THE WEEK THAT WAS

Band Khirrkiyan | Hum TV, Fridays 9.10pm

Sixteen episodes down, the saga of Subohi (Sarah Khan), the doormat, and her overly-possessive, psychotic husband Zain (Aagha Ali) continues in predictable fashion. Subohi suffers bad behaviour from Zain every time she sees her sister Midhat (Anam Fayyaz) and brother-in-law Mohid (Agha Mustafa). This time, instead of surprising her on her birthday with his elaborate plan involving the house of her dreams, he totally destroys the plan and her birthday. Just as they are about to leave the house for a night out for the revelation about the house he has gotten for her, Midhat and Mohid turn up to wish Subohi. Since Zain can’t stand them, he does what he does best — insult and humiliate them.

Subohi stands up for them and, enraged, she leaves in tears while Zain smashes the birthday cake and tears the place down. The next morning he apologises, Subohi is back with him and we are back to square one. Can Aagha Ali do a play where he is not playing a nasty/psychotic guy and can Sara Ali do one where she is not constantly tortured and actually smiles?

Rubaru Ishq Tha | Geo TV, Fridays 8.00pm

A lilting OST by Sahir Ali Bagga, a star cast with Danish Taimoor, Ushna Shah, Javed Sheikh, Sanam Chaudhry, Ali Abbas and Rubina Ashraf, and a substantial story, still could not shake the feeling that the serial (that has now thankfully concluded) lacked oomph. The one character who got things moving was the obsessive, hysterical Ayaan (Sanam Chaudhry), but the other characters remained lacklustre. What could have been summed up in 20 episodes dragged on to 26. 

When Inspector Jahanzeb (Imran Patel) digs up all the clues and confronts the suspect Wahaaj (Ali Abbas) about the murder of Salwa’s (Ushna Shah) dad, Wahaaj’s sister Ayaan (Sanam Chaudhry) — realising that she will never get Almeer (Danish Taimoor) as he never stopped loving Salwa — gets hold of a gun and dramatically pleads guilty to accidentally shooting Salwa’s dad (Ayub Khosa), and then shoots herself dead. In turn, Wahaaj decides that since he was the one to have created the monster called Ayaan, the only way he can absolve his sins (which include beating Salwa with a leather belt) is to divorce Salwa with the request that she should forgive him and his dead sister. With the coast brilliantly clear, pretty boy Almeer marries Salwa and they live happily ever after. Sadly, Danish and Ushna had not more than 10 scenes together. The serial may as well have been titled Ru Baru Ishq Na Tha!

WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR

Haiwan | ARY, Wednesdays 8.00-10.00pm

To counter a water scarcity issue, Hameed (Faysal Qureshi)’s family arranges for boring in Hameed’s backyard where, if he were present, he wouldn’t let anyone near, lest his secret of raping, murdering and then burying the neighbourhood child Masooma (Areesha Ahsan) could be discovered. But Hameed is away performing umrah and, as the workers dig away, the body is discovered. Not just Masooma’s family, the entire neighbourhood is traumatised. Without showing the actual corpse, Masooma’s family’s horrific reaction was most convincingly shot. 

Jacked up by Mazhar Moin’s direction, especially in the grim scenes of police investigations, forensics and the burial, the entire cast is on a roll with realistic performances. The police are obviously considering Hameed as the prime suspect. Meanwhile, Hameed’s daughter Sawera (Maryam Noor) is suffering at the hands of her weird-as-hell husband Farhan (Omi Butt) who is in the hospital looking agitated when Hameed’s son Maan (Wahaaj Ali) — present there for the DNA test report — overhears the nurse tell Farhan something about his child. So the reason for Farhan being so obtuse is that he is sitting on a secret previous marriage. Electric performances by Iffat Rahim, Wahaj Ali and Sanam Chaudhry in the scene where Hameed admits his crimes to his wife Kulsum (Iffat Rahim).

Published in Dawn, ICON, December 2nd, 2018