Hum Kahan Ke Sachay Thay: A star-studded cast glamourising Stockholm syndrome

Some Pakistani dramas really make us question the fate of the television industry. Are we truly producing progressive content? When will our makers move beyond cliched storylines revolving around the suppression of women and glorification of toxic rela-tionships? Are we really at par with the evolving global standards?

The much-recent story of HUM TV’s Hum Kahan Ke Sachay Thay is amongst those local dramas that leaves us wondering why?

Starry cast with a plot so worrisome

If truth be told, the tale warmly welcomed itself onto our screens with great enthusiasm from the viewers. After all, who wouldn’t watch a drama that has the nation’s darling Khan, Mahira in it. What’s more, it had Usman Mukhtar who had gained immense popu-larity after his acting debut in Anaa on HUM TV in 2019. Kubra Khan’s addition became a cherry on the cake and voila! A casting coup so dynamic made the drama achieve all the spotlight and pizzazz.

Not to forget, the writer Umera Ahmed has hardly ever disappointed in penning a plot. Almost all her dramas have been award-winning and similar is being expected from Hum Kahan Ke Sachay Thay. But will it be really bagging accolades this award season? After all, there has been a massive hue and cry over some of the concepts portrayed in the saga.

Like in most Pakistani dramas, the tale revolves around a dark, depressing, and difficult love- triangle amongst cousins. It also depicts how rivalries between elders of a family can tarnish the future of children involved. This is what happened amongst the trio of Mehreen (Mahira Khan), Mashal (Kubra Khan), and Aswad (Usman Mukhtar). Close friends in their childhood; the three turn into bitter enemies as they grow old with their lives marred by lies and deceit.

Mehreen and Mashal are both in love with Aswad – their charismatic cousin who is settled in America. The only difference in their feelings is that Mehreen masks her emotions for him deep in her heart and patiently hopes for him to reciprocate. Meanwhile, Mashal is the malicious rouge who cannot fathom Mehreen being successful or liked by anyone and thus, is forever running a smear cam-paign to defame her in front of the entire family.

So much so, she commits suicide when Mehreen is about to get married to Aswad in one of the plot twists, conspiring her death as murder by her rival cousin. She makes sure that even after her death Mehreen’s life remains miserable. Very few characters in the story support Mehreen in proving her innocence. Only the maid of the house Shabbo (Kaif Ghaznavi) and her maternal aunt Shagufta (Zainab Qayoom) know that Mashal took sleeping pills to kill herself. The rest all believe that Mehreen is a sinner and a killer, in-cluding her husband Aswad.

It is pitiful how Aswad, a learned guy educated from abroad and employed in a multi-national in the U.S, has no mind of his own. It won’t be wrong to say that this particular character is quite dim-witted and feeds on the negativity planted in his mind by Mashal when she was alive. It consumes him, transforms him into a hateful human and a toxic husband.

Sans any proof that Mehreen is the murderer; he emotionally abuses her in his unreasonable aim to punish her and becomes the real villain of the story.

Stockholm syndrome glorified

We all know that Mahira Khan is one of the strongest actresses we have and her character should resonate that strength. However, what is disappointing in HKKST is the weak portrayal of Mahira Khan’s character. Initially, she is shown as a fiery soul, passionate student, and sassy talker. She is loving to those who adore her and she is equally vindictive towards those who tend to hurt her.

She even stands her ground in jail that she has not murdered Mashal. But the minute she is married to the love of her life, Aswad, our heroine turns into a damsel-in-distress who tends to live and breathe for her abusive husband. Despite the constant everyday torture, she agrees to stay with him and abide by his unjust, stifling rules that vie to suffocate her. So much in love with her abuser, she timidly bears it all thus HKKST becomes a classic example of yet another drama that glorifies the Stockholm syndrome.

It makes us question the puny narrative imparted in this project. Are women today still so weak that they will continue to succumb to the noxious demands of their partners? Are we still far from the notion of maintaining healthy relationships and prioritizing mental health?

Nonetheless, despite all the worrisome traits of the drama, Mahira Khan deserves massive applause for coming so far in her per-formance as Mehreen. She has grown as an actor on-screen over the years and is doing justice to her character. Kubra Khan was equally phenomenal as the vile, venomous Mashal and showed that she has immense potential to master negative avatars in her fu-ture projects.

Umera Ahmed’s Hum Kahan Ke Sachay Thay was published as a novel in 2009. With its being adapted into a drama in 2021, it surely depicts the female protagonist as being extremely retrogressive in con-temporary times. Perhaps the story could have been tweaked as per the global women empower-ment movements and awareness of the recent era. It would have made such a massive difference to the narrative, one that Pakistani women would surely have been proud to watch!