A review on Pakistani TV Drama Serial, Mera Naseeb (2011) aka My Fate. Its Production House is MD Productions while its Distributor is Hum Entertainment.
+ Crew
I – Directed by Adnan Ahmed
II – Written by Samira Fazal
III – Theme Music by Waqar Ali
IV – Produced by Momina Duraid
+ Note
Mera Naseeb was aired on Hum TV from 1st Apr 2011 – 26th Aug 2011. It consists of total 21 episodes.
Indian-American author, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has accused the writers of the show of plagiarizing her novel Sister of My Heart for the story of the serial. However, the writer had mentioned earlier that it is a drama adaptation of a story provided to them while she (writer) had no prior knowledge a plagiarized work was being provided to them to work with.
The Opening theme ‘Boond, Boond’ song is written by Momina Duraid and performed by Komal Rizvi.
+ Main Cast
- Syra Yousuf as Nazia Fahad
- Sanam Saeed as Shazia Moiz
- Sakina Sammo as Habiba / Phupi Ammi
- Rubina Ashraf as Sajida
- Samina Peerzada as Salima
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+ Supportive Cast
- Imran Aslam as Fahad
- Imran Abbas Naqvi as Moiz
- Bushra Ansari as Nazia’s Mother-in-Law
- Sajid Hasan as Shazia’s Father-in-Law
- Adeel Hussain as Shahbaz
+ Plot
Two best friends, Shazia & Nazia are born at the same date. Bizarrely, their fathers were also expired at the same day as well. Both the girls live same house with their widow mothers and aunt. Shazia is shown as a bold outspoken whereas Nazia is a pretty simple girl. They live under strict house rules by their mothers from the society. The story takes a turn when one of the girls falls in love with a guy.
+ High Points
i – Sanam Saeed performed very strongly on-screen while her character supported her act throughout the drama serial. Her bold character gave incredible encouragement to our society for women power.
ii – Sakina Sammo as Habiba/Phupi Ammi was fantastically played. She proved us all to be a very good actress. Other Honorable Mentions are: Imran Aslam, Rubina Ashraf and Imran Abbas Naqvi.
iii – This drama would help the viewers to see what kind of problems our females face with strict backgrounds and pressurized in difficult times.
+ Low Points
i – I am not such a big fan to watch TV serials where unnecessary violence / tragedy is shown in able to get more good ratings. People who are habitual in watching such serials may find it okay but it does not work for me. It is a habit of Pakistani TV dramas to make their serials over dramatic and insert unnecessary tragic scenes where it could have been easily avoidable. Even if you did watch it… you can watch it only once.
ii – This drama’s target audience was for females basically. So yes, this is also one of the reasons why I find it difficult to watch it with interest.
iii – In our TV drama serials, in almost all of them we see that anyone at any time can enter people houses as their main gate or door is never locked (or somehow, they always have keys to it). Likewise, in this drama as well Habiba & Sajida enter the rent home of Shazia without bothering to knock the door/ring up the bell to show as if they were entering their own home!
Logic in these kinds of scenes just goes out of the window.
iv – Sajjad Hasan performance as abusive husband & father-in-law seemed as though he was forcing himself to be in that character. It did not look natural. Also, that when his character starts having flash backs of his cruel behavior (in much later episodes), we able to see one of those flashback memories which Shazia saw it only as her nightmare and none of that really happened in drama serial reality.
v – I felt that Imran Abbas Naqvi’s character was not properly written. I understand and accept that he fears that he might / have become just like his abusive father yet at the same time he tries to change himself towards positivity. However, his sexual attraction towards Nazia is shown in a very flirt type manner whereas his sober personality with others does not make any sense. The only explanation can be given is that he perhaps has split personalities (which was not the intent of the writer).
vi – After first few episodes, Adeel Hussain’s character became absolute useless! His existence did not really matter as such. And then his apology letter to Nazia was way out of proportion and pointless.
vii – In another flashback we see how Nazia’s & Shazia’s fathers have really died while the true character of Salima is also exposed. After their deaths, two questions still remain that how no one in the neighborhood had listened to their loud quarrel and noises of gun shots? How did they get rid of the two dead bodies? It’s not like we have professional hit-men / assassins here, who did their job nice and easy.
viii – Almost all of the problems what our society females face are shown here. Let’s see… we have sexual harassment / flirting, strict mothers with outdated mindsets, domestic abuse, suspicion of extramarital relationship, forceful marriages, pressurized of giving birth a son, forced for abortion, threat of giving divorce, abusive husband, earn in the place of alcoholic & a bum husband, cruelty, barrier to freedom of speech and many more.
The writer might defend this by saying that all this was shown gradually to see how the two sisters became strong women and fought for their rights. But having all these problems in small space of time i.e. just 2 – 3 years is very less. A long passage of time period let’s say 8 – 10 years would have looked realistic and be acceptable.
ix – Of course, we do have a cliché ending! I mean, what did you really expect from it?
x – Whenever Rehan Sheikh is included in a TV serial, would always find him in small roles where he makes appearance in only 2 – 3 episodes and his character always dies in it. His previous works that I have watched are Udaari (2016), Beshahram (2016) and now this Mera Naseeb (2011) with similar fate.
+ Overall
Mera Naseeb’s unquestionably well-meaning message is served by chaos of problems with melodramatic clichés and over-forceful moralizing.
Rate: 2.0 out of 5 stars
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