While viewers were finally happy to see Ali Rehman Khan, playing Ammar in Khaas, getting what he deserved, the actor’s new drama serial, Bewafa, which premiered on Monday night, once again cast him in a bewildering role. However, this time we were bemused for different reasons.
According to Bewafa’s official synopsis, “It depicts how a relationship can fall apart because of a wife’s extremely possessive and distrusting nature, which drives the husband to do exactly what the wife fears the most.”
By the looks of the first episode, we partially agreed with this summary of the plot. The story revolves around a couple Ahaan and Kinza (played by Ali Rehman Khan and Navin Waqar respectively) who are married for six years and have a child together. Navin plays a possessive and somewhat irritating wife; Ali’s character is also far from a perfect husband. It can be easily established from the beginning that the pair has no spark in their relationship (which was indeed a love marriage). We saw the first red flag when Kinza and Ahaan were celebrating their sixth wedding anniversary and had nothing to talk about.
Ushna Shah (Shireen) enters the plot as the other woman who has an eye for Ahaan (or perhaps his social status). Shireen belongs to a middle class household and is her family’s breadwinner. Here the problem isn’t poverty, it’s indifference. Her father wants her to continue this job and support them no matter what. Her good-for-nothing younger brother only taunts and teases her. Hence the girl wants to escape; she doesn’t want to end up like her elder sister Sharmeen (Maira Khan). In one scene, we see that her parents are at ease, even if their daughter becomes a social climber, as this will help them financially.
Read: My character in ‘Bewafa’ is a complete opposite of what I did in ‘Khaas’: Ali Rehman Khan
In a recent conversation with Something Haute, Ali revealed that Bewafa is more than just a story of an unfaithful spouse; the drama touches upon several factors which eventually become the basis of a broken marriage. Ahaan, though totally disinterested in his wife, is not cheating. However, despite his colleague’s warnings, he is careless about Shireen’s rising interest in him. He takes her out for lunch as a treat for his promotion and accepted gifts from her, which he then lies about to his wife. All hell breaks loose when Kinza hears a voice note from Shireen, confessing her feelings for Ahaan, right after he lies about the gift.
Here’s the underlying problem: they fight, argue, shout after the incident but Kinza and Ahaan don’t talk to each other. Later, Kinza attempts to have a heart-to-heart with her husband, but it is also merely about what she wants and cares about. In response, Ahaan too is nonchalant about the matter. We see that both of them always talk to get answers, they never listen or understand each other.
The next morning, at work, we find Ahaan yelling (unnecessarily) at Shireen for her indecent message and she leaves the office humiliated and in tears. Later, he questions his own reaction and wonders whether he over reacted; this leaves us wondering why? He claimed to have no feelings for her.
As Ali said in his interview, “Ahaan is a perplexing character who doesn’t know how to deal with frustrations and stress in his life.” Indeed, Ahaan has found a person that will listen and not react; a perfect outlet to share his problems.
Amidst all this chaos, there is a poor child and a maid who is threatening the kid, but the parents are unaware. We really appreciate that dramas these days are showing how children suffer between these silly banters and fights. Couples are so immersed in their own conflicts that they don’t realize an innocent and impressionable mind is observing their behavior every day.
Written by Radain Shah and directed by Aabis Raza, Bewafa seems to tread on a dicey subject. It shows that it takes two to make a quarrel. It questions our definitions of loyalty and cheating, and how men always look outside their homes for solace, rather than working on relationships at home. We were disappointed to see yet another middle class girl shown as a cunning and a heartless social climber, but let’s hope that the story unfolds better than our expectations.
Watch the first episode here:
