Mrs. & Mr. Shameem - A Zee5 original

  Recently watched a Zee5 web-series Mrs. And Mr. Shameem. I got attracted by the title as well as the trailer. For the first time, I read ‘Mrs’ first and ‘Mr’ afterward, was not aware that it was taken as an irony may be.

   A Pakistani series, from the streets of Lahore, starring the megastar Saba Qamar, tells the love story of a man Shameem (Nauman Ijaz) who is ‘unfit’ in the definition of Macho man, or as society depicts ‘Mard’. Umaina (Saba) is a bold young girl, and in love with the man of her dreams, who impregnates her, and later betrays her. After facing all the hatred from society and her own family she ends up marrying his silent lover Shameem, who owns ‘Nazakat’ than the so-called ‘manly qualities’.

   I am not going to tell the story, but the discussion starts from here. The series may look a bit slow with twenty episodes, each one with 40-50 minutes but gives a voice to some great issues and breaks the stereotypes.

 1) ‘A definition of man’ and ‘Manly qualities’. For sure we can observe Shameem with the theory of Queer. As a student of literature, the first thing I found was the treatment of Shameem’s family towards him, and then society’s torture of him. The story tries to explore the real definition of man. What is more important for a man to be a man? The answer that this series gives is feelings, respect, and support towards his family and friends. A man doesn’t have to have the strength to fight and be protective all the time. It’s just about the capability to repair circumstances after the damage is done and support the family all the time.

Generally, we see elders of all the families are busy controlling the family members rather than supporting them.

2) Motherhood:   Motherhood is always seen as a boon to a woman. But the series shows that Umaina hates her infant and tries to kill him many times. This concept is applied in the story quite logically as she was suffering from postpartum depression which is also called baby blues. In this depression, a mother feels disgusted about the child and sometimes can kill the child too. This can be proved as something new to watch than the stereotypical image of a perfect mother who is always ready to sacrifice everything for the child.

The next character who falls in the category is, Shameem’s sister, she was eagerly craving to be a mother and was being criticized a lot by her husband as well as society. She passed half of her life in regret that she is unable to produce a child and also got involved with black magic but, later she came to know that the fault was in her husband. She broke the shackles of society and started hoping for a better life with Shameem and Umaina’s child Ali. Later on, her husband joined the hijra community and never returned to her. This can be a dramatic end, but the issue that the series raise is that women are still being judged if she doesn’t provide a child within two-three years of their marriage.

3) Child abuse:   There are two incidents of child abuse. First is the daughter of Shameem’s sister, who is being molested by the Maulana and then turned into a rebel. The second is the employ of Shameem, Toni, who was raped by his uncle in childhood and turned out a gay and also a patient of HIV. This reflects the major issue of child harassment with the traumas of childhood. By putting Maulana as a molester, the series has successfully entered into some dark corners of the world of religion.

4) HIV patients:   The last important issue is the treatment of HIV-positive people and the hidden sympathy of some noble people regarding them. Both Shameem and Umaina got an infection of the disease from Toni, as they were deeply in connection with him. Umaina has also lost her second child, a baby girl due to this disease and ill-treatment.

     After a long time, I have got inspired to write something about a web-series is because of its ‘men-centric’ approach and its connection with the LGBT community. As one can never call Shameem a transgender or gay, the series has a hidden slight reflection on the feminine hormones in males and can be called androgynous too (not in all sense – just for understanding). Shameem’s character makes him fall under a ‘Bechara’ as one of the victims. But he wins our hearts.

    Though the end is quite dramatic and the narrative is all about flashbacks, the series is a good watch, one who is fond of Urdu can enjoy the dialogues and especially watch it for the acting of Nauman Ijaz and you have the diva Saba Qamar already there as a bonus.

Here I’m sharing my favorite fragment from it: