“Dil Ruba” stars Hania Amir in the leading role as Sanam, a girl who spends her pre-marriage years flirting with different men and then finds her past coming back to bite her after marriage. While the cast is doing a great job and the first 10 episodes or so were really promising, there are several issues with the storyline and Sanam is a character that is being used to send a fairly backward message – “If a girl messes up, there is no possibility of happiness or forgiveness in her future.” Redemption? That’s not possible.
As episode 17 begins, viewers see Sanam (Hania Amir) texting with a mystery man, which clearly foreshadows that there will be a new man in Sanam’s life soon enough. Sanam is shocked when she hears the news of Daniyal’s death while Khurram (Syed Jibran) arrives back home with his new wife, Natasha. Unfortunately, he turns up at exactly the right moment – when Sanam, her family, friends and relatives are all gathered for Daniyal’s funeral. As Natasha and Khurram declare their marriage, Sanam hits back by insulting Khurram for bringing a new wife home at the moment of his father’s death. Khurram seems genuinely upset and shocked here and doesn’t bat an eye when Sanam throws Natasha out of the house – especially after he realizes that the house remains in Sanam’s name.
Things reach a new level when Arsalan and Hammad, Sanam’s brother and brother-in-law, get a large dose of “ghairat” and storm Khurram’s house, telling Sanam to choose either them or her husband. Stuck in a strange position, Sanam chooses to stay back and Arsalan disowns her. This entire situation is ridiculous and Sanam’s family proves their foolishness with each scene. While Ghazala (Marina Khan) and Iram have done everything to manipulate Sanam into staying with her husband (while also criticizing her techniques), the males of the household are on a completely different tangent. There is a rare moment of sanity though when Hammad tells Iram that the women of the house have created this situation by remaining quiet. That is true; unfortunately, Hammad and Arsalan are a completely different level of crazy.
Khurram and Natasha are dismayed to find that Sanam owns the house and will receive a cash allowance for the rest of her life while Khurram only owns the factory – but cannot sell it. This has left Khurram in a sticky situation considering he wants to leave Sanam, but cannot due to the financial situation. Natasha’s patience is also seen wearing thin at this point when she realizes her new husband is not as rich as she’d hoped.
Khurram continues to be an annoying character that has thrown off the level of interest in the show. We get it, he does not love (or even like) Sanam and would like nothing more than to get rid of her, but he can’t. So how much more of this will we have to endure as viewers? It has already been more than 4 episodes dedicated to this mess of a relationship. There is a brief glimpse of Sabeeh (Mohib Mirza) in this episode as he speaks to Sanam (if you want to call it that) on the phone for a moment. Unfortunately, while Syed Jibran is a great actor, Khurram is not a great character and one is left wishing Mohib Mirza and Shehroze Sabzwari would receive more screen time than what they are being given. Hania Amir is doing a great job with her role, but Sanam is growing more irritating as the episodes go by and her role is not well-written. Sanam is not a character that can be understood and her growth-arc isn’t particularly believable. At present, “Dil Ruba” is not looking particularly promising.
