Written by Faiza Iftikhar and directed by Kashif Nisar, ‘Ranjha Ranjha Kardi’ has been the talk of the town for quite some time now. People are obsessed with the play that shows emotions wrapped up under lots of dramatic revelations. Iqra Aziz essays the character of Noori, while Imran Ashraf is truly outstanding in the role of Bhola. Ashraf’s character is suffering from intellectual development disability while Iqra’s character is married to him.
You probably know the rest of the story but here is a recap:
Noori belongs to a poor family and loves reading. She is forcefully married to Bhola, who is intellectually disabled, by her family for the sake of money. Bhola’s family has no regard whatsoever for his mental health. There is another person Sahir, pursuing Sahir. And now Bhola has raped (read: marital rape) her.
The way drama started was problematic too, at least for me. The writer tried to romanticize forced marriages when she tries to show that ‘cute’ bond between Noori and Bhola after marriage. She fails to understand what message she is sending out to the masses, oh! you got married to an intellectually disabled person forcefully? don’t worry, I’ll add a few lines and make it as meaningless I can because this is so common.
Moving on…
Forced marriage wasn’t the only thing the drama showed to be inconsequential. They did the same to marital rape and mental health issues.
The rape scene happened in this weeks episode and had people indulge in the debate. Many started to claim that Bhola is an antagonist. Iqra Aziz too opened up about how the drama talks about marital rape, it’s implications and how it doesn’t only affect women physically but emotionally and mentally too.
Aziz took it the Instagram to address the issue in a post that was deleted later on. She said:
“One of the most pressing issues today that we don’t talk about is that we think of marriage as a binding contract to anything and everything. But marriage is based on trust and love and consent.”
She further went on to say, “Consent to live, to breathe, to be able to say no. I hope Noori and Bhola live happily ever after and let’s see how Noori tackles all the problems and Sahir in this situation.”
As much as we agree with Iqra Aziz on her stance on marital rape, the question we all should be asking is if Bhola is capable of committing such hideous act? Did the medicine given to him by his Chacha play a role? Is he capable of taking any decision on his own? The answer to that is NO. If he was capable of making any decision he would have not be manipulated by our so-called true protagonist Noori on several occasions to keep quiet about certain issues, or to keep a distance from certain people.
So do we call it a marital rape or we don’t? do we let it go and say Bhola wasn’t capable of making a sound decision and ignore the pain of Noori or we stop taking Bhola’s mental health in mind and declare him a culprit right away? I have no answers.
This spin that our writer has added has not only trivialized the mental health but the marital rape too. The drama has become an amalgam of many things with no clear direction or message at all.
