Noor's Post:

So the story begins on the note of Khirad washing clothes on a small terrace in Hyderabad, (later she also goes on to make chai, check on the school children and lecture her mother on khuddari”). But I digress.  From the very beginning we are introduced to a plethora of women including both minor and major characters as opposed to just two men. The public sphere is the realm of men occupied by Baseerat and Ashar. The women are largely confined to the private domain. We see Khirad and her mother in their house in Hyderabad, or in the uncle’s house in Karachi. Batool Khala with the Haleem in her apartment building. Even with Farida and Sarah’s mother we see them in the “home” setting. 

The private is the domain of women because it is supposed to be the intrinsically domestic. The type of domesticity itself varies. Wherein in Hyderabad there is a literal portrayal of the domestic, with the first five minutes of the introduction of Khirad dedicated to her shown, involved in chores. It isn't enough for her to present the chai to her mother rather we are taken through the entire process of her making it, staining it and so on. In Karachi, on the contrary, we scarcely view the kitchen much less any of the women physically exerting in any way to fulfill the household chores.  Yet despite that, they are confined to the private realm of the home because it is symbolically “domestic”.

The only character who transcends the private and goes on into the “public” sphere, which is the dominion of men, is Sarah. While Khirad’s character is introduced in relation to a washing line; Sarah‘s first presented before us relaxingly sipping coffee away from the "private" home environment. We see her walking to and from Ashar’s office with easy confidence. She’s also seen in the domestic setting-but not as a comfortable addition rather as a self- destructive force (she cuts her wrist in her room). 

Sarah is the only character who combines the private and the public realms together.  While all the other characters can be neatly categorized as part of the public or the private, Sarah inhabits both. Because she’s not categorically linked with one or the other, this results in a twisted relationship with domesticity. She’s comfortable and even happy with Ashar in the outside realm but that is not a permanent reality. Later in the drama she tries to extend her time with him, stays out and every time we see her with Ashar she proposes to go out for a “drive” or "dinner". And this 'overindulgence' with the public sphere is presented as a fault. In a sense her rigidity, her character flaws are validated through her twisted relationship with the private (read domestic).  This combination of the public and the private leaves her ill at ease- to her the only link between the two is Ashar.  She refuses to choose one of the two and so throughout the drama is in a state of dismal and confusion because the chain that links the private and the public for her (Ashar) is taken. She has to choose between one or the other and she doesn't.  That then becomes part of her misery and confusion.