Zindagi Gulzar Hai
Zindagi Gulzar Hai was an accidental encounter as I was browsing YouTube for I don’t remember exactly what, but it was definitely not for any Pakistani or romantic shows. Episode 1 came on my feed and I played it for a few minutes to see what this is. Without realizing, I had spent my entire break time watching that first episode because it was so addictive. This was some 9 years ago when I was pursuing my masters. During this phase of my life, I could not afford to “waste” any time because the course work was very very demanding.
Later, I headed to my class and during the lecture, I found myself continuously thinking about what I had just seen. A story of a girl named Kashaf whose father had left her mother and the family because she had birthed daughters and no son, and how the all women household (her mom and sisters) went about life through the day-to-day struggles. I was not sure what type of a show it was then — was it a soap opera? It did not feel or sound like the many Indian K serials that I had access to when I was in school. This was also the pre — digital streaming era where shows were only meant for TV. The female protagonist here was very different — someone I’d never seen before. She was strong and fierce and seemed to be somewhat of a feminist challenging the patriarchal society. Till then, I’d thought that Pakistan as a society was, how do I put it… much less forward than India. I thought that the female characters shown in Indian films and shows were more liberal and modern, but how wrong was I. This girl Kashaf was breaking all the stereotypical assumptions I had.
Given how I had wasted my entire class thinking about the show, I went back to my room, opened my laptop on my desk, and started watching Episode 2 to test my hypotheses. I was right. This girl, Kashaf, seemed to have come out of a Jane Austen universe in the sense that she was defying gender norms, and pushing for more agency in her life.
Get Annapoorna Virdi’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I mean, at the heart of it, the plot of Zindagi Gulzar Hai is as dry as it can get — boy meets girl but they are divided by the differences in class, financial status, outlook in life and values only to meet each other midway and fall in love. Why was it then that the show made for an engaging watch? Was it the screenplay — tight and moving forward at a comfortable pace? Was it the fact that the show dealt with various societal themes such as women’s education, empowerment, class divide, marital issues and more with such a mature and balanced perspective? Was it that the heroine, never for once, was positioned like a damsel in distress? Was it that the sensibilities of the show were fairly drama free and realistic?
Whatever it was, it amounted to me spending 20 hours+ in the name of studying Pakistani cinema as my exams approached, and no — that was not the exam I was writing. I later learnt that the show was based on a novel of the same name written by author Unmera Ahmed who’s heralded as one of the great writers from Pakistan today. She also wrote the screenplay of the show — maybe that was the secret ingredient? A woman writing for a woman. There is going to be agency, for sure.
The charm, the magic, the soul of the show, however, were the dialogues delivered beautifully by the very able Sanam Saeed and Fawad Khan who breathed life into the on-screen couple Kashaf and Zaroon .
It was my first tryst with listening to Urdu at a stretch — and I got so obsessed that I watched some 5 odd shows for the language, and for … erm… Fawad Khan. Okay, there — I said it. :| His character may not be as charming if one gives the show a watch today, but Fawad Khan’s presence is eternally arresting. So if you do plan to watch it now, then my recommendation would be to only watch it for Kashaf, and for the Urdu dialogues that would fill your ears with nothing but a pleasant ring. The show, after all, is hailed as one of the best Pakistani shows out there. And I wouldn’t disagree.
