Ohkay so, last night Thora Sa Aasman came to an end & honestly speaking, even though the ending came a bit suddenly, it left me feeling that they wrapped everything up properly & showed everything in detail. I think the channel made the best decision of airing two episodes a week because watching both the last episodes back to back made things seem quite seamless. However, my complaint about the way Fatima’s character was tackled still remains, even though she was the backbone & the main character for a considerable part of a novel, the director fizzled her out & gave every character an equal level, which I think wasn’t a right decision because in a story where every single person was selfish & suffering because of going out of the way to fulfill their greed, the character of Fatima embodied purity, selflessness & a sense of enrichment that one gets by empowering others & that I believe was sadly & heavily compromised upon which otherwise would’ve been the best aspect of the drama like it was of the novel.
This drama basically was a representation of the proverb, ‘what goes around, comes around’. It emphasized on the fact that everything you do, good or bad, small or big, for yourself or for someone else, it will return to you in a way & at a time you’d least expect it to. This story showed how a man, who thought he had everything in control, ended up losing everything that he cherished & it was only because of his greed to get what he wanted. This story also showed how a man who chose to trust a selfish man ended up losing everything because of his blind trust in someone who wasn’t trust worthy in the first place. This story was a depiction of how every single person is in a search for better & better & when they are at it, at times, in fact most of the times, they forget to cross check the path that they have chosen to reach their goal, they forget to do the self-policing whether they are doing things rightfully or wrongfully. This story was a depiction of how greed blinds people & compels them to go to such lengths that they themselves can not imagine.
It all started because of Haroon Kamal, just because he saw Ambar & realized that he won’t be able to have her, he wrecked her entire life to get a step closer to her but just when he did, he ended up violating all the other boundaries that were around him. Haroon Kamal actually believed or if not, he chose to believe that he was a free-bird, free from all limitations, free of social pressures, free of falling into any trap & free of any such emotions that may weaken him, but in the course of reassuring himself, he forgot that he after all had an Achilles Heel too & it was Nayab. Haroon Kamal thought that he will always remain scot-free & will never fall into a trap of his own wrongdoings but he was wrong, the time actually proved that he was wrong!
Ambar fell into Haroon’s trap & even decided to get married to him, but seeing Nayab with him put things into perspective & she realized that just like Rakshi snatched her father away from her, Ambar was going to do the same to Nayab by snatching the most precious person from her too, which was her father. Seeing Nayab with Haroon served as a reminder & a reality check to Ambar because she shared the same relation with Mansoor as well & Ambar could actually relate to how heartbroken Nayab will get if she will find out that her father married a girl half his age. Sadly, Ambar went to meet Haroon to never come back & she ended up dying accidentally. Ambar lost a purpose of life after losing her father & her fiance that is why she even lost the urge to live but that didn’t give Haroon end her life like that.
I am glad they changed the scenario between Nayab & Samar in the drama because in the novel, their track was quite grim where they both go for a Nikkah after Nayab learns the fact that her father will never allow her to get married to Samar & later when she finds out that Samar was her brother, she commits suicide. I was actually a bit scared & still interested to see how they will interpret Samar & Nayab’s relation in the drama but I am glad they changed it. So, Zarka chose to be a bigger person & she chose to be the one who kept an eye on her children but from a distance because unlike Shahista she was appreciative of what Fatima did for Samar & Sani. Zarka knew that even though she gave birth to Samar & Sani, she still wasn’t entitled to be labeled as their mother because it was Fatima who spent sleepless nights to raise them, it was Fatima who fulfilled the duty of being Samar & Sani’s mother without being one. Even though for a random person, Zarka must’ve been at a morally low level for what she used to do but by giving up her urge to be with her children & respecting Fatima for the way she raised Samar & Sani, Zarka proved she was still better than those sophisticated, educated & liberal people who posed to be at the upper level of morals using their wealth as a veil to conceal their dirty dark secrets. If Zarka had wanted, she also could have claimed her right on Samar & Sani like Shahista did, but Zarka proved, that she wasn’t selfish like Shahista, who turned a blind eye from a new born Shaheer, only to ruin his life & disturb him mentally years & years later, that too in such circumstances where Shaheer’s father Haroon wasn’t ready to accept him nor were his siblings Asad & Nayab!
Mansoor lost everything because Rakshi got everything she wanted, that is why she let him know that she didn’t need him anymore. It was again a result of how giving an edge to a frenemy makes you lose everything that once made your life complete & it makes you lose everything that you cherished & valued the most in your life. Mansoor fell prey to Haroon’s brain feeding but then again, the fact still remains that he wasn’t a child himself who easily let Haroon sway his feelings in Rakshi’s favor. Mansoor not only lost his wife, his house, his business, he ended up losing his beloved first born Ambar, who meant everything to him.
Overall, this journey, as grim as it was, came with a lot of lessons. Even though the drama-makers did a fairly decent job in dramatizing the novel, I still feel that the novel was a class apart & sadly, where drama did do justice to it, it also didn’t do justice to it completely, may be it was because of the production value or may be because of not allowing the viewers to warm up to the characters, something definitely was missing but I will surely say that it was a great watch & I didn’t feel like I wasted my time. The bonus definitely would be a fewer number of episodes & to the point approach but again, I still feel the drama-makers deprived the viewers of experiencing Fatima’s journey, her struggles, her pains & her sufferings because later when she got the fruit of her effort in the form of having Shaheer return to her, it just looked like any other scene with no emotional factor to it whereas it should’ve been a turning point, a thought-provoking, an emotionally overwhelming scene showcasing how Fatima received the reward for her years & years & years of sacrifices.
I will commend the director for directing this drama aptly. The actors did a great job too as it was a combined effort of all of the newcomers & the experienced actors, that they made this drama worth a watch. Sehar Afzal in particular deserves a special mention for being phenomenal as Ambar. Zeba Bakhtiyar tried to do well but she remained expressionless throughout. Ali Khan was quite convincing as Haroon Kamal & so was Babar Ali as Mansoor. Ushna Shah actually needs to take some lessons because irrespective of the role she plays, positive or negative, she always has this breathless asthmatic expression on her face. Yasra Rizvi, she could’ve done so much to own this character, to make people forget the performance of Aliya Imam as Fatima, but she didn’t. I also found it hard to believe that even after 20 years or so, Fatima’s character didn’t age in fact none of the characters like Haroon, Shahista or Fatima seemed to age one bit. Anyways, apart from these few drawbacks, the drama on the whole was interesting to watch & I will most certainly recommend it to those who’re still on the fence about it. Please share your thoughts about the journey of Thora Sa Aasman.
Keep Supporting,
Cheers,
Zahra Mirza.