THE WEEK THAT WAS

Raqeeb Se | Hum TV, Wed-Thurs 8.00pm

Hajra (Sania Saeed), the extraordinarily accepting and accommodating wife of Maqsood (Noman Ejaz), whose old flame Sakina (Hadiqa Kiani) has become an inseparable part of the couple’s lives, reveals to her daughter Insha (Faryal Mehmood) why she (the mother) is the way she is. Apparently, Maqsood had married Hajra when her father ended up in jail after killing her mother. For his noble act of marrying a murderer’s daughter, Hajra is eternally grateful to Maqsood, to the extent that she is okay with Maqsood marrying Sakina. If you can bear the uncharacteristic slowness of this Kashif Nisar directorial, Bee Gul’s offbeat story is intriguing — especially now that that Hajra and Insha are also beginning to notice Sakina’s menacing daughter Ameera’s (Iqra Aziz) rather ardent but totally misplaced emotions for Maqsood.

Khuda aur Mohabbat | Geo TV, Fridays 8.00pm

As the heartbroken Fadi (Feroze Khan) is all set to leave Bahawalpur after Mahi (Iqra Aziz) comes clean to him that she has no feelings for him, and that Fadi had misconstrued her attentions towards him, Hashim Nadeem Khan’s story takes a totally unprecedented turn. An unidentifiable body is discovered on the railway tracks, which the police determine is Fadi’s because of his mobile phone, which miraculously remained intact. The tragic news breaks on the day when Mahi’s wedding festivities are beginning. Not only is Mahi left feeling guilty, shocked and heartbroken, the maid Sajal (Shameen Khan), who had fallen for Fadi, is also shattered. So why was the mysterious dervish (Noor-ul-Hassan), who appears from time to time, yelling and dancing at the time of Fadi’s accident/suicide? It remains a mystery, as does Fadi’s apparent death — unless he decided to orchestrate a vanishing act to punish Mahi. Okay, we are hooked!

What To Watch Out For

Shehnai | ARY, Thursdays 8.00pm

This is one big, fat continuous wedding, where there is a quirky love triangle between the headstrong Bakht (Ramsha Khan), the adorable Meerab (Affan Khan) and the devious and dominating other girl, Samreen (Maham Aamir). Both girls want to marry Meerab because he is just so nice. All this is with the backdrop of Ahmed Bhatti’s sensitive direction of writer Radain Shah’s rich, funny, contemporary and spontaneous characters, especially Bakht’s conniving chaachi Maliha (Zainab Qayyum) and Bakht’s phupha Kaffi (Salim Mairaj). Meerab is confused between girlfriend Samreen and arranged bride-to-be Bakht while, for the two young women, the battle over Meerab has unprecedented interruptions for the whackiest of reasons, including Samreen’s fiancé suddenly turning up at the wedding. Ramsha Khan is doing what she did previously for Bhatti in Ghisi Piti Mohabbat, but we discover Affan Khan’s funny bone as Meerab while Mariam Aamir sets a benchmark for herself. Keep watching this roller-coaster ride.

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 16th, 2021