Kafeel is probably the underdog drama that will rise to win this year. With powerful, raw performances by Sanam Saeed, Kashif Mehmood and Munazza Arif, episode 8 had us holding our hearts for the millions of women who suffered in unhappy marriages because of the divorce taboo, in the past and even now.
Jami (Emmad Irfani) is in love with someone else, broke, lazy and happy to mooch off his in-laws. Meanwhile, Zeba (Sanam Saeed) keeps mum about her life and perfect marriage until her mother Yasmin (Munazza Arif) sees Jami with her other lover. Confrontation ensues, and blame is set on the parents for marrying off Zeba too early just because they found a number written by a boy on a handkerchief and assumed the worst.
That scene, with the mother and daughter and father watching on without them knowing hits hard because it has happened to someone we know – or us. The chance, fleeting thought of a daughter dating someone else, the badnaami, the awful character assassination and worse, illicit affairs – it’s better off to push your child into the unknown of naseeb and let God handle it for you. Kafeel, so beautifully exposes this awful mindset that we have, showing us how hollow and frankly, stupid it is to place your trust in destiny that you don’t know rather than talking it out and choosing a destiny that you would know.
It’s clear that the drama won’t end in just a divorce, despite Zeba’s father (Kashif Mahmood) delivering a convincing performance that no daughter should suffer because of what people will say, despite his own mother saying that for seven generations there has been no divorce in the family.
That scene deserves a special mention because it pitted old and new against each other, a father emotionally connected to his silent daughter, knowing that the pushback he would get existed. He comes to his mother, distraught, confused, but leaves knowing that he’s making the right decision by freeing the pain that his daughter is in. You think that Zeba might get that divorce and her life will go on but it’s evident that that’s not what’s going to happen after Zeba visits her friend.
As it is often quoted (mostly wrongly) destiny takes control and the guy Zeba likes is engaged. You have a constant reminder, and echo telling you that destiny is like a closed fist – you don’t know what you will get, until it opens its hand. But that’s not entirely true. Could destiny have changed if Zeba’s parents had sat her down and asked her about the guy who wrote the number on the handkerchief, discovered that he’s a good guy and gotten her hitched to the person she likes? Likely, yes. Unfortunately, we ascribe marriage to destiny which isn’t true – if it was, we would not need to do any checks on who to marry and how. And with Zeba blaming her parents fully for marrying her off so suddenly because of a phone number is also not entirely correct. She wanted to marry and she thought she was marrying the guy of her dreams, didn’t tell her parents about him, didn’t wonder or even ask if it was the same guy. She did the same thing. Left it to fate. And leaving things to fate doesn’t always work in your favour.
The drama takes an interesting turn now to see how Zeba takes her destiny in her own hands and whether she does or not.
