“Kismat band muthi ki tarhan hoti hai, kholo tou pata nahi kya nikalta hai.”
“Kya kismat le kar aayi ho tum, Zeba?”
These are the kinds of dialogues Kafeel casually throws at us.
And honestly, nothing sounds more familiar to the Pakistani ear than the word kismat. Something went wrong? Kismat. You didn’t get the job? Kismat. Divorce? Kismat. Burnt daal? Definitely kismat.
I’ve grown up hearing “larki ki naseeb ki dua karo” more times than I can count. Allah tumharay naseeb achay karey. As if a girl’s entire existence is a sealed envelope handed to her at birth, and the rest of us are just spectators waiting to see what comes out.
Umera Ahmed deserves credit for incisively giving voice to a deeply ingrained mindset through Zeba’s mother—a mindset shaped by years of quiet social conditioning and generational brainwashing. The character genuinely believes that a girl is born with a fixed kismat, one that predetermines the course of her entire life, leaving little room for choice, agency, or intervention. Rather than portraying this belief as outright cruelty, Ahmed presents it as something more unsettling: a well-meaning, faith-leaning resignation that many mothers internalize and pass on unquestioned.
Now let me be clear before anyone sharpens their theological knives: this is not a religious debate. Faith matters. Kismat matters. No one is denying that. But what’s fascinating and frankly exhausting is how quickly kismat becomes our favourite scapegoat when accountability feels uncomfortable.
Because here’s the thing: if God really did make human beings the best of His creations, then surely that includes the little detail of giving us a brain. A functioning one. The very thing that differentiates us from animals. So why do we so enthusiastically outsource all responsibility and then dramatically sigh, “yehi naseeb tha”?
Take Zeba.
Was it kismat that got her married to Jami? Or was it her mother’s decision made without investigation, without questions, without the most basic due diligence? Was it kismat that kept her mother in denial for years? Or was it willful blindness, dressed up as patience and prayer? And when everything finally collapses, the verdict is swift and familiar: bechari Zeba, uski kismat hi kharab thi.
Convenient, no?
Blaming kismat is comforting because it absolves us. It lets parents sleep better at night. It lets society avoid difficult conversations. It lets us pretend that harm just… happens. Randomly. Like bad weather.
But are we really supposed to live like that? Are we not taught religiously, morally, and logically—to first give our 100%? To use reason, to ask questions, to protect those placed in our care? And then, once we’ve done everything within our control, leave the rest to God?
That, to me, is where kismat begins. Not where thinking ends.
What we often call kismat is actually a chain of human decisions—some careless, some cowardly, some driven by ego, fear, or “log kya kahenge.” Yet when the consequences arrive, we point upwards instead of inwards.
Maybe the problem isn’t kismat. Maybe the problem is how recklessly we play our cards and then blame the dealer.
Yes, life is unfair. Yes, not everything is in our control. But pretending that nothing is?
That’s not faith. That’s laziness disguised as spirituality.
So the next time we’re tempted to sigh and say “kismat hi aisi thi”, maybe we should pause and ask the harder question:
Did fate fail us or did we fail to think, to act, to protect?
Because a closed fist may hide many things. But sometimes, what comes out isn’t destiny at all.
It’s just the result of choices we refuse to own.
