good together at all & this is another reason why it is becoming hard for me to relate to their problems & issues, since they look like siblings with hero being Aila’s chota bhai! Also, I think Osman Khalid Butt should loosen up a bit, this is not about the character that he is playing since he mostly plays the characters that require him to look prim & proper & machine washed but this is about his acting, like it looked that he was trying too hard to emote & gesticulate, even in the scenes that didn’t require so much of effort & acting. I must also add that the people responsible for Hareem Farooq’s clothing & styling have done a very poor job or may be it is Hareem herself who hasn’t carried such dressing properly, she looks odd in those rag-like outfits to say the least! The rest of the cast was good & the episode was just alright. Let’s see what happens next week. Please share your thoughts about this episode of Sanam.
Keep Supporting,
Cheers,
Zahra Mirza.
PS: It seems that me calling Aan ‘seedhi saadhi larki’ in the review of the first episode offended a lot of people, so I just want to let everyone know that for me calling someone ‘seedhi saadhi larki’ is not an abuse, it is not a term that is used in a negative way & I most certainly don’t use it to demean someone. For me, Aan is just a very simple girl with no complications in her life, in her personality & in her thinking, therefore, I used this term to describe a girl who seems very simple to me. You guys can take it as a literal translation of how her character has been elaborated on-screen & for Aan being ‘seedhi saadhi’ most certainly doesn’t take away the fact that she is educated, confident & independent, despite coming from a background that still disapproves all of that, so before assuming, before misjudging, before hurling accusations & before ‘bashing’, think twice! ;)
