The second episode of the much-hyped pre-partition saga – Aangan — was expected to unfold more about Salma (Sonya Hussyn) and Subhan (Ahsan Khan) and their forbidden love, but it somehow left audiences wanting more. Salma made a very filmi escape from the shackles of her stringent mother and by the looks of it, has been accepted by Subhan despite his father’s unaided opposition.
So far the drama has proficiently explored different angles of a dysfunctional but grand household which is populated and run primarily by women as the men of the house are either oblivious or occupied by work. The director is playing with establishing prominent traits of strong characters where Amma is constantly trying to reign and Abba Mian is facing the consequences of his life choices. The two daughters-in-law are struggling to tackle the situation with no influence on anybody whatsoever.
Amma’s hostility might be her defence mechanism against all odds, but she seems to be unsympathetic towards everyone except one of her bahus. Unforgiving of her daughters’ betrayal, she burns her belongings when Salma elopes; she also bitterly mocks Abba Mian when he talks of ‘honour’.
Two weeks in, we have only been introduced to one of the three brothers – Mazhar – and his cold response to Salma’s escape was the most surprising aspect of the episode. He is busy with his job (as his wife duly complains) and doesn’t care about any familial responsibilities to the extent that his reaction to Salma’s action was barely noticeable. Some of this callous attitude may be suggestive of the fact that the children could have been more involved in the affairs of the haveli if they had a better role model than Abba Mian.
Read: Episode One: Does ‘Aangan’ live up to its hype?
In the first episode, Mazhar was shown to take haveli’s honour earnestly when he asked his mother to not discuss Abba Mian’s affairs in front of other people. But his ignorant behavior in recent circumstances has left us wondering why he will visit Subhan’s house as shown in the promo of the next episode.
Aangan gives a cinema experience on small screen, but so far it lacks the pace required to get viewers hooked. Despite having a strong plot and impactful performances backed by beautiful imagery, the development of the story, it appears, is deliberately being kept slow as we are yet to see the chemistry between Ahsan and Sonya’s characters unfold.
