Dhoop Kinaaray VS. Contemporary Dramas

The one thing I absolutely adore about Haseena Moin’s Dhoop Kinaaray is how heart-warming the drama is; it’s like you are entering a happy home where all the characters are welcoming you into their lives. Whereas when one watches contemporary dramas, it is definitely not the same feeling.

            Haseena Moin writes to reform, whereas contemporary dramas seem to simply reflect, and on top of it, reinforce ridiculous stereotypes. For instance, firstly, Zoya is a Doctor and she works round the clock and is out of the home mostly, which is clearly not a problem. The female figure is given the space to grow on her own. Secondly, the drama shows Zoya and the rest of the doctors sitting together and having a chat, and we see Doctor Irfan pointing out how women should stay home and leave the bread earning to the males, after which Zoya and her female colleague counteract that women equally have a right to education and can actually perform better than men; “tabhi humari qaum tarraqi nahi ker saki, iss liye humari qaum ki mardou ki zehniyat hi yehi hai.” Hence the drama seems to be allowing some growing space to the women of that society.

On the contrary, in my opinion what contemporary dramas such as Humsafar seem to be doing is reinforce that jeans equal evil and white dupattas equal goodness. It is in fact sad to see how our contemporary dramas seem to be regressing in a sense instead of growing. They seem to not only be rigidifying and marking stark boundaries around people’s personalities through clothes and language, among other things, but placing them in closed categorized boxes. If Dhoop Kinaaray was a contemporary drama, Zoya would certainly have been the evil character who doesn’t have a happy ending. Why so? Because she steps out of her home and works.

            Furthermore, in Dhoop Kinaaray, I could not help but notice how simple all the characters were, and how whole they were, unlike characters in Humsafar, who just seem to travel on a straight line. Dhoop Kinaaray allows its characters to travel on a straight line, yet enables them to form different shapes too, giving a very realistic feel to them. For instance, we see that for Zoya, Angie, Doctor Ahmer, etc, values are much more important above anything else. It is the sharing of the same values that seem to connect these characters, and not wealth or class or education, as depicted by contemporary dramas. Yes, there is a financial difference between Zoya  and Angie’s families; with the latter more seemingly British too, but their wealth, education or language is not what defines or separates them, neither does it allow the viewer to categorize them, nor elevate one over the other. There may be difference in the financial positions, but it certainly does not create a class difference. Instead, the drama seems to depict a somewhat classless society, and a more value-oriented society. Moreover, one cannot deny that there is an obvious difference between Mia Ji and Doctor Ahmer, and Zoya and Fuzzy when it comes to perhaps education and wealth, but the drama does not allow this difference to alienate one party from another. In fact, the two parties connect, and that is solely on the basis of the values they hold.

            Hence, I really think we need a more realistic and humanistic touch to our contemporary dramas, because frankly Dhoop Kinaaray was a refreshing breath of air!