Alif has become one of the most inspiring shows on television these days. It’s a welcome change from the unnecessarily disturbing content being aired on TV these days. The show revolves around Momin (Hamza Ali Abbasi) and Momina’s (Sajal Ali) journey towards religion and spirituality.
Their paths cross between Momin’s rediscovery of his roots and Momina’s struggle to sustain her family’s livelihood.
In the latest episode, Momin finally meets Momina’s father, Sultan, who turns out to be the man Momin had assumed was her mother’s lover. He believed that his mother’s affair with Sultan was what lead his father to leave her. That’s what he had believed for years and even wrote his film’s script based on this assumption.
Kubra Khan as Husn-e-Jahan
However, when he finally meets Sultan, he learns that it’s actually him who might have caused his parents to separate. Sultan tells Momin that Husn-e-Jahan had actually asked him to come to Turkey to sell the Husn-e-Jahan’s paintings made by Taha (Ahsan Khan) so they could get enough money to fulfill Momin’s demands since Taha himself was struggling to support the family financially. Sultan then reveals to Momin that Taha left because of that and not because Husn-e-Jahan was having an affair with Sultan.
This leaves Momin traumatized and as we see in the promo of the next episode, he will struggle to cope with this information and blame himself for it.
Is it okay for Sultan to blame Momin though? He was a child whose only fault was his existence. His parents’ divorce was due to their poor choices as adults not because of him. It’s not right for Sultan to blame Momin as if it was his actions that mislead Taha to doubt Husn-e-Jahan’s loyalty. Momin’s childhood innocence was already scarred with his parents breaking up and his father’s death followed by his mother and his grandfather also passing away. He didn’t need the blame for his parents’ divorce. It could be the final nail in the coffin of breaking him as a person completely. There were a million ways Sultan could have corrected Momin’s misconception about his relationship with Husn-e-Jahan. Deflecting blame on Momin was not one of them.
We hope to see Momin crawl out of this dark hole that Sultan has pushed him in and not completely lose himself in the process. Meanwhile if you haven’t watched the episode, do catch up:
