THE WEEK THAT WAS

Mere Khudaya | ARY, Saturdays 8.00pm

It comes as a rude shock to Alina (Zubab Rana) that the relentless, anonymous, dumb caller and sender of messages and photos of her clandestine meetings with her boyfriend Shehzad (Malik Rizwan) is not her estranged friend Mehek (Saboor Aly) but the convicted rapist-turned-college van driver Sajid (Shahood Alvi), who decides to come out in the open. He meets her in the park near her college and demands that she carry on with him just as she does with Shehzad. Sick with fear lest her family finds out, she calls Shehzad for help who, being insincere with Alina, tells her he needs time to think of a plan and instead changes his phone number.

Meanwhile Mehek’s husband (Hasan Niazi) relents in his rude behaviour and allows her to meet her parents, but a heartbroken Mehek returns to her husband’s house as her angry father (Sohail Asghar) turns her away from the door despite her begging him to embrace and acknowledge her.

Tum Se Hee Taaluq Hai | Geo TV, Mondays 8.00pm

The story continues to be pacey and juicy. Syed Jibran as husband Sadaan is at his nasty best. After his material-minded girlfriend Rama (Faryal Mehmood) announces her pregnancy, Sadaan marries her right after he get his hands on the property that his mother left to his wife Alina (Tooba Siddiqui) whom he dumps most disgracefully. He draws up papers through his lawyer and makes Alina sign them on the condition that she can choose between the property or their daughters. Just as Alina signs the papers, handing him all the wealth and property in order to get custody of their daughters, he goes back on his word, shoves the daughters away and tells Alina to scoot.

A shocked Alina arrives at her cousin Naina’s (Anum Fayyaz) place where the latter’s husband Nakheel (Ali Abbas) promises to fight a legal battle to bring her daughters back to her. Naina, who is dying of advanced cancer, emotionally blackmails Alina to marry Nakheel before she passes away. Meanwhile Rama is having a tough time with the step-daughters who are not quite letting her enjoy her newly-wed status. One of them runs away, but is found. Sadaan is now ready to talk to Alina about the situation.

What To Watch Out For

Lashkara | ARY, Sundays 10.00pm

Writer Zafar Mairaj and director Kashif Nisar have us shell-shocked as the serial reaches an unprecedented climax. After refusing to go home with them from his in-laws’ place, Feeka (Mohsin Abbas Haider) sends his evil sister Nikki (Meherbano) and imploring mum Nasreen (Saba Pervaiz) back home, and is celebrating basant by flying kites with his beautiful wife Bubbly (Ushna Shah) and her family when someone knocks at the door. Since the only one downstairs at the time is Bubbly who is pouring Kashmiri tea for those upstairs, she answers the door and within a split second an unidentified person throws acid on her face!

The shot was so realistic you couldn’t miss the sound of the liquid hitting the flesh. While the blame invariably goes to Sunny (Imran Ashraf), the guy who had once wanted to marry Bubbly, the real culprit behind the horrific act is Nikki who, consumed by her hatred for Bubbly, has struck again to destroy once and for all the beauty that everyone else is so frenzied about.

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 16th, 2018