Episode 15 and 16 of Pamaal are the beginning of the revival of Malika (Saba Qamar), however slow it might seem. In these two episodes, we see how completely she has lost herself in the roles of wife and mother. Emotionally controlled and abused, she no longer recognises her own power that she held in the beginning of the show, before she met Raza (Usman Mukhtar). Although, she is going through a tough time, you cannot help but mourn how lost she now is, how sad you feel when she tells Raza that she wished she knew how to drive so her daughter didn’t have to take the school van, how happy and relieved she is when Raza comes home from jail on bail. You can’t help but hate the fact that he has been released because he is the impediment, the reason why she cannot own herself in the way we know she will and well, it feels like its taking too long.
Malika realises how she is helpless. No money, no job, no ability to rely on herself, she turns to others for help. Raza’s brother and wife do not help, despite Raza’s conviction that his brother would not leave him and the only ones that support the couple and their daughter are Malika’s mamoo and mother. As a fellow inmate in jail tells Raza, it’s the bad times that determine who is with you and who isn’t and in Malika’s case, it’s her own family that has always been there for her marriage – not necessarily for her in particular (remember when her mother was shattered that Malika might get divorced).
Maybe that was the turning point for the heroine of this show: when her mother made her realise that she might be nothing without her husband – and in episode 16 that’s exactly what she says to the man who has brought her to the time in her life where she literally has nothing.
In terms of society, it also makes you realise that a woman, who is controlled by a man or her and his family, will only discover herself and her own worth when she is pushed in a corner – when nothing can be worse, when she’s at the bottom of the pit. Only then can she pull herself up and become who she was born to be – a woman for herself and herself first and then others.
When she can rely only on herself.
Thankfully, we know Malika makes it through and she rises to the top all on her own accord. Otherwise, the drama would be the sad life that many women lead until they are old. The concept of community above all and not individual, a classic in this case that the woman must sacrifice herself and when times get tough, she has to ask others to help her.
The beauty of Pamaal is that it doesn’t care what you think. It is enraptured and entrenched in Malika’s story, it doesn’t push itself just because the viewer wants it to, and it will show you really, really, how hard it is for a woman to find herself after she’s been lost. Saba Qamar’s stellar performance will always keep you guessing to the point that you want to yell at the scream that hello, it’s time to learn to drive, time to get a job, time to take care of yourself, make something of yourself, and really, leave this guy.
We wait for that moment and until it comes, we suffer with her because every woman knows how hard it is to put herself first.