Asher in the end chooses to accepts his mother instead of abandoning or disowning her for the horrendous mistakes she committed. The two sunk deep into the skin of their respective characters and the chemistry the duo shared was absolutely crackling. In a nutshell Humsafar gave us a story that revolved mainly around the basic human emotions without resorting to theatrical hysteria.
The elegance, the dignified silence and artistic intimacy shared by its lead characters evoked the ultimate romantic in us. The show was taut, precise and had a- thank lord for this- definite ending unlike the never-ending saas bahu sagas and the psychological pain they inflict upon. And Sarah becomes hysterical at the thought of marrying someone else, especially when she briefly thought it was finally her proposal from Ashar.
Her heart is further broken in the next episode, when Ashar comes to see her and begs her, once and for all, to move on. Or maybe it would have ended the same way, with her once again sinking into depression. But forget all of that, Romantic Drama!!!! All over the place in Episode 21 as we near the home stretch. The majority of the episode is Khirad and Ashar having a heart to heart. And, okay, this is when I start to forgive Ashar.
If you think about it, Khirad spent the past 4 years knowing her husband failed to trust her but was otherwise faithful, and knowing she truly loved her husband, and having a child to raise. Her devotion to his memory and failure to move on, that was just sort of a given. But Ashar, Ashar had 4 years when he could have moved on with anyone he wanted, Sarah or some other woman.
He had 4 years to learn to be happy again, to stop obsessing. And instead, he was never able to get Khirad out of his heart or his mind. Even if she betrayed him and never loved him and never wants him, he just wants her to be there, we he can see her sometimes and talk to her. If Khirad had actually betrayed him, this would be the most romantic and self-sacrificing gesture of all time!
Instead, he drags Khirad away from the hospital to beg her to come back to him, to stay in the house with Hareem even know that the operation is over. To forget the past and make a fresh start. Just like when they were first married and he became increasingly obsessed with her stillness and quiet in response to his approaches, again he is passionate and eager while she is firm and opaque.
She will leave Hareem with him, but she will not go back to live in his house. Just give in, go back to him! Let yourself be happy again! But then, I know why not. She compromised her ego once for him, agreeing to the marriage as a poor relative. First Khirad leaves the house, leaving a letter behind telling Ashar that he is responsible for Hareem now. The letter that Khirad wrote years ago and gave to a servant to deliver.
So if he had read this 4 years ago we could have skipped all this? Oh, also Sarah kills herself. Poor Zarina! She just wanted her daughter to be happy, and she never could quite make it happen.
Poor Khizar too. Jumping ahead to the next episode and the resolution of his storyline, he quietly comes to Zarina and they share their grief. And he takes his leave, to return to America and never come back. He really was just a guy in love trying to do his best.
Zarina is the same, now that Sarah is dead she finally sees her sister for the selfish petty woman she is. Ashar was never going to love Sarah, feeding that obsession was just cruel. And, from the narrative side of things, we finally have our Big Bad! At first, there was a whole collection, Sarah was obsessed with Ashar, Khizar was obsessed with Sarah, Zarina wanted her daughter to be happy, and Fareeda thought that her son could do better in marriage.
But now Sarah has killed herself, revealing herself to be legitimately damaged and desperate, worthy of our pity. Khizar tried to tell Ashar the truth, the only one who sincerely tried to make up for what he had done. And Zarina has proved that she only wanted her daughter to be happy, and all along has felt trapped into doing crazy things with that goal in mind.
Zarina is also the first to put her finger on what has brought down all these conspirators. The curse of a virtuous woman! Not Khizar, obviously, because boys are never the big bad in soap operas. But on the other hand, going all the way back to the earliest episodes, Khizad and Fareeda were kind of always set up as opposing forces. Trying to keep brother and sister apart. Protesting the marriage for different reasons. And most of all, what can be a more ancient battle than that of wife and mother-in-law?
Which is what we finally get for the meat and potatoes of the final final episode. Ashar, having read the letter and discovered his massive sins, rushes off to bring Khirad home. But instead of begging her again, he simply tells her that Hareem needs her, and she immediately leaps to go with him. And Ashar fires back, that she destroyed his life and happiness, that Khirad is his wife and Hareem is his daughter and he will not have a word said against them. Like, a deadly deal. Zarina was doing everything because she just wanted Sarah to be happy, Khizar and Sarah were doing it because they were in love, but why was Fareeda doing all this?
Her son was happy, obviously blazingly happy and in love. And for the past 4 years, he has been miserable. He had a nervous breakdown for goodness sake! And yet, she cared more about getting one over on her dead husband, and defending her position, than his happiness. Oh, and then happy ending! Fareeda goes to her room to be haunted by visions of those she has wronged, including poor dead Sarah and Baseerat. Khirad has been convinced to stay in the house, but admits that she may never be able to fully trust Ashar again and feel that love for him.
Until the rain starts, as it did back in their honeymoon phase, and this time instead of just watching her dance in the rain, Ashar goes out and joins her. Simple happiness and joy and natural beauty finally, the whole little family brought together in perfect harmony.
This is a soap opera, after all. I loved Humsafar! Such a satisfying ending! That last image was absolutely beautiful and perfect, and it was set up so well.
The rain began coming down, and I wanted so badly for him to take her hand and lead her out, but instead he pulled the doors shut and they shared a little smile. All I really wanted was for them to be able to walk back into that happiness that they had once known.
So that ending, when they had finally reached a point that they could share that moment, and with Hareem, meant everything. I laughed when you called it that because I had the same term in mind while watching, from my days of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! It rendered her such a sad and pitiful shred of a person. It felt rather Shakespearean as a lot of the show did and was a much more fitting punishment for her actions than death would have been. You made a lot of nice points about the class statements.
So often, those sorts of messages are so heavy handed and obvious that it becomes eye-rolly. Everything was so well written, and this was such a fabric of the story and characters, that it felt seamlessly woven in. They included these important ideas but never allowed them to take over, or detract from, the rest of the story.
As always, it increased my enjoyment and gave me something to look forward to after I had finished each section. Like Like. Did you notice even the film quality changed for the last 5 minutes?
Suddenly everything was saturated in light and colors, instead of the sort of restrained natural lighting of the rest of it. I forgot to mention the technical quality or lack of. During so many key dramatic moments, it sounded like the dialogue was recorded in a fishbowl! A filter costs like fifteen bucks! The video quality was also very poor, and it bugged me that some episodes were window-boxed and some were not and filled the screen. My wife also realized that they used one of the music cues from the show Dexter- I wonder if that was cleared!
Yet another reason it reminded me of the BBC! They are doing the best with what they have, but the sets feel so tiny and the lighting is so boring and the camera never moves. Or even the TV of the same era which was being made with higher budgets.
But those old BBC shows are still beloved and still classics, just based on the scripts and the performances, just like this one. Oh, my. So much to say, so little time. One more reference to Desdemona. Who is Iago in this? I was so upset watching episodes , I was afraid of Frankly, I would have liked a even more Hindi Urdu filmi conclusion but you both are right, this works and there is hope.
Production values aside, I am still feeling the characters the way you do with a really special film. I am looking forward to Raees if for no other reason than to see a different avatar for Mahira. Small point: DNA anyone? Ending that conversation is so easy, why did they go there earlier? You are right though, that setting up the O blood type early was brilliant.
I hear all that you are saying about class, but in many ways the working Khirad is better off than the woman who leaves the house with no money and no way to get home. I initially began watching Humsafar thinking it would be a good time-pass. I had read the story a while back and enjoyed it. For me, the last episode epitomized everything that was exceptional about this serial.
Direction, dialogues, camerawork, acting, editing, all surpassed the benchmarks set by the previous episodes. I loved the way she showed maternal concern and began to doubt the wisdom of her emotional decision to leave Hareem in Karachi. The way she hurriedly brushed past Ashar in her concern to get to her daughter as soon as possible was beautifully done.
The heart-to-heart between Ashar and Khirad was just what the doctor ordered; both of them finally verbalizing feelings, thoughts, and questions that had previously remained unsaid, even in happier times. Finally they had learnt the value of communicating; egos were put aside and souls were bared. The long-awaited confrontation between Ashar and Fareeda was nothing less than explosive. All those dialogues I had read long ago took on a life of their own— every line from Ashar felt like a whiplash.
After the novel, I had always wondered about what had happened to Fareeda, and the tender moment between the mother and son was a perfect wrap up to that thread. Last night I had wondered what the last scene would look like — would it be worthy of drawing the curtains on this epic serial?
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