Abbas's Post on Dhoop Kinaray

Note: submitted on time

Dr. Sheena Karamat can be arguably given the title of the most significant antagonist figure in Dhoop Kinare, prima facie. But what this post shall aver is the contrary; that she is probably the most heroic figure who struggles while facing the series of tragic and unfortunate events that she encounters throughout the drama.

How many of our fears and qualms are motivated by the positions the society adopts on issue, specifically with regards to propriety and expectations? A considerable weightage needs to be given to the opinions, values and traditions of the majority of the cultural context in which we are situated. This is one of the main premises of a “National Domesticity”, in which the exact gender rules and roles become important to ascertain the relationship between the two majority genders. Dr. Sheena Karamat is shown as a person who cannot get the romantic attentions of the one person who she loves in the drama, Dr. Ahmer Ansari. She makes it very obvious that she is interested to the extent that she asks Dr. Zoya to take a step back and let her have him. For not marrying Dr. Ansari would entail a problem far more significant than a broken heart; she would be a lonely woman in a context where that was not the wisest course of actions, because of a traditional and cultural component as well as the desolate and grimness of having no emotional support. She loses her bid and battle to a girl far less experienced yet more exuberant and bereft of the bitterness that Dr. Sheena seems to exude.

Yet she seems to get a temporary victory in that she accedes to the proposal of Nasir Jamal. But when that turns out to be a partial deception, we see the heroic side of Dr. Sheena. She, in tears yet without the assistance of anyone including Dr. Ahmer, rejects Nasir because he didn’t tell her he already had a wife and family, and that secondly he lied about not being happy with them later on. She would not become a mistress or an afterthought; she had a degree of self-respect and an idea of her self-worth that she did not want to casually cast away. For here the drama, in line with Haseena Moin’s general take according to which she seeks to rectify social problems through the Arts, sends a message. A woman need not get betrothed to unhappiness in a desperate act to avoid a life which has been painted undesirable by society, and that a union in which deception prevails is one that should be best avoided. There is no clear formula for happiness yet what is more important is that one preserves oneself. Dr. Sheena is a tragic yet strong character whose life is replete with problems that Sara from Humsafar would not be able to even come close to competing with, yet she prevails, being her own support, and takes small steps on the road less traveled.