“Aitebaar” is one of those shows that has not received the kind of attention it deserves. The premise focusing on the importance of honesty and trust in a marriage, “Aitebaar” stars Zarnish Khan, Ali Safina and Syed Jibran in lead roles while the story has been written by Maimona Aziz and directed by Nadeem Siddiqui. With 26 episodes now under the belt, the story has begun to drag and needlessly so. “Aitebaar” has been consistent in the message it has tried to convey and, up until the last few episodes, it has been successfully doing so. Unfortunately with Parisa now choosing to hide her problems rather than face them head on, the story has slowed down.
In episode 26, we see Parisa (Zarnish Khan) attempting to make amends for her dishonesty with Babar (Ali Safina), who is now in the hospital. And while Babar has a heart of gold and forgives her, will she continue to tread the same path of fear and concealment? While Pari was an absolute innocent in her marriage to Hamza, an ideal wife and fell prey to Hamza’s mistrust….the situation now is different. While she’s keeping quiet out of fear, the fact remains that she is being dishonest. In her marriage to Babar, she has now become the partner that keeps secrets and behaves in a way to create mistrust in her marriage. She may not have deserved it in her marriage to Hamza, but looking at the situation from Babar’s point of view, should Pari be trusted? This is a man who has opened his life, his heart, his world to Pari and given her back the respect and love she needed. She is repaying him by lying to him and keeping secrets to the point that he no longer knows what to believe. Pari may be our heroine, but in Babar’s life (and her own), she’s playing a villainous role without even intending to.
At the present moment, she has come clean to Babar and is trying to be honest. But with Hamza’s (Syed Jibran) desire to have a relationship with Hareem, will the pattern continue once again? For the record, Hamza has no real desire to “have” Hareem, rather he thinks these tactics will force Parisa to come back to him. Meanwhile, he plays “good” in Naveen’s eyes by talking about righting his wrongs and making amends, recognizing how deeply and terribly he is hurting Naveen in the process. Naveen is an interesting character, because she is actually well-developed. When the show began, we were introduced to Naveen as someone going through a lot emotionally – depression, anxiety, that wasn’t clear, but she was in a rough place. Her love for Hamza has kept her afloat and despite her financial independence and successful career, she isn’t an emotionally strong person. So while we can be critical of Naveen for turning against Pari and allowing Hamza a free pass despite his obvious flaws, the “personality” of Naveen has been built up well. We understand why she refuses to walk away. She is stuck in her emotions and does not understand how to cut off.
Naveen’s predicament further highlights how nasty of a character Hamza is. Hamza abandoned his wife and child at a critical moment, leaving Pari to fend for herself. Now he wants Pari back and is leaving his emotionally unwell wife, Naveen, to deal with her emotions all alone with any regard for her…..all while chasing a woman who is perfectly happy now, no thanks to him. Syed Jibran is playing this role very well, because we “believe” Hamza. Hamza thinks he’s a good guy despite the fact that he’s terrible. Of course, Ali Safina is our hero, the character who is holding the entire show up with his positive, trusting character. He deserves more roles like this. Zarnish Khan is always a natural and is doing a great job as Pari. Arez Ahmed is also very likable as Asfand! With the current storyline, will Pari allow herself to be blackmailed emotionally by Hamza over Hareem or will she change her ways and face Hamza head on with his threats? Logically speaking, if Hamza revealed himself as Hareem’s father, Pari could just reveal Hamza’s character and how he abandoned the two at their lowest. “Aitebaar” continues to impress, but at the current conjecture, we can’t help wishing the show ends on a high note with 2-3 strong remaining episodes instead of dragging out the story needlessly.