With a plethora of drama serials doing a disservice to assault and domestic violence stories by dragging them on, Ghalati shined through. It proved us wrong by highlighting all the problems that we often notice while watching a Pakistani drama, but never over-simplified them with unreasonable ends. It also outlined that a woman needs to get up and stand for herself.
Ghalati may have started out slow, and made us really question whether or not another drama with the ‘three talaaq’ premise is worth watching. However, we stand corrected. Towards the end, when Saad (Affan Wahid) really crossed all limits of being a decent human, though a little late, Zaira (Hira Mani) finally realized she had had enough. Even if he was unwilling to accept that he had divorced her, she went ahead and filed for it herself. Usually, we see women go back to a sad, puppy-eyed husband who feels bad for what he did. Not here though and that’s a big step in a drama!
An apologetic Saad begging for forgiveness one last time
Another thing we see is that the main antagonist, the mother-in-law, Zaitoon (Saba Hameed), didn’t go crazy or become super religious as we’d see in most dramas. Instead, we saw her downfall as well as how she wreaked havoc in her children’s lives by her actions. The children, who followed her blindly, had their lives ruined while the other two who had some sense by some miracle, got out just in time.
Read: Ghalati: 5 reasons why men like Saad deserve no sympathy
A traumatized Maira (Anoushay Abbasi) as she ruined her life due to her mother’s wrong guidance
One more thing about the writing that is praiseworthy was Shanzay’s character. Shanzay (Mehr Bano) was the wife of Saad’s brother, Sohail (Faris Shafi). She shattered all precedents set by Pakistani dramas, including one where evil in-laws have to face a wicked daughter-in-law to have a taste of their own medicine or bad husbands have to encounter a disrespectful second wife to get back on track.
Shanzay proved that you just have to be smart and know your rights. She never created misunderstandings, instead spoke the truth when needed. Unlike in Khaas, where Salma retaliated by misbehaving with Ammar’s family, Shanzay actually tried to guide her in-laws towards sensible decisions and gave up when she believed they were helpless.
Mehr Bano as Shanzay and Hira Mani as Zaira
Not just this, we saw both the daughters-in-law — Zaira and Shanzay — form a team. Shanzay stood by Zaira throughout her divorce proceedings. It was refreshing to see women empowerment in times of crises. They showed that when women are strong in their homes, no one and nothing can stop them from achieving greatness. Zaira’s mother also stood by her daughter throughout her ordeals and never for a second doubted her decision to leave Saad.
The show might not have gained attention and views as many mainstream dramas do, but it did justice to the issue that was addressed and we respect the director, Saba Hameed and the writer Asma Sayani, highly for it!
