Biryani fields yet two more episodes, but against the backdrop of SIndhi and Urdu speaking culture, the love story that brings tears to your eyes, the helplessness of both Meeran and Nisa, one for lording over the other, and the other, for resisting the imprisonment, is a darker truth – Meeran hiding his first marriage from Nisa. Read on while we separate the culture from the ethics of the conversation…
When Meeran tells Maheen: “Muhabbat is not a project, it just happens,” one wonders, is every married man excused from hiding his first marriage while he falls in love with another, unsuspecting, second person, who has no idea about his first wife? Just because Gul Meher, Meeran’s first wife, is aware of his feelings for Nisa, and just because Gul Meher is facilitating his relationship, pleading his case to Nisa, not to leave him, vouching to go ask for his rishta to Nisa’s family, is the cheating not cheating anymore?
But what about Nisa? Ask all the young girls who might have been in a similar situation, and perhaps, culture had nothing to do with it?
Khushhal Khan, Ramsha Khan and Sarwat Gilani have turned out fabulous performances in recent Biryani episodes. And if it weren’t for Khushhal’s mind-blowing portrayal of Meeran, the young man who himself pleads his case to Nisa, that he too is bound in his feudal shackles and has now, unfortunately, dragged her into them too, just because the dialogues match the performances, and Meeran makes us cry for his pain, his dilemma and unspoken tragedy, the tragedy of millions before him, does the apology and suffering make up for his oversight, of not being upfront with Nisa from day one?
Does Nisa’s relentless barrage of words where, fighting back tears, with the heaviest rock on her heart perhaps, she told Meeran to go back to exactly where he belongs, his ‘badhshahi,’ while she lives her ‘azaadi,’ does the sharpness, unforgiving tone of her words and emotions make us feel once again for Meeran? Meeran fighting back tears as Nisa proceeds to torture him by calling him to her overnight engagement plan with Rashid bhai – does that make us feel for both of them, or rather, ask ourselves: ‘Why Nisa, why don’t you just forgive him and live happily ever after?”
And also, would Nisa be as hurt, if Meeran had come clean from the beginning, told her earlier, that he was married? Is her sense of shame, embarrassment, disappointment, anger at being used or treated as another landed property, rooted more in the fact that Meeran didn’t tell her? What Nisa didn’t know, and possibly Meeran doesn’t either, or he chooses to ignore, is the reality that there are already three people in this relationship – Nisa, Meeran and Gul Mehar. While for Nisa, it was just the two of them.
Biryani seems to be a bit lost on cultural differences vs honesty in a relationship. Or is the drama merely presenting two sides of the debate – Meeran’s family does not view a second marriage with the same lens as Nisa’s? When Nisa’s mother and mammoo responded to Nisa that it is normal for Sindhis to have two wives, especially when the first has not produced a child, they had already ‘othered’ the community – this is not normal within our community, per se Urdu-speaking households, but it might be the norm in other communities. And were they right in ‘othering’ them? But even if they were, cheating, or hiding your first marriage is not a cultural thing (or so we’d like to believe). So Meeran, while you might have your heart in the right place, while you might have wanted to tell Nisa earlier, you didn’t. And just the fact that you thought Gul Mehar was the right person to do that, just the fact that Gul Mehar thinks she’s the right person to ask for Nisa’s rishta is where the cultural contrast shines bright!
Meeran is used to being schooled by Gul Mehar. He might not be married to her in his mind, he might not share a marital relationship with her other than a Nikah Nama and a photograph from the day, but the mental and emotional hold Gul Mehar has on him, and also, the power of Baba Saeen, his political career, feudal mindset and outlook towards life (of which mammoo was seemingly blind, amidst the hospitality he received), will become fairly evident if Meeran chooses to marry again. And all this baggage – reality of a political future, first marriage, older wife, a powerful mental and emotional bond with his first wife, and the feudal upbringing that Meeran carries is the reality of any girl who enters into a marriage with Meeran. Therefore, is it only love that can win the battle, or will love too, lose to the monumental challenges posed by young men like Meeran who might never be rid of the baggage they carry in their name, their ancestory and their familial boundaries.
While young love might be unaware of the consequences of young love, and while Meeran can be blamed just enough, and Nisa even less, for losing her heart without a thought, Nisa’s sense of sheer self anger, beating herself up mentally and emotionally on allowing to herself to fall in love, directing her anger inward, punishing herself by saying yes to Rashid bhai, was perhaps the unkindest cut of all.
When Nisa said that she was in fact, soaring, not realizing she needs to keep her feet on the ground, one felt the echoes of a soul who had lost the fight to achieve her dreams. This was not the Nisa we saw earlier, the one planning to go abroad and support her family, to sustain her scholarship and carve a better future for herself, this was the Nisa who had surrrendered, and in doing so, punished herself and Meeran. And possibly Rashid bhai who had no role in this drama.
What perplexes the viewers though was how Nisa’s mother and mammoo are clueless about her feelings for Meeran. How could they not know why she’s so upset. Is it because, even in their wildest dreams, they never expected Nisa to fall for a person from the Sindhi community? Is it because of the inner limits they have always placed on themselves – marrying outside the community is never a conversation, or falling in love is also a project, and it should never just ‘happen?’ Or did they not expect that their young, practical-minded, determined Nisa would ever throw caution to the winds and fall helplessly, hopelessly in love?
More on the episode directionally, makes us appreciate the detailing of scenes and frames – the net, symbolic of the cultural distance between Meeeran and Nisa when she unleashed her fury on him in the university, the sheer pain as Meeran replayed her words in his mind and fought back tears in the car, Meeran arriving at Nisa’s not knowing what to expect, and being met with the decorations and then the invitation cards on the table, all contributed to evoking sentiments that made us step beyond our cultural boxes and merely see two human beings who are painfully in love, yet bound by the starkly different world they inhabit. The storytelling matched the dialogues, matched the performances right to the end.
And perhaps that is Biryani’s win – storytelling that evokes emotion despite our inner biases towards a community.
But if one were to truly feel for the love story in Biryani, one must forgive Meeran first. And for that, one must see a journey that is believable, acceptable and painful enough for Nisa to want to come back to Meeran. Mammoo’s words that Nisa herself will later, fight for the mangni to be broken, might just be true, but how we come to that truth is what the storyteller must weave – is it a story that will convince the cynic in us, that will tread the journey of a character who is bound not just by his culture but also by the weight of an untold truth – or is that a cultural thing too? That some cultures might accept two marriages is one thing, but to hide a previous marriage is another.
Biryani asks more questions than it answers but the story has audiences in its grip. Drop us a comment to give your take on the latest Biryani episodes.
Biryani is written by Zafar Mairaj and directed by Badar Mehmood. It is produced by Big Bang Productions. The cast features Ramsha Khan, Khushhal Khan, Sarwat Gilani, Laila Wasti, Javed Rizvi, YBQ, and more.
