Daily Times

Things have never been easy for us in a country like Pakistan. When I say a country like Pakistan, I don’t intend to speak ill of it. I don’t intend to go all in favor for it and its running either. In retrospect, I wish to highlight something I have been observing for days – lack of action.

Yes, lack of action it is. No matter how many instances we come across each day, no matter what is prevalent, all we want is to live in a dreamy bubble of ours that carries our dreams overshadowed by the reluctance and negligence –pop! There goes the bubble and the so do the dreams it held.

All we want is to live in a dreamy bubble of ours that carries our dreams overshadowed by the reluctance and negligence

These dramas based on women empowerment and gender equality don’t really make a huge difference until or unless one tries to implement on the stances portrayed. Our women manipulated, our men being the tyrants and our society –intolerant. How many issues related to the aforementioned attributes (pun intended) possessed by our society and the dominants in it, do you think are brought up on screens and how many remain behind the veil?

These dramas portray an independent, self-sufficient woman at one hand, and the same woman being overpowered by “love” and showcasing a fair amount of vulnerability on the other. Similarly the ultimate desire “mein apne baap ka beta banna chahti hun” entails the message of “men being somehow superior to women” being conveyed unconsciously.

What concerns me even more is the fact that women in our dramas (and the society on the whole) tend to surrender before the power of “love” instead of sticking to the stances they once adhered to. You would hardly want to hear an all “strong”, “independent” girl, going all pregnable while she says “Beta aurat ka koi ghar nahin hota.”

Just when the society drowns in the prevalent dilemmas and stereotypes, our

Media tries to bring forth the seemingly unimportant news, failing to highlight the true picture. It is high time that we start depicting what actually prevails rather than glossing over it.

Published in Daily Times, June 9^th 2018.