To put it very simply, ARY’s latest drama, Hassad, starring Minal Khan and Shahroze Sabzwari, is everything typical.
The story revolves around two brothers. The older one, Farhan (Noor Hassan), is married to his Khala’s jealous daughter Zari (Arij Fatima) while the younger, cute Armaan (Shahroze Sabzwari) is happily married to Naintara (Minal Khan). Zari detests Naintara and Armaan’s totally in love, happy relationship and tries her best to mess it up. But the happy-go-lucky Nain Tara keeps her mother-in-law happy and her husband happier (he calls her every hour because he misses her so much).
In a tragic twist of fate, Armaan is killed in a robbery and Naintara becomes the oh-my-God banished widow, pregnant with her late husband’s child. Meanwhile, Zari fakes a pregnancy to score brownie points with her MIL and Farhan. What’s annoying is that even in the sadness of it all, Zari can’t let go of her jealousy (the title of the drama is Hassad, after all) and tries to kill Naintara with the help of her mother. Farhan catches on and tells her she’s nuts and needs to calm down. Zari then decides to make Naintara into a skank (pretty much the easiest way to get a woman shunned) and claims that she’s having affairs with men, including her brother, who by the way was caught trying to rape Naintara in the middle of the night.
Six episodes of every-single-twist-you-can-think-of, keeps viewers hooked but once you start thinking or trying to understand it, you’re like “Wha?”
Despite being a young and pretty girl, Naintara is cons-tant-ly forced to wear white after her husband’s death because she is now a bewa. She is constantly harassed by the evil Zari into being plain and is not allowed to go out and “sambhalo” her white dupatta. Soon enough, the MIL, being the MIL, joins in with Zari. So typical.
In a nutshell, as the episodes progress, the MIL and SIL turn against sweet little bahu who is so beychari that she has nowhere else to turn to. She has to put her hand on the Quran to swear that she didn’t have an affair with Zari’s brother and destroy Armaan’s memory. So cliche. But then again so masalaydaar.
Our drama directors know what sells and they’re literally selling it like no one’s business in this drama, with overdone twists in every episode. And they don’t appear to be stopping soon. While we personally don’t advocate the typical crap presented in this drama, it is stuff that will definitely sell.
