Meray Paas Tum Ho

Meray Paas Tum Ho (Urdu: میرے پاس تم ہو‎; transl. I have you) is a 2019 Pakistani romantic drama television series produced by Humayun Saeed and Shahzad Nasib under their production banner Six Sigma Plus. Directed by Nadeem Baig and written by Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar, the show starred Humayun Saeed, Ayeza Khan and Adnan Siddiqui. The show aired on ARY Digital from 17 August 2019 to 25 January 2020.

Plot

Summary

Danish is a simple man with moral values of idealised Pakistani culture. He works as a government officer. His whole world revolves around his wife Mehwish and son Roomi. Subsequently his wife Mehwish gets in extra marital relation with a businessman Shehwar Ahmad getting under influence of his flattery and attraction of his wealth. He even offers Mehwish a high position job in his office with a very high salary and added perks but Mehwish’s son and husband disapprove of her job in his office as they suspect the extra marital relationship.

After sometime Mehwish leaves her husband and son and starts a new life with Shehwar. After almost 6 or 7 months of a live-in relationship with Shehwar she convinces him to marry her but on the day of their wedding, Shehwar’s first wife Maham arrives back to Pakistan. She is the sole owner of the wealth that Shehwar has. When she realizes that Shehwar was going to marry Mehwish she slaps Mehwish tightly across the face and asks her to leave her house immediately. Subsequently Shehwar Ahmad loses both his wealth and respect because of Maham who put him in jail hence he abandons Mehwish.

When Mewish visits him in jail he refuses to even acknowledge her and asks her to go away from his life and blames her that she is the reason His wife put him in jail. Mehwish has nowhere to go now and on the other side Danish sold his old flat and invest the money in stock market and became rich over the course of these months.

During the course of these months Danish develops a friendly relationship with Roomi’s teacher – Hania but she develops real feelings for Danish. She even proposes him as she fell in love with him but Danish does not reciprocate her feelings. Mehwish on the other hand contacts Danish’s business partner- Salman for help. He is also a mutual friend of theirs from college. Through him she asks for Danish’s forgiveness repeatedly and requests to meet him once. Danish sends her a message through Salman that he has forgiven her but he does not want to meet her. She even attempts suicide but Danish doesn’t show any affection neither turns up to meet her at the hospital. Everybody comes to know of Shehwar Ahmed’s Fate due to media coverage of his jail term. After a lot of insisting from Roomi and Salman, Danish agrees on meeting Mehwish once. When he meets her he suffers a major heart attack due to facing her and all the grief of disloyalty that she gave him. He passes away in the hospital. Even Maham forgives Shehwar and brings him home but demotes his post in the office from the CEO to a minor executive. This doesn’t go well with Shehwar and he realizes his all his mistakes and leaves from Maham’s home and life forever.

Cast

Main cast

• Humayun Saeed as Danish Akhtar
• Ayeza Khan as Mehwish
• Adnan Siddiqui as Shehwaar Ahmed

Recurring cast

• Hira Mani as Hania; Roomi’s teacher
• Shees Sajjad Gul as Roomi; Danish’s son
• Mehar Bano as Anushey; Mehwish’s friend
• Hina Javed as Wateera; Hania’s sister
• Mohammad Ahmed as Mateen; Danish’s colleague, Hania’s father
• Furqan Qureshi as Salman; Danish’s friend
• Rehmat Ajmal as Aisha; Danish and Mehwish’s friend, Salman’s wife
• Musaddiq Malik as Monty; Danish and Mehwish’s neighbor

Guest appearances

• Savera Nadeem as Maham Syed
• Shamim Hilaly as Roomi’s school principal
• Anoushay Abbasi as Ifra; Monty’s wife
• Waseem Lashari as Anti-corruption officer

Episodes

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. The specific problem is: Multiple rows in the table do not provide any additional information only episode number and dates changed. Which can be summarized in couple of sentences. Table does not do any thing more than decorative work Please help improve this section if you can. (April 2020)(Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Reception

The show became one of the most popular serial of 2019 after airing its first episode in Pakistan. The show received best ever TV ratings becoming the best ever ranked drama in the history of Pakistan. Last episode of the drama was viewed by almost more than 79.6 million people in Pakistan.

The Performances and Chemistry of Saeed and Khan were praised by critics. Alysha Khan of HipInPakistan wrote, “Saeed absolutely killed it with a Good Boy Avatar, and he shares great on-screen chemistry with Khan and also praised Khan’s performance”. Sarah Shaukat of Entertainment Pakistan wrote, “Saeed stole the show with towering performance in every scene he managed to impress with his attitude and dialogue delivery while Khan was consistent and looked really good”. Laiba Sabeen of OyeYeah wrote, “The Superb Performances of Saeed, Khan, Siddiqui, and Baig’s brilliant direction keeps the viewers engaged in a crisp story”. Maliha Rehman of DAWN wrote, “Humayun Saeed at his very best, making his audience cry with him. Beautiful dialogues by Khalil-ur-Rehman and Nadeem Baig directing with such sensitivity”.

Feminist view

The TV drama serial was received in Pakistan’s feminist circles with skepticism & reservation. Specially the script writer got criticized for his misogynist views. Author Aisha Sarwari says drama convinces audience that it is okay to slur at and slut shame materialistic women, and this double standard is morally questionable since Pakistani society in general & bridegrooms in particular are known for dowry seeking and can not claim high moral ground vis a vis materialistic women. While actually Pakistan is known for acid attacks, domestic violence, serious levels of honor killings of women even at suggestion of freedom of choice. Sarwari says sadly depiction is falsified far from real life and one won’t find even in 1000 km of South Asia any very positive, patient and giving protagonist as depicted in the drama. Sarwari believes that this kind of content trends in Pakistan since there is lack of actual better actual life characters than this in Pakistan society.

Afiya S. Zia not only criticizes the author for his sexist views but also criticizes content of family drama scripts dished out by Pakistani Television channels since last 20 years as advice literature of digest authors as writing such content which rather than questioning, normalizes & internalizes injustices to women in Pakistan in garb of piety, modesty, and religious agency preaching lessons to women to submit themselves and continue to remain subservient to a male dominated patriarchy of Pakistan. Afiya S. Zia says the TV series presentation creates a false narrative that Pakistani patriarchal family structure do take care of all family members equally, practically which is far from the truth rather Pakistani women are meted out with discrimination and violent backlash for demanding their sexual freedoms.

Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar entered into altercations with Pakistani feminist Marvi Sirmed over slogans in Aurat March on International Women’s Day including Mera Jism Meri Marziduring a television debate in March 2020.

Quite a few placards in Aurat March on International Women’s Day 2020 were critical of misogyny & sexism of the author Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar expressed through his participation in reality tv shows & drama both.

Controversies over dialogues and statements

Some of the dialogues in the TV serial and some of the later statements of Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar invited debate controversies from liberal and feminists in social media and mainstream media both.

One of the TV serial dialogue refers protagonist character in the serial as “do take ki aurat (second rate / worthless woman)” became famous among misogynists of Pakistan and severely criticized by feminists. Feminist Tahira Abdullah called out the wording judgemental, it’s not for any one to judge a woman good or bad based on woman’s loyalty; respect and dignity is woman’s right not dependent on anyone else’s willingness. Just by being a woman she deserves to be treated human born equal to not beg but claim equal rights. Women do not need men to define standards of behavior for women and categorize who is good or bad woman, referring to famous utterance of Qamar that women by definition are modest & loyal and those who are not modest and loyal do not deserve to be called women at all. In the same debate Qmar called himself to be “the biggest feminist”. Pakistani actress Iffat Omar pointing out at last episode of the serial poses question over double standard Qamar presented Pakistani conservative narrative that, a Pakistani woman is expected and idealized for forgiving husband’s disloyalty as Maham the wife of extra-marital affair involved Shehwaar Ahmed forgives him, same time lead protagonist character of Danish is shown to not able to bear extra marital relation of his wife Mehawish but rather prefers death as sign of non-forgiving Pakistani male’s non-acceptance of spousal choice same time entitled Pakistani males expecting forgiveness for their own behavior.

In other debates he also made other controversial statements like “women should gang rape men if they want equality.”; “Aurat March is a conspiracy of some 35 women who belong to a specific class.” Pakistani actress Iffat Omar responded back saying women do not ask equality to rape men but to redress patriarchal double standards & injustices towards fellow women.

Latter couple of actors of the serial preferred to distance themselves from ensuing controversies. Actress Rehmat Ajmal accepted she stumbled a little since she was not aware enough how the TV serial will come out on the screen, and that she necessarily does not endorse controversial views expressed by the writer Qamar. Actor Adnan Siddiquiattempting to sound politically correct said that he understands the dialogues had problematic leanings and he wished drama could have been more nuanced in depiction of women.

Production

In an interview with Dawn Images Ayeza Khan confirmed that she’s starring in a drama serial Mere Paas Tum Ho, with Humayun Saeed. In an interview Khalil-Ur-Rehman Qamar said that Sonya Hussyn, Sanam Jung and Ayeza Khan was offered for the role of Mehwish. Likewise, the role of Danish was previously offered to Feroze Khan who refused after a falling out with the writer Khalil-Ur-Rehman Qamar. A Nadeem Baig’s directional, written by Khalil-Ur-Rehman Qamar and Produced by Humayun Saeed and Shahzad Nasib the duo previously worked together in 2017 Blockbuster film Punjab Nahi Jaungi. On 22 November 2018 shooting started and On 17 July 2019 the shooting wrapped. On being asked why he choose this drama Saeed said that “this script was great and it was with him for 3 years but he was focusing on his films so Nadeem decided to cast someone else. But Khalil became angry because he wanted Saeed to play the lead role in this drama So Saeed agreed to do this Drama Serial”. On 31 July 2019 The first look and teaser was released. The second teaser was released on 3 August 2019.

Ratings

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. The specific problem is: Section is written like a press release with non-neutral language, hyperbole and puffery. Please help improve this section if you can. (April 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Meray Paas Tum Ho became the first Pakistani drama to trend no 1 on twitter worldwide. It started off very well, the first episode gained 10.9 TRPs which is the highest ever first episode ratings. Episode 23 which was the last episode of the serial got 37.1 TRPs, which is the highest ratings of any TV program of Pakistan. Episode 22 got 26.2 TRPs, which is the 2nd highest ratings of any TV program of Pakistan, while, Episode 17 got 24.9 TRPs, which is the 3rd highest ratings of any TV program of Pakistan. Episode 20 got 24.0 TRPs, which is the 4th highest ratings of any TV program of Pakistan.

The final episode was a ‘mega double episode’ and aired on 25 January 2020 and was simultaneously shown on TV as well as being screened in major cinemas across Pakistan (in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad). The cast were present at Nueplex Cinema in Karachi for the finale.

Soundtrack

The title song was sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. The music was composed by Naveed Nashad and the lyrics were written by Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar. Meray Paas Tum Ho on SoundCloud

Awards and nominations

Pakistan International Screen Awards

It won seven awards in PISAs:

• Best TV Play-Mere Paas Tum Ho
• Best TV Director-Nadeem Baig
• Best TV Actor-Humayun Saeed
• Best TV Actress-Ayeza Khan
• Best TV Writer-Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar
• Best TV Critics Actor-Adnan Siddiqui
• Best Original Soundtrack

Lux Style Awards

It is nominated in 19th Lux Style Awards in the following categories:

• Best TV Play-ARY Digital-Won
• Best Director-Nadeem Beyg-Nominated
• Best Actor-Humayun Saeed-Nominated
• Best Actress-Aiza Khan-Nominated
• Best Writer-Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar-Nominated
• Best Emergening Talent-Shees Sajjad Gul-Won