ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PAKISTANI SERIAL-YAKEEN KA SAFAR

September 11, 2021

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PAKISTANI SERIAL-YAKEEN KA SAFAR

Yakeen Ka Safar is a Pakistani television drama series produced by Momina Duraid through MD Productions for Hum TV. It aired from April 19, 2017 to November 1, 2017, with a total of 29 episodes. It was written by Farhat Ishtiaq, based on Ishtiaq's novel Woh Yakeen Ka Naya Safar and was directed by Shahzad Kashmiri.

Yakeen Ka Safar chronicles the journey of two protagonists Asfand and Zubiya, who grow after facing hardships and struggle. It was written and produced by the creators of Humsafar, Mata-e-Jaan Hai Tu, Diyar-e-Dil, Udaari and Bin Roye. Its ensemble cast consists of Ahad Raza Mir as Dr. Asfandyar, Sajjal Ali as Dr. Zubia, Shaz Khan as Daniyal and Hira Salman as Gaiti in leading roles.

THE STORY

Yakeen Ka Safar's story starts with Zubiya Khalil, a young girl mourning her mother's sudden death at the hands of her physically violent father. Zubiya needed to visit a friend's house to borrow important lecture notes and insisted her mother accompany her, despite her mother being forbidden by her father to leave the house with their driver. When Khalil discovered Zubiya's mother disobeyed this order, he slapped her so hard she fell and ended up hitting the corner of her bed, killing her instantly. Zubiya's aunt Mahjabin arrives and consoles the deeply devastated Zubiya. Khalil threatens Zubiya's whole family in an attempt to silence them regarding the cause of their mother's death.

The second story-line involves a family in Islamabad celebrating their son Daniyal's wedding to his cousin Gaeti. Daniyal is a young lawyer who has recently graduated from London and is an extremely fearless and honest person. Asfandyar is Daniyal's younger brother who will soon leave for Karachi to complete his medical studies after his brother's wedding. He is a lively person and quite ambitious as well. The family maintains a significant reputation in the community as Usman, Daniyal and Asfandyar's father, is a successful lawyer, too. Asfandyar is engaged to his other cousin Faryal, the only daughter of Usman's brother, Rizwan.

The third story-line involves Noori, a naive girl living in a rural village of Sindh. Tragically, Noori is kidnapped by a minister's son, Jahangir Shah, who gang-rapes her along with two of his friends. She is rescued the next day by a man who brings her to a hospital, where the doctor calls her family and informs them of the incident. Eventually, the family decides to remain silent because their poverty means they are unable to afford legal action against a powerful minister. While Noori's father does go to the police station to report Jahangir Shah for raping Noori, he is threatened by the police. After the incident, Noori's family is insulted in the village, so Noori decides to take revenge on Jahangir and his friends. She runs away from her house and is found by and taken to Karachi by Rumana, an NGO lady in Karachi. Rumana informs Daniyal about the Noori gang-rape incident.

Daniyal travels to Karachi, meets Noori, and decides to file a case against Jahangir Shah and his friends. Daniyal starts receiving threats and is even thrown into prison based on the false accusations that he raped his secretary, Urooj Nisaar, who was working for Jahangir Shah. He is bailed out the next day and his family tries to force him to close the case but he doesn't. Some days later, while Daniyal is in his office, he is shot by Jahangir Shah's people, who had also killed one of Daniyal's loyal friends who has been helping him throughout the case. These people also destroy all the proof that Daniyal had collected to present in court and typed up a note, supposedly from Daniyal himself, stating that Daniyal was too scared to deal with this case anymore and that he is leaving everyone forever. This leaves people thinking that he gave up and committed suicide. Everyone receives this news the next morning and the family is left in extreme pain. Noori's state of agony intensifies and she secretly takes a gun from the security guard. She then attends Jahangir Shah's conference and kills everyone.

Meanwhile, Asfandyar and Faryal's engagement ends as Faryal and her parents refuse to believe that Daniyal was innocent and did not commit suicide. After all of this, Asfandyar decides to leave for America to complete his education, while Faryal gets married to someone else and settles abroad. Gaeti gives birth to her and Daniyal's son, Saim. This event finally brings some smiles to the family members faces and they slowly start healing from the past. On the other hand, because of the bad behaviour of her father, Zubiya rebels and starts dating her stalker named Rameez.

Zubiya's sister-in-law Sheema overhears Zubiya talking to Rameez and starts plotting against her so that she can take her revenge from her father in law, Khalil, as he insulted her parents who agreed to get Sheema's sister married according to her liking. Zubiya and Rameez choose to secretly marry so that their family is left with no choice but to accept them and their love. But when Zubiya goes to his house, Rameez reveals his true intentions as he puts a drug in Zubiya's juice so that he can easily abuse her. Zubiya senses that something is wrong and as soon as the abuse begins, she instantly runs out from his flat and is saved by Asfandyar. Her family gets worried as they wait for her to come back. As Sheema knows about their plans, she shows Rehan and Khalil Zubiya's conversation with Rameez, thus succeeding in destroying Khalil's reputation. From here Zubiya was greatly abused by her family and her friends break all ties with her. Here Khalil realises that because of his sins, Allah is punishing his daughter, and wonders how he can be forgiven or help Zubiya regain her respect.

Despite Rehan and Sheena's arguments, Khalil gets her admitted to a medical college as it was her mother's wish that she becomes a doctor. As soon as she was about to complete her MBBS and her marriage was fixed, Khalil dies. After a few months, Sheena's relative from abroad came to visit her and takes interest in Zubiya. In the middle of the night, he, without Zubiya's consent, enters her room and walks closer to her. Zubiya yells and after Rehan and Sheema find them in the room together, the man falsely accuses Zubiya of calling him to repair her laptop and asking him for sexual favours. Zubiya stands up for herself and tells her brother that when it was my fault, I didn't argue one bit, but now, I will not bear these lies and unjust treatment I am given. Her brother refuses to believe her and she was thrown out of the house. She went to her aunt Mahjabin's home in Peshawar who believes her. She lives there for a few weeks but because she thought aunt's son and daughter in law's lives are being disturbed, she leaves and joins a hostel. She gives a job interview with Asfand's newly established hospital. Where she instantly feels as if she has already seen him somewhere.

From day one, she is scolded a lot by Dr. Asfandyar and that's why she also calls him Hitler and Changez Khan. Asfandyar is now very intelligent but very arrogant. His brother's death resulted in him becoming a bitter person. Zubiya and Gaeti (wife of Daniyal) become very good friends after meeting in a nearby sitting area. Zubiya didn't know that she was the sister in law of Asfandyar. When Zubiya learns that he is also the brother in law of Gaeti she became angry and didn't talk to Gaeti as she blames her for not telling her this and believes that now Asfandyar will think as if Dr. Zubiya is trying to impress his family to gain benefits and profit in her job. After a few days, they make up with each other. Zubiya searched and found that he was the person who saved her from Rameez. Gaeti also tells her all about her family, Asfi and Daniyal. After some time Zubiya realizes that Gaeti and Dr. Haroon (Zubiya's colleague) can marry as Dr. Haroon also lost his dearest wife in an accident just like Gaeti lost Daniyal. On the other hand, Asfandyar's family wants him to marry Zubiya. As because of her positive nature, Gaeti left behind her trauma of Daniyal's death and started to socialize.

Here as Zubiya is slowly improving her performance as a doctor, she and Asfandyar establish good terms with one another and soon fall in love. In the meantime, Faryal came back and she wishes to marry Asfandyar because her husband divorced her and that she regrets her ill-treatment with Asfi during that difficult phase. But Asfand did not agree to marry her and she went back to her home. Here, Urooj Nisar who was Daniyal ex-secretary and accused him of raping her, comes to the hospital with her injured son who met a car accident as he was drunk. Asfandyar identifies who she is, right in the first sight, so does she. He locks himself in his office and cries remembering his brother. He performs surgery on Urooj's son without taking a single penny from her. In extreme guilt, Urooj calls upon a press conference and confesses all her crimes and ask for forgiveness. Everyone from Zubiya, to Faryal and her parents, everyone saw it on the media and Daniyal's family finally feels proud that their son lost his life in trying to protect humanity. Asfandyar and his father travel and visit Daniyal's grave and attend a seminar which is held to honour Daniyal. After he returned, he proposes to Zubiya but she rejects the proposal saying that temporary infatuation doesn't mean you can get married. She does this because she has lied a lot about her past to everyone and believes that when Asfi will end up remembering the Rameez incident, he will leave Zubiya thinking that she is a characterless woman. Both are heartbroken. Rehan, on the other hand, wakes up in the middle of the night and wishes to ask forgiveness from Zubiya. So he comes to the hospital to meet her. Zubiya notices him and gets very tensed and thought that now everyone will find out that she lied about not having a brother, and her family. She becomes hopeless and flees from the hospital. Asfand locates her and finds her standing high up on the cliff, below which is a lake. Asfandyar is shocked and runs to save her but she had jumped into the lake, and thus committing suicide. Asfandyar without a second thought risks his life to save hers, he rescues her before she could drown completely. Asfandyar then brought her to the hospital while she remained unconscious. Here he finds about her reprimands Zubiya's brother for ill treating Zubiya and confesses his love and adoration for her. After Zubiya gains consciousness Asfandyar tells her that he doesn't care about anything but only her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her. They tearfully hug. Rehan is also forgiven by Zubiya. Dr. Haroon and Gaeti are married too. In a voiceover by Zubiya, she mentions that in a few days it would be a whole year since she and Asfandyar have been happily married, and that all the hardships and challenges Allah had in store for you, he also rewards you with blessings in return. In the end, everything was worth it and happened for a reason. The show ends with the moss green SUV of Asfand vanishing from the sight as he and his Zubiya are out on their journey with "Ek Naya Aghaaz" flashing on screen before the curtain falls.

REVIEW

The Pakistani drama is knitted around the three families, Noori’s family who lives in a village, Asfand Yar Khan’s family who live in Islamabad and Zobia’s family who is in Karachi.

Noori is a young girl living in a village and working as a teacher in the local school but she is devastated when the son of the Land lord and MNA Jahangir Shah abducted and gang raped her. Luckily she survives and is taken to a hospital where she is treated with great care but she wants to take revenge from Jehangir Shah.

Asfand’s elder brother Danival has returned from UK and has started working as a barrister in Karachi. He wants to work honestly and after some twists in the story decides to fight Noori’s case. His family especially his father is not happy with this and towards the end all the family wants him to withdraw from the case but he is determined to fight for Nooris rights and is murdered by the Landlords people. But before the murder he himself has to face the rape charges of his secretary which was staged by his secretary. This situation causes great stress on the whole family and they decide to move to their forefathers place in northern Pakistan, while Asfi decides to go for higher studies.

Zobia is a young girl living in a family where her father is very strict and does not allow women to gout of the house. Although Zobia is studying in college but she is not allowed to keep a phone or go to her friend’s houses. Then her mother is killed by her father and she is quite upset and sick of her house environment. She tries to run away from her house with a boy but that boy was not sincere with her and tried to rape her but somehow she avoided this and came home safely. Her brother does not want her to stay in the house but his father stops him as miraculously he has changed his mind.

There are many twist and turns in the drama. Moreover, it is a combination of tears and smiles and gives emotional punches now and then. The length of the drama was also perfect. Sometimes one gets lost with the characters. Farahat Ishtiaq’s has done a very good job abd characters are doing great job.

It touches the hardcore issues of domestic violence, rape and gang rape. It even leaves a lesson for all parents to listen to their kids and try to resolve their emotional issues at all time.

Sometimes the dialogues are also impressive that one wants to quote them. It has presented many positive role models like Asfi’s mother not behaving like a typical mother in law, Gaiti not behaving like a typical daughter in law, Noori who does not want to be silent, rather raises her voice, and Zubiva who depicts the love for human beings at every stage of her life.

The Pakistani drama also gave a very positive message to our youth and specially girls. It tells us that the normal life is the best life for everyone whether it a male or female. Everyone should have the security and emotional support of a family, so one should not try to be bold and live an unnatural life. This will not only hurt the person but one will be unhappy as well.

THE CAST

The Pakistani drama cast was very good and played their roles very well. The rope of Dr. Asfandyar played by Ahmad Mir lived up the demand of the play and assigned role. He played the role as if he was living the life of Asfi which made the drama a real life story. Sajal played the role of Zubiya and did justice to her role as daughter, as a doctor and as a human being. She was excellent.

Shaz Khan (Daniyal) and Hira Mani (Gaiti) both did their roles very convincingly and make the serial watchable. The other actors who infused life in their otherwise very awkwardly written characters, Suhaee Abro, Enteshamuddin, Marviam Nafees, Mani, Shamyl Khan, all did well.