Pamaal: Red flags can come in brightly coloured, soft-feel, benign packages, and Raza might just be one of them
Malika and Raza are married and Pamaal is about to take off on a journey which seems to mirror a few scripts we’ve watched before, yet it is in the subtle shades of grey the characters emit which makes us sit up and watch. Pamaal might actually be nothing we’ve watched before!
Raza, the attentive, courteous, debonair, and very eligible bachelor. He seemed to have walked straight out of Malika’s stories, spilling off the pages she writes, into her life – a dream come true? But the viewers spotted the red flags in him a mile away. How could she not? Well, for one, she wasn’t there when he was rude to Safia and told her to keep her hands off his things. Also, even if Malika had seen that, it could be dismissed a guy trait – keep off my things, you know. They don’t like everyone entering their room, so let’s not read too much into this, says the mind. After all, it’s 2025, they can’t be regurgitating a story told many years ago in multiple Pakistani drama scripts – the obvious red flag hero and the dreamy young girl who wakes up after her wedding?
But then comes the wedding. Malika tells Raza how she will now love everything that he loves. The voiceover also tells us how young girls are taught from day one to seek their happiness in their husband’s happiness. And one wonders, what exactly was Malika’s father like? Certainly not the Prince Charming tale she’s been told by her mother. Because every time Malika mentions him, Gait e Ara goes quiet. In fact, if we read between the lines, she even mentions that Malika’s father never praised her. But then, Raza praised Malika’s stories. And he even told her she looks fabulous. So, there can’t possibly be a sinister connection, can there? Questions the mind.
What’s interesting about Pamaal is that it keeps us guessing. Is our hero narcissistic? Yes, says the mind. As he opens his wardrobe and shows her all his belongings, laid out in orderly manner. Double yes, says the mind, when he tells her he doesn’t like anyone touching his possessions, and of course, what Malika misses, is that she too is now counted as his possession?
While watching Pamaal one wonders if the story is too dated? As in men might still behave like that, 9and we’ve met them), self-absorbed men with a past childhood trauma. But we’ve learnt to read them, right? Are women still not able to spot the red flags? And here we connect that the story is not just about Raza but Malika too. A young girl who has lived her life dreaming of a prince charming, writing about this man, and also visualizing a man she believes is similar to a father she never really met – her impressions of him, possibly coloured by the bits and pieces her mother chose to share, and that also, from the memory of a wife whom, we are told, had to prove her love for her departed husband. Hence, the mystery might lie in the untold story of Malika’s father, who might be totally opposite to what she believes, or, totally similar to what Raza is – and Fate – Pamaal is threading the story with Fate as a major player – Fate brings her to Raza, the man she thinks he is, the man of her dreams, but possibly, her dreams are about to be shattered.
In retrospect, Pamaal could be the real-life story of many young girls who expect one thing before marriage and experience another after marriage. It’s also called post marital depression, but in this case, it might be Malika waking up to smell the coffee – is she in love with the vision of a man that Raza is not? Has she made him out to be more than the sum total of what he really is? When she tells him that she loved it that he was so possessive about her in the restaurant, it was a young girl who grew up without a father, wanting to feel that security, love and protection she never received and possibly craved early in life – but did she just get a whole lot more than she bargained for?
Pamaal has us intrigued for sure because Raza is not your typical narcissist, if he is one. He has elements of one for sure, but he’s also attentive, courteous, drops her off at her mom’s, even though he might not like it, buys both the outfits, his and her choice, but then also wants to know about her whereabouts to the last tee – controlling much? You bet. However, Malika, like we said, can’t read the red flags – perhaps she’s still viewing life with the rose-tinted newly wed glasses or perhaps the brain fog that descends upon one when cupid strikes, hasn’t left her yet. Either way, she might be the young girl of 2025 in her ability to argue with the newspaper guy for not printing her story, or going into town to procure her mom’s medicine, or even argue her case to her uncle for marrying Raza, but she is surely a bit out of sync with the times when it comes to dreaming of her Prince Charming and poetically manifesting him through the written word – she has fallen in love – and one cannot judge a young person in love for missing the obvious, whichever decade they belong to. And that’s that. The fog is about to lift though, and reality is about to bite, fast, Wait till episode next.
On another note, it is the engaging performances that are driving Pamaal. From Usman Mukhtar as the vintage style hero and Saba Qamar as the girl who lives on dreams, stories and magic dust. And it is in fact also Haris Waheed who is tugging at audiences’ heart strings with a gripping performance as Anas. Here’s one character who did not turn toxic when his love wasn’t realized. Sure his one-sided love witnessed a justified meltdown, so we could take in the intensity of his sorrow and pain, but now, it’s all about quiet suffering for him. Anas seems to have come around and prefers to suffer in silence, though bits and pieces of him still feel it. The way he held his hands, nervously when waiting for Raza and Malika for breakfast, was tangibly heartfelt to watch. We hope he doesn’t turn into the typical toxic trope we’ve seen too often, the other person in a marriage. Although Raza’s piercing gaze leaves nothing out and we’re waiting for this one to rest on Anas and Malika when he discovers Anas’ feelings for her.
We also question why Anas is being tortured by his family and dragged into all of Malika’s post-marriage affairs – the man deserves a break – from serving tea to catering breakfast, Anas has a lot to deal with and the man can break anytime, would you blame him?
And that’s why, although the story might have been told before, there is a newness in the subtlety of it, and we’re hoping it takes a different route. Red flags can come in brightly coloured, soft-feel, benign packages, and Raza might just be one of them.
Finally, the direction and plot points have a lot going for it. The camera angles, an intimate wedding with both bride and groom in white and grey, exploring the beauty of Islamabad and beyond in the frames and a mysterious air surrounding Malika’s father’s real personality – Pamaal is a drama that delivers intriguing performances and a script that might appear as ‘seen before’, but yet, the grey shades leave us curious.
To cap it, the turn-around of Malika’s mumani as mammoo proceeded to school her on his duties was a relief. Too many toxic characters spoil the story and fortunately, Pamaal decided to flip the narrative.
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