THE WEEK THAT WAS

Baandi | Hum TV, Fridays 8.00pm

Asma Nabeel (Khaani) pens a story set round the feudal system of interior Sindh. If you like watching oppression and the victimisation of women as maids, this is totally up your alley. Don’t know what is worse though: Yasir Hussain trying to essay the evil, illiterate feudal Tahawar (another one jumps on the negative character bandwagon) or Aiman Khan struggling with her Sindhi accent as Meeru, the pretty peasant girl who Tahawar (with a perpetual bad hair day) has his roving eye on.

Knowing that Aiman Khan is playing Meeru, be prepared for full bawling action. Muneeb Butt, Aiman’s real-life fiancé, as the lead plays the conscientious Inspector Wali Khan, son of the dominating Faiza Begum (Hina Dilpazeer) who delivers dars (religious sermons) to women and has a spiritual following. She is married to Shahnawaz Ali Khan (Noman Masood). Wali is the only one in his family perturbed about his sister Rameen (Hajra Yasmeen) who has been forcibly married to and is being victimised by her wicked husband Aadi (Kamran Jillani). She has just lost her child. Tahawar wants Meeru to work in his house and to look after his ailing wife but Meeru is hesitant, while her parents are pressurised by the wadera system.

Dil Moam Ka Diya | ARY, Tuesdays 8.00-10pm

Had Maulvi Feroz (Qavi) not requested the good man Afzal (Yasir Nawaz) to marry his daughter Ulfat (Neelam Muneer), life would have been so much easier for Afzal and his traumatised family. The beautiful and headstrong Ulfat knows her much-older husband is a decent fellow, so she manipulates his niceness to her advantage and does as she wills, irrespective of hurting other people’s feelings and stunning her in-laws with her brash behaviour. But when her friend and cousin, the amicable Tamkinat (Hira Mani) arrives on the scene and Afzal’s younger brother Azhar (Imran Ashraf) falls for her, Ulfat refuses to share her territory with Tamkinat, and tries her level best to stop them from getting married but the nikah takes place.

Furious at being challenged by her husband, who is fast realising how selfish Ulfat is, she declares an all-out war. Neelam Muneer shines in her role in a play with pacey twists and turns, where men are not evil, women play strong characters and nobody bawls bucketfuls.

What To Watch Out For

Tumhari Zofeen | TV One, Thurs-Fri 9.00pm

After her husband Izer’s (Azfar Rehman) death, Zofeen (Deeba Naz) goes into denial and needs psychiatric help to overcome her grief. And who could be better than her close friend Raim (Adnan Siddiqui) to help her as a psychiatrist. He manages to bring Zofeen back to life even though it doesn’t go down well at all with his jealous colleague Dr Ambreen (Zhalay Sarhadi).

Enraged that Raim is romantically involved with Zofeen, Ambreen rummages through his personal belongings in his office and discovers letters that Raim wrote to Zofeen while pretending to be Izer when he was alive. Ambreen tells Zofeen the truth and that she should quit living in a fantasy world. When Raim learns about Ambreen’s activities through Zofeen’s friend Nazia (Hira Tareen), he is understandably livid. As the controlled, intense and deep Raim, Adnan Siddiqui is doing one of the best roles of his career so far. Debutant Deeba Naz also handles the highs and lows of her role beautifully. Izer’s father proposes marriage for Raim and Zofeen. How Raim deals with confessing his feelings for Zofeen remains to be seen.

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 30th, 2018