YEH MERA DIL

Ye Dil Mera is a 2019 Pakistani romantic thriller television series that premiered on Hum TV on 30 October 2019. It is produced by Momina Duraid under their banner MD Productions. The serial stars Sajal Aly, Ahad Raza Mir, and Adnan Siddiqui.

PLOT

Mir Farooq (Adnan Siddiqui) killed the parents and sister of Amanullah (Ahad Raza Mir) when he was only 11 years old. After his family's murder, Amanullah was slipped away to U.K. to his step-uncle, who was highly abusive towards Amanullah. Rightfully blaming Mir Farooq for his ill fortunes, Amanullah wants revenge. Now an adult and with his deceased step uncle's immense wealth behind him, Amanullah plots a plan to marry Mir Farooq's daughter Aina (Sajal Ali) with a new identity.

Mir Farooq also murdered his wife (Mira Sethi) when she had tried to run away from him with their infant daughter. Although Mir Farooq has told everyone that his wife died in a car accident, his daughter, now a grown woman, still has faded memories and dreams of her mother's murder.

In the first episode, Mir Farooq secretly murdered his employee in Singapore because he made a massive loss to business.

Although Mir Farooq shows everyone that he is a dotting father who did not marry again after his wife's death, he had been secretly married to his former secretary Sahira (Rabia Butt) for seven years. Amanullah came to know about the second wife and blackmailed her to reveal information about Mir Farooq including their wedding pictures. As Mir Farooq is quite abusive towards his secret wife, she decides to punish Mir Farooq out of spite.

Ali Baksh - the loyal servant of Mir Farooq knows everything about his marriage and about the people he killed.

While Amanullah planned every detail of his revenge, he had not planed to actually fall in love with his fiancé Aina, who he sees as more a victim than the daughter of his enemy. He starts having second thoughts about using her as a pawn in this revenge.

Despite even calling off the marriage once, Aina is persistent in her love and Amanullah goes through with the wedding. For her niece's wedding, Aina's aunt, Farhana (younger sister of her Aina's deceased mother), comes to Pakistan from the US. During her trip, and due to some subtle insinuations from Amanullahs side, she begins to question the death of her sister. It is at first innocent, however as she realizes that stories are varying between the people she asked, she becomes suspicious and Mir Farooq sees that. He manages to get her to leave Pakistan quicker than Farhana intended, once in the US, she questions the event even more.

Aina and Amanullah's marriage has a shaky start, with Amanullah getting infuriated upon hearing either Ali Baksh's or Mir Farooq's name. He is abusive towards Aina but later waves it off with some excuse or other. One night, he injures himself and when Aina comes to help him, he proclaims “this blood is nothing compared to my father and mother”. Aina is confused, later when asking him, she senses his hesitation and drops the subject.

Aina and Amanullah go on their honeymoon. Amanullah has recently reconciled with his childhood friend whom he enlists to buy a house (which now serves as a guest house operated by him) and Amanullah's childhood home but under his friend's name. Aman takes Aina to this house for their honeymoon. On the way there, Aina is visibly uncomfortable and feels she recognizes the place. She is uneasy, as she believes that her memories of this place are not good ones.

Nargis bua, Aina's household worker who helped raise her after her mother's death, leaves her post. Farhana tries to contact her, but Mir Farooq finds out. He is left very suspicious of Farhana's intention - as apparently Nargis knows of the real story.

Mir Farooq decides to end contact between Aina and Farhana. He tells Aina that Farhana didn't come for her wedding but instead says she came for Aina's/Aina's mom's jewelry and property.

As Aina and Aman's honeymoon progresses, Aina becomes more and more uncomfortable, and she gets flashes of memories of the same place from when she was younger. However, she can't seem to connect the dots and doesn't see them as flashbacks, rather the effect of some unnatural/evil presence in the place.

Through these flashbacks, which are quite vivid from Aman's side (meaning he remembers all of it clearly and is able to understand unlike Aina), it is revealed that Aman had a sister, and his mother Humaira ( Zarnish Khan ) and his father (a forest officer) lived here permanently. However, one day, Humaira and Neelofer ( Mira Sethi ) cross paths. Aina and her family used to stay in a holiday house near Aman's family (the same house Aman made his friend serve as a guest house) and would vacation for two months or so every few years. During their encounter, it was actually when Neelofer, Aina and Mir Farooq were staying there after a while, due to which their paths hadn't crossed before.

Neelofer and Humaira become close. One flashback was of a swing, in Aman's backyard, on which Aina was swinging when Humaira and Neelofer had met up. Aina fell and suffered an injury on her chin- this was the scar that Aman had drawn on her face when he sketched a picture of her at a wedding upon their first encounter. Aina had wondered how he knew of it, as she would cover it up but when asked Aman brushed it off. The truth is now revealed and Aman seems a little more sinister.

Upon exploring the house, in real-time, Aina stumbled across the remains of the swing and suffered a panic attack of sorts. Aman tries to calm down her notions of the 'hauntedness' of the house, by reassuring her that no such swing exists (despite Aina seeing it). He takes her back to the backyard and the swing is no longer there. It is revealed that Aman removed it on purpose, perhaps trying to trigger Aina's memories.

One other flashback Aman has, which is significant, is a memory of him, his mother, and Neelofer talking at her house. It is the first time Humaira actually meets Neelofer's husband (as Mir Farooq would always be busy). It turns out that Humaira and Mir knew each other, as they graduated together. Mir Farooq seems a bit shocked and stiff to see Humaira at his house, especially when Humaira reveals she's married and has two children.

This is significant because earlier on, in real-time, Mir Farooq was on his computer, looking at a photo of Humaira. A voiceover, which is Humaira, echoes (imitating his memory of her saying this) her apologizing, saying that she thinks Mir Farooq is a great friend, but has never thought or felt about him in 'that' way. This - combined with Aman's memory - is an almost obvious delusion to some affection Mir Farooq held for Humaira, and the one-sidedness of it. It is also a potential revelation of the motive for murder.

Mir Farooq is suspicious of Sahira (who gave her nikkah papers to Aman out of spite earlier on). To throw him off her guard, Sahira concocts a story of a stalker, calling her from an unknown number, who stated that he knows of their marriage. Mir Farooq freaks out and orders, essentially, Sahira and her house to be put on 'lockdown' until he returns from Paris. Sahira tells Aman that Mir no longer suspects her, and Aman says that he no longer needs anything else from her, and urges her to not say anything about their exchange of information, to which she agrees. Aman also eludes to taking action against Mir soon.

Later, Sahira calls Aman again and then calls her sister and in a distracted mental state, she walks out of the bathroom and the phone comes on the security footage which Ali Bakhsh saw. He informs Farooq that Sahira and hidden a sim and a phone in the bathroom. Farooq orders her death the day she was supposed to go to Dubai. Ali Bakhsh and a few others kill her on the way to the airport. Ali Bakhsh then makes a story that a few robbers came and Sahira refused to give anything and they shot her. They also shot the driver but he survived. The driver then told the wrong story to the police. Ali Bakhsh also made it clear that Sahira lived alone in her home and wasn't married when that isn't true.

One day, Aina finds the key to a room which Amaan had locked. She opens the room and goes inside. She sees some pictures of Mir Farooq and Ali Bakhsh which were crossed, pictures of herself and some writings showing that Mir Farooq had killed Amaan's mother, father and sister. After a while, Amaan goes in the room and finds Aina in there. He tells her that his mother, father and in sister didn't die in a plane cash and were killed by Mir Farooq. On the other hand Mir Farooq gets to know some things about Amaan. Mir Farooq goes to Amaan's home to take Aina with him before Amaan tells everything to Aina but Aina denied to go with Mir Farooq and said "If you want to see me happy then just go". After that she went to her room where Amaan comes, Aina says "You think you could put such blames on my father and i will support you, I am staying here to find the evidences to prove that my father has not killed your family. Amaan says that if you want to find the evidence you'd only find them in Darya Bagh.

Amaan and Aina prepare their stuff to go Darya Bagh, Aina switches off her phone as she didn't want to talk to anyone on it before she finds the evidence. Amaan drives Aina back to the cottage in Darya Bagh, where they stay. Aina doesn't want to talk to Amaan and wants to be left alone. Amaan calls Mir Farooq on his phone, Mir asks him to tell his location cause he wants his Noor-E-Jaan back, Amaan threatens Mir that he'd leak his photos with his second wife to Aina if he tries to do anything stupid. On the other hand, Aina calls Bua Jee on her phone and asks her how they're related to Darya Bagh and Amaan's family, Bua Jee turns off the phone while crying.

Aina visits her old house in Darya Bagh, a man outside tells her that it's haunted and she shouldn't go inside it, she backs off from It and meets Amaan near the house, he drops her back to the cottage. Amaan goes back to Islamabad to reveal himself to Mir, he goes to the meeting which Mir was attending and reveals that he was the son of Humaira and Obaidullah to Mir, Mir gets shocked and is about to ask where his Noor-E-Jan was before Amaans leaves. Mir orders Ali Bakhsh to seal the area quickly before Amaan leaves the place. Amaan gets out of the place in disguise and goes back to Darya Bagh.

Amaan goes back to Darya bagh and finds Abdur Rehman baba (who was the servant of his house once) and asks him to take care of Aina after him. On the other hand, Farhana khala reaches Islamabad and asks Bua Jee that how her sister is murdered. Bua Jee tells her that first they have to go Darya Bagh to find Aina and Amaan. On their way to Darya Bagh Bua Jee tells Farhana Khala everything about the murder of Amman's family and Neelofer's murder.

Then Amaan calls Mir Farooq and tells him to reach him otherwise he will kill Aina. Mir Farooq realizes that he will be in Darya Bagh. Aina on the other hand, remembers everything about her childhood. When Bua Jee and Farhana Khala reach her she asks Bua Jee everything but she doesn't tell her. Then she goes to their summer house where she used to live on holidays. Aina then follows her mother's footsteps and remembers that Ali Bakhsh killed her mother. She goes back to the summer house where she gets more evidence against her father. Meanwhile Mir-Farooq gets into the darya bagh house of Aman and pins him. Mir-Farooq asks him about the whereabouts of Aina. Aman tells him that Aina is the summer house. Mir-Farooq and Ali Bakhsh go to the summer house and Aman follows them in his car.

At the summer house Aina remembers where her mother was buried. When she digs at that place she finds the jewelry of the mother. She is in shock. At that moment Mir-Farooq comes with Ali Bakhsh who is holding a gun. Aina asks her father to tell her the truth. He denies the fact that he killed anybody. Aina grabs the gun from Ali Bakhsh's hand and threatens to kill herself if he didn't tell the truth. He confesses that he did kill Aman's parents and that he killed his wife. Aina then gasps and runs away back to the summer house where Amaan, Bua jee and Farhana Khala follow her. Aina sits down on the table and Amaan calls her name to where she looks back. Mir Farooq orders Ali Baksh to shoot him with a gun and Ali Baksh shoots him and then shoots himself. They both die. Aina faints and is taken to the hospital. She recovers. In the hospital Amaan realises that his love for Aina is greater than his revenge. After a month, Aina is shown to handle the business while Amaan tries to meet her but Aina refuses to meet him. Aina sells all her property and moves to Daryabagh with Buajee. Amaan follows her to there and Amaan and Aina finally meet. However Aina tells him that she can never love or trust again and also tells him to go away if he ever loved her truly. Amaan gives his cottage keys to Aina through Buajee and tells her to visit it. Amaan leaves and gives his money to an orphanage and lives there. Aina's voiceover says that she is not ending her relationship with Amaan and that Amaan and her relationship is of souls and it will only end with death. The show ends with Amaan waiting for Aina and Aina's love while a voice over says that forgiveness is always better than revenge and gives out a message to trust Allah and that He does the best justice. The voiceover also says that Amaan knows his destiny lies in Aina's love and Aina's need time to realize this, highlighting the fact that they will be together at some time in the future.

REVIEW

I love the drama. The drama had some positives as well as some negatives. One is that the story in  the middle is dragged too much and there is much repetition of scenes and dialogues.

The biggest flaw definitely has to be the death of Meer Farooq Zaman, which he chose for himself? What about all those who were waiting for the justice to be served? This was definitely an easier option that the writer opted for & did not put an effort into showing him facing the court & getting exposed in front of everyone considering how he was a renowned businessman of the country. Meer Farooq Zaman continued to commit crimes in secrecy & got lucky enough to choose to die in secrecy as well? This is definitely not the end of his character.

This is an unconvincing approach where killing a character or showing him losing his sanity are the only & two easiest options that are practiced. It is understandable that for Meer Farooq Zaman, he died the moment he got exposed in front of his daughter but that does not do any favors to the lives that were destroyed because of his selfishness. Ali Baksh too got an easy death & did not have to worry about accountability.

ANA AND AMAAN

The rest of the episode focused on a few scenes that were shot covering how Ana & Amaan moved on in their lives. Amaan realized that even though Meer Farooq Zaman was done with, he was unhappy because he could see how it had caused irreparable damage to Ana. To be honest, while watching this episode, I waited for Amaan to actually show it to Ana how sincere & eager he was but after she woke up, he was being his usual self; stern & distant, informing her of her father’s death coldly. That was definitely the time for him to show Ana his emotions to soften her heart towards him & more than him, it was Ana who deserved it after all that she went through. There was absolutely no one in Ana’s life who would now console her, so Amaan should’ve done that for her.

Ana’s decision of doing charity & building a school & hospital in Daryabagh came as a pleasant surprise, but what I really liked were the reasons which she explained to Nargis Bua. At least Ana does realize that her father had caused a lot of damage to a lot of people. I also feel she deserved to know about the ex-employee Humayun(?) as well as Sahira who were killed on Meer Farooq’s orders.

The scene of Ana & Amaan shot in Daryabagh was poorly executed. It was obvious that they had dubbed those dialogues & different shots were prolonged to compile it into a scene. These executional flaws & glitches have compromised heavily upon the quality of this drama & the impact it could’ve made. Anyways, Amaan continued to show his sincerity to Ana by repeatedly approaching her but Ana had a bigger picture in mind & Amaan at this point in time was not in it. She did however say that she will continue to cherish & value the relationship she has with her husband, which made it sound like Amaan still stood a chance.

The disclaimer in the end in the director’s voice made it look like Amaan was wrong in his pursuit of revenge, another thing which I do not agree with. Amaan never wanted to kill Meer Farooq Zaman, he never took law in his hands or did something absolutely out of the blue. Amaan always stayed in his limits & was dignified in approaching his enemy to bring him down. The drama makers did try to end it on a moral preaching that it is wrong when people try to intervene in destiny’s plan & end up losing everything because forgiving is always better than taking revenge. If this entire note is taken seriously, it will undermine Amaan’s PTSD, it will also make Amaan look like a culprit who could not forgive.

Amaan was totally justified in taking revenge because he never once wanted to murder Meer Farooq Zaman, all he ever wanted was for him to get exposed in front of the entire world as well as his daughter Ana, so that everyone would know who he truly is; a murderer & a criminal. This sort of disclaimer at the end of this story was absolutely not needed because it defeats the purpose of Amaan’s journey & the trauma that he went through after witnessing his family being brutally murdered in front of his eyes. Amaan on his own was right in feeling the void & emptiness but it was solely because Ana was not a part of his life anymore, not because he regretted avenging his family’s murder. They should’ve left it at that without giving it another angle such as forgiving is better than seeking revenge, which in this case was not because Amaan never contemplated killing Meer Farooq Zaman.

THE END

This episode had its good & not so good moments. The overall execution could have been better. The aerial shots at the end of the episode were nice. I was definitely looking for some Ana-Amaan moments, hoping they will come together, pick up the pieces & help each other in moving past this nightmare but that was put on hold for some other day. The open ending is definitely not an issue here but the two things that made the ending unsatisfactory are the death of Meer Farooq Zaman & disclaimer about Amaan being wrong in his approach.

Ahad Raza Mir & Sajal Aly should be very proud of themselves for giving such phenomenal performances in Ye Dil Mera. They definitely were the saving grace of this drama. Ahad Raza Mir especially was in his element throughout & gave Amaanullah’s character a very convincing treatment, especially his minute expressions & sudden change of mood throughout was a wholesome journey to witness in itself. Sajal Aly is a finest actor of Pakistani drama industry. The acting she displayed in the previous two episodes left everyone in an awe of her talent. The casting directors were lucky to have Ahad & Sajal on board for this project because if it wasn’t for them, Ye Dil Mera wouldn’t have been what it is.

Farhat Ishtiyaq did her best but a lot of things could’ve been skipped & added to make this drama even better. Ahsan Talish is an intelligent director but it is too obvious that execution of this drama was not as good as it should’ve been. Different storyline definitely played a huge part in its popularity. Adnan Siddique, Mira Sethi, Zarnish Khan & Paras Masroor also played their part really well & supported the best way they could. Naima Khan was good as Nargis Bua as well. 

REFERENCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeh_Dil_Mera

https://reviewit.pk/ye-dil-mera-last-episode-story-review/