By Maliha Rehman
You could whisk together all the right ingredients and yet, miss out on just one and the recipe will fall flat. A case in point is the drama Mein, which has just aired out on its last episode and you’re left wondering why the story went awry quite so ostensibly. To be honest, there have been other times during Mein’s 32 episodes long run that you may have griped about the haphazard plot but the conclusion, which seemed to be hastily wrapped, was testament to how, perhaps, somewhere along the line even the makers had lost faith in the story.
The drama boasted an exceptional cast of actors and the producers had very visibly been generous with the budget, putting forward high-end, glossy visuals. And yet, with one pivotal factor – the script – not being up to the mark, the story became a mish-mash.
Consider how the story yo-yoed throughout, with characters completely changing their colors without any prior warning. From being completely in love with Ayra, played by Azekah Daniel, our befuddled hero Zaid – aka Wahaj Ali – suddenly chose to pay attention to Mubashra, played by Ayeza Khan, who he had earlier hated. What prompted him to sleep in Mubashra’s room? What lead him to decide to go on a trip to Turkey with Mubashra, paying heed to his father – Shahzad Nawaz – who he had earlier disregarded completely? What made him doubt Ayra when she said that she had been harassed by Mubashra’s brother Rayaan, played by Nameer Khan?
But these were all observations based on the drama’s earlier episodes. The last episode took the cake. Voiceovers and long yawn-inducing monologues were utilized in order to wrap up the story. The characters, one after the other, referred to the ‘mein’ – a feeling of self-entitlement and self-obsession – which can tarnish relationships. Why was this ‘mein’ never mentioned earlier, during the many conflicts in the story? Somewhere along the line, the writer even forgot the earlier story, with Kashmala – Zaid’s sister, perpetually crying, acted out by Sabeena Syed – blaming her father for having gotten her married against her will to satisfy his ‘mein’. But her marriage hadn’t been a love marriage, hadn’t it? The many in the audience who saw the drama week after week remember even if writer Zanjabeel Asim Shah did not.
It was all so abrupt that it made one perplexed and sad.
To be fair, the cast did try. Wahaj Ali is a fine actor and Ayeza Khan went the extra mile, winning rave reviews for the glamorous wardrobe that she had devised in order to make Mubashra believable. Shahzad Nawaz particularly shone, stalking in front of the camera in a range of finely tailored suits, back straight, passing decrees in the domineering tone that befitted his arrogant character. It is certainly because of the cast and the glossy visuals due to the earlier-mentioned high production budget that Mein managed to rake in high viewership on YouTube.
But what magic can a high budget work or a cast manage when the story itself is replete with big gaping holes? Pakistani dramas have now made massive inroads internationally and need to deliver on the expectations attached to them. Moreover, why waste such a brilliant cast – the two leads Wahaj Ali and Ayeza Khan are at the zenith of their stardom at this point in time – with this particular storyline?
Really, we need to do better than this.
What do you think?