As “Parizaad” draws to a close, viewers are left wondering how Parizaad’s journey through life will end – in tragedy or happiness? With the finale airing next week, we are now at the finish line. Starring Ahmed Ali Akbar, Yumna Zaidi, Mashal Khan, Saboor Aly, Urwa Hocane, Nauman Ejaz and others, “Parizaad” has been written by Hashim Nadeem Khan and directed by Shehzad Kashmiri.
Episode 28 focuses on Parizaad’s (Ahmed Ali Akbar) next journey in life, the journey to self discovery. Parizaad has seen many changes in life, but he has never been given the luxury of searching within to find himself – but now he has that luxury, something pointed out to him by a kindly professor on the bus. Parizaad becomes this professor’s guest for several months, watching over his Urdu school for children as the professor recovers from illness. This lifestyle suits Parizaad well and he grows into a comfortable routine.
It’s the final moments of the episode that make the strongest impact – and not through dialogue, rather through the normalcy of the scene….the silence. While visiting the hospital with the professor, Parizaad encounters a familiar face. Annie (Yumna Zaidi), absorbed in a phone call, glances at Parizaad, the two lock eyes and Annie moves on, passing Parizaad without acknowledgement. This is seemingly an innocent scene, the brief interaction of strangers as Annie doesn’t recognize Parizaad. But there’s a lot to unload here, the first being the depth of the relationship between Parizaad and Annie. While Parizaad never really understood it, Annie had expressed her feelings for him in many different ways. She had stopped short only of telling him she was in love with him, but always did her best to explain how much he meant to her. And now, suddenly within months, Annie has her eyesight and Parizaad, the man who meant so much to her, is now a stranger. And yet, is it possible Annie does recognize Parizaad and is purposely ignoring him?
One thing to note here is that while Parizaad is forever the “victim” in his life, a victim of his life circumstances, he really is not the victim in his relationship with Annie. Parizaad removed himself from Annie’s life out of fear, the insecurity overtaking him that Annie would eventually reject him. Of course, this is a human emotion and it’s possible to understand Parizaad’s point of view, having such low self esteem that he cannot imagine Annie loving him once she sees his face. But Parizaad did, in fact, abandon Annie in her most vulnerable moment, a moment where she practically begged him to come with her and be the first face she saw after her bandages were removed – and he broke her heart. Parizaad chose to take the “run before she can hurt you” route, which is his prerogative, but at the end of the day – Annie became Parizaad’s victim. In Annie’s story, Parizaad is the inflictor of pain and not the other way around.
It goes without say that Ahmed Ali Akbar performs incredibly well in this episode, as it revolves entirely around Parizaad’s next phase in life. With the finale airing next week, viewers are on edge wondering how it will end. Will the story follow the novel and stick to a tragic end? Or will we be blessed with an alteration, the glimmer of hope that downtrodden heroes can also have happy endings? After all Parizaad has been through, is tragedy truly what he should have in store for his ending?