About the Series “Mein”
“Mein,” a Pakistani drama airing on ARY Digital delves into the intricate layers of societal pressures and personal identity. The narrative, crafted by Zanjabeel Asim Shah, weaves together a tale that explores the complexities of familial expectations and the quest for individuality. The stellar cast, led by Wahaj Ali and Ayeza Khan, brings depth and authenticity to their characters, capturing the essence of the story with precision.
Directed by Badar Mehmood the drama unfolds with a portrayal of the internal struggles faced by the protagonists. The series has an IMDb rating of 6.5/10. Viewers can catch up on all episodes of “Mein” on YouTube.
Trailer
Uploaded by ARY Digital HD
Synopsis
“Mein” is a drama set in today’s world, focusing on Zaid (played by Wahaj Ali) and Mubashira Jaffer (played by Ayeza Khan). They’re from wealthy families but face tough challenges because of their families’ expectations. Zaid and Mubashira struggle with their own wishes versus what society and their families want from them. This leads to complicated love lives and deep thinking about their lives.
The Review
My Overall Thoughts
The drama had a strong start with captivating characters who had strong personalities and an interesting premise. It fell flat in the payoff for said premise. A lot of the story and satisfaction of a resolution is sacrificed by the writers for the sake of the “message”. Personally, I quite dislike stories that are incompetent enough to have to shove the message down the audience’s throat; it reeks of bad writing, but more on that later.
The Best Parts of the Series “Mein”
The acting, the pure unadulterated dramatics of Mein and intense as well as morally ambiguous characters are the best parts of this series. The writers also manage to develop a few of them satisfactorily, although this is not universal.
Acting
This drama had a strong cast, with pouty and brooding Wahaj Ali as the romantic interest, a role he plays extremely well. The drama plays to Wahaj’s strengths in acting, letting him shine as the rich, well-off, faithful and righteous man. Conversely, the drama also plays to Ayeza Khan’s overly dramatic and overdone acting, giving her a role in which the portrayal of strong emotions and overbearing drama was necessary. She is exceptionally convincing in her role as Mubashira and comes off as very sympathetic. While I was watching the drama, the majority of people watching it seemed to be in favour of the Zaid X Mubashira romance, due mainly to her charismatic performance.
The main cast’s second female lead was not particularly impressive or compelling at all because although her character was designed to be sympathetic, she mostly just came off as rigid and spoiled instead. However, the two main leads managed to offset her bland and annoying character.
Some praise must be given to the actor portraying Zaid’s father Asif. Shehzad Nawaz as Asif Shahwani, is a well-known businessman who is against Zaid’s choice of his life partner and does everything in his power to keep them apart. He quite literally, stole the show, many a time. His performance was quite impressive and convincing.
Character Development
I loved the way the drama introduced and then slowly improved the character of Mubashira. She was a pretty bad person in the beginning, but following the format for redeeming characters, she suffers a lot and bears through it, then barring a story flaw by the authors – comes off smelling like roses near the end.
She is a complex character throughout and her meetings with her psychologist give the audience a very raw and real look into her struggles. This was commendable and well done by the authors.
Things That Were Meh
The lack of payoff and character consistency is what made the show go from a 9 to a 7 for me. I was immersed in the story and I just kept waiting for the resolution, but the one we got was not at all satisfying. The author might argue that this had to be done for the sake of the message, but I don’t agree one bit.
I’m all for making sure that the message is consistent, but guys (this is aimed at the author), and come a bit closer; PAYOFF MATTERS! If you make the audience anticipate a certain ending or the culmination of a romantic pairing, you need to resolve it satisfactorily. I’m not saying flipping the audience’s expectations is a bad thing, but that also needs to have a firm foothold in the storytelling beforehand. Throwing a sudden wrench into a story that is progressing quite well without much justification is never gonna be well-received.
Lackluster Ending
This is what happens in Mein, the romance between the leads seems to be making great progress, and then, all of a sudden Mubashira makes a back-step in character progression and they all end up back at square one.
Spoilers:
What should have happened in the penultimate episode, is for Mubashira to give up her selfishness and help Aira, as a final representation of her giving up her sefl-involvement for the sake of love and humanity. Then she should have been rewarded by Zaid and Aira breaking up and Zaid coming to understand that Mubashira was truly the one who was selflessly on his side. He would then fall in love with her and they would move out of his father’s home and live happily ever after. This would satisfactorily complete all character arcs, with Mubashira giving up her self-involvement, Zaid finally taking a stand against his family and valuing himself, as well as Aira giving up her obsessive attachment with Zaid and taking a step back to repair her family, life and character. Rounding off the theme of Khidi with all three characters getting what they deserve.
But that’s just what I think. Been wanting to get that off my chest for a while…
Inconsistent Message
You’ll need a bit of context for this one in case you’re not Pakistani. So the central theme of Mein, revolves around the concept of Khudi; a philosophical idea touted by Allama Iqbal, Pakistan’s national poet. Muhammad Iqbal’s idea of Khudi focuses on individual growth and self-affirmation. Khudi is seen as the essence of self, evolving through stages towards uniqueness. Factors like love, action, and community involvement are key in strengthening Khudi. It’s not just about personal development but also about contributing positively to society.
Basically, it’s the opposite of selfishness; it’s valuing the self as it is and working to improve yourself. The authors made some very good choices to represent this ideology at the beginning of the drama, but by the end, the fall of the bandwagon spectacularly. Ironically, I think that by making the controversial decisions that they did, they intended to end the drama on a self-righteous note by sacrificing the audience’s expectations on the altar of the all-important Message.
Instead, they ended up undermining it instead and quite badly at that. They made their innocent character commit quite insensitive, foolish and borderline evil actions and then glossed over it like it never happened. At the same time, they retroactively made Mubashira more evil in order to justify what they were gonna do. IT just all came off as haphazard.
My Final Thoughts
I liked it in the beginning and was left quite disappointed by the end.
My rating for this series is 6.75/10.
Disclaimer:
This review is the Author’s opinion, the author does not claim anything stated here as fact. If you disagree with anything written in this article please do not hesitate to sound of in the comments down below. However, please keep in mind that the author is not liable for any information stated in this post. It is purely opinion.
“Mein” and all of its materials are owned by ARY Digital, and it’s various producers and Entertainment companies. We are merely using some of them in this post to illustrate a point (fair use). If you wish for your materials to be taken down please contact us and we will remove them immediately.
Leave a Reply