A review on Pakistani TV Drama Series, Khuda Mera Bhi Hai (2016 – 17) aka God Belongs to Me Too. It’s Production and Distribution is done by ARY Digital.
+ Crew
- Directed by Shahid Shafaat
- Written by Asma Nabeel
- DOP by Khalid Ahmed
- Music by Waqar Ali and Wajid Saeed
- Produced by Humayun Saeed, Shahzad Nasib, Samina Humayun Saeed, Tariq Shah & Sana Shahnawaz
+ Note
Khuda Mera Bhi Hai aired on ARY Digital from 22nd Oct 2016 to 10th Apr 2017. In total it consists of 26 episodes. This TV drama’s makeup & hair styling been done by Sajid Wahib and executive produced by Nadeem Baig. The production designers are Syed Jari Khushnood and Syed Danish Ali.
The theme is around after giving birth to an intersex child, one has to make a firm decision to either give it up to concerned group of people of intersex or be brave enough to face the society’s pressures where still today the acceptance of the third gender remains a taboo. This TV serial sheds light on the stereotypes, gender discrimination and marginalization that intersex people face within Pakistani society, and their identity crisis.
Khuda Mera Bhi Hai has received critical acclaim for its bold story line, and the “Important Questions” it raises regarding communal attitudes towards transgender people in Pakistan.
+ Main Cast
- Ayesha Khan as Mahagul
- Syed Jibran as Zain
- Furqan Qureshi as Noor
- Irsa Ghazal as Arshi / Zain’s Mother
- Mehmood Aslam as Hassan / Aij / Baabi / Zain’s Father
- Alyy Khan as Mikail
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+ Supportive Cast
- Imran Ashraf as Zahir / Zain’s Brother
- Mariam Saleem as Sanam
- Hira Tareen as Kashmala
- Saba Hamid as Savera / Mahagul’s Mom
- Adnan Shah Tipu as Baban
- Faisal Naqvi as Sanam’s Former Husband (Cameo)
+ Plot
A happy married life is shattered once Mahagul gives birth to an intersex baby, Noor. Zain refuses to accept Noor to avoid facing society’s difficult questions. It’s up to Mahagul to either hand over the baby to intersex group of people or face extremely problematic challenges in life ahead to raise such child as own.
+ High Points
i – The writer came up with a great content / plot for this drama serial by thinking ‘Out of the Box’. It is a very sensitive subject to touch or discuss of, where unfortunately still considered a taboo by many people. Mainly for this reason, Khuda Mera Bhi Hai has able to grab people attention towards it.
ii – Irsa Ghazal as Arshi / Zain’s Mother has able to deliver such a cold woman, memorable performance on-screen, unlike she ever did before. Other Honorable Mentions: Adnan Shah Tipu, Ayesha Khan, Mehmood Aslam, Syed Jibran and Mariam Saleem.
iii – The frustration, embarrassment and being pressurized on how to face the society on upbringing such special child, can be evidently shows on Zain’s face.
iv – It was good addition to have Imran Ashraf in the cast. And a splendid choice to see Faisal Naqvi bought in but as a cameo. Both of these two performers are great actors and should be given bigger, interesting or lead roles to their projects ahead.
v – An emotional speech is given in the end for those especially who are the victims, their loved ones or simply those who do not accept them as normal and part of the society.
+ Low Points
i – Most of the characters were not well written or had too many flaws. The characters such as Kashmala, Zain and Mikail were the weakest. Kashmala was your typical vamp character who wants to win her love instead of earns it.
Then we have Mikail, who plays an unrealistic character that has devoted his life in helping Noor / Mahagul’s son who is an intersex child. He does this mainly because that he is in love with Mahagul but has accepted his fate on not winning her ever. This guy has an orphanage type school that he runs for other special kids and has his business to look after but most of the time is never shown, how he manages to do this all?
As far as Zain is concerned belongs to respectable, rich and educated family background… cannot come up with any good, well thought decision ever. He is pushed around by his mom or advised by his father or sibling on what he should do. Taking advises or listening to their suggestions is no problem here; but the problem is that Zain is not an illiterate. He has good business firm with his father and matured enough to sometimes come up with good ideas by himself too which he doesn’t. He always needs his mommy by his side to tell him what to do, who to meet and many more; “Jub tak is ki chabi nahi ghumaao ge to jub tak ye kaam nahi karay ga”. These kinds of weak features do not suit to such a person.
ii – From 12th episode, this TV drama starts to lose its interest level. As a viewer, you would feel that perhaps it was better that they should have cut down to maximum 20 episodes. By now this TV series has slowly becoming to be a drag.
iii – A great plot to share & discuss but with a very uninteresting story to tell. After 11th episode, soon you would start to realize that it didn’t matter much as what was happening anymore.
iv – The cinematography is very poor and incompetent. There are many examples throughout the TV series to prove the quality of work in it. The most idiotically scene was shot when Mahagul is having a nightmare where her adult son is facing his father and grandparents for the first time to confront them for leaving him and his mom behind. In this scene, you would see that the shot where Noor, grandfather, his biological father are standing in darkness. Their faces including of Noor is being lit by a flash light / LED. Only the frame shot of Noor’s grandmother is done with proper lighting. Secondly, who takes so much hand held shots when the scene is not even intense?
v – They makeup & hair styling was not up to the mark, but rather disappointing. It’s shameful actually, when you have such good stardom cast but do not have enough budget, for production work and its technicalities.
vi – The voice controlling / accent used by Furqan Qureshi to portray the intersex character was unstable.
vii – The direction in this TV series is not something to be proud of. It was just average, on how the director moved the story forward.
viii – Predictable end followed with an unnecessary death.
+ Overall
Khuda Mera Bhi Hai has able to make people realize of their pain, suffering on facing such challenging difficulties throughout their lifetime. However on having so many technical issues, the weak supporting characters, below average sub plots and uninteresting story telling has made this TV series to be disappointing to many.
Rate: 2.0 out of 5 stars
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