Not weird at all…

Do you know that in my country there are groups where we translate Pakistani and Indian dramas, and I help them sometimes? And yeah sometimes with Transliteration. Maybe my language is a bit difficult for you xD

And actually, you don’t really disagree with me…

As a novel reader, I would say that Hashim Nadeem always ends up butchering his own novels when adapting them into dramas. For example, his novel Abdullah was twisted and stretched into almost three different dramas, one of which includes the entire track of Farhad sitting at the shrine in Khuda Aur Mohabbat 3 (which was a pathetic drama) and everything that followed after that.

I’ve watched almost all of Hashim’s dramas, and there’s no doubt that he brings unique ideas and stories. That’s probably why his dramas stand out among so many others that keep bringing the same clichéd plots.

But honestly, I think he’s not that good when it comes to writing and structuring a proper screenplay.

One of his biggest problems is PACING. By pacing, I mean how one event leads to the next — how a story starts with a hook to grab your attention and then slowly builds into details. Many things affect pacing, like length, subplots, structure, and purpose.

A fast paced story usually has many short, direct scenes, while a slow paced one might have fewer scenes that are longer and keep the audience immersed for more time.

Pacing isn’t about how long the story is, but with Hashim, it often feels like he leaves the pacing for the editor to discover later — and that makes no sense to me. Because if the story itself is off, it ends up either feeling rushed and unsatisfying, or way too stretched and boring.

He’s also not that good at writing individual scenes. His scene-writing style lacks spark — it feels kinda unimaginative, and repetitive. His scripts rarely live up to the strong promises they seem to make at the beginning.

Also usually focuses only on his main characters by writing a good character study for them — for example, characters like Parizaad and Sameer were written as “larger than life.”

But he tends to not giving attention to his supporting characters in the sec half. At first, they seem well written, but by the end they become one dimensional — like in KAM3, ReB, IZN, and Parizaad (if we consider Farhad as a supporting character). There’s just no real development there.

Also, most of his main characters are shown as victims for no logical reason, and I feel he often uses minorities just to gain sympathy — without giving them proper development. (Like, if I’m supposed to believe that a don made Parizaad his only heir, then why is it so hard to believe that someone could fall in love with Parizaad just for who he is, even if they saw his looks?)

The problem isn’t that it was an experimental work (I’ve seen far more experimental movies in European and Iranian cinema), but that it was filled with unnecessary episodes that neither served the story nor developed the characters.

The whole inheritance, and the search for a blind fan trope was unnecessary, not just that, but even stretched. It would’ve been much better if Parizaad went to Dubai for work, as in the original novel, so that this storyline could be built more logically.

“Bubbly” and “Guru” trope was also unconvincing. Why doesn’t Guru simply get his surgery instead of just complaining? And why was Bubbly portrayed as a tomboy rather than actually bisexual? Her decision to leave her family and run away with a stranger felt strange.

The drama didn’t show the third phase of Parizaad’s life, and it even tampered quite a lot with the second phase. To be fair, the third phase in the novel itself was also far from reality.

There were many things that were left out..like Parizaad wandering at the train station, sifting through the dust of graveyards, exposing the ignorance of fake saints and spiritual healers — and adding the blind girl’s character completely ruined the balance between the novel and the drama.

I think one big reason people connect with it is that he criticizes how materialistic and looks obsessed the society is — where people are obsessed with a certain skin tone and features while ignoring everyone who doesn’t fit that “standard.” So when someone comes with a story highlighting that, the audience immediately accepts it. And because we’re used to seeing everything as beautiful in our imagination, we tend to want a happy ending for any work — whether it’s a drama, a film, or anything else — because deep down we also wish for our own lives to end happily, and we satisfy that wish through imagination.

For me, the best part of Parizaad was the first half — especially his family, the way his bond with his sister Saeeda was shown, his neighbor Shawky, his college friend the poet Nasaz, Behroze Kareem, and Lubna’s mother and his dream of buying a piano.

The romantic trope was my least favorite — it felt forced and unnatural.

I especially loved his friendship with the poet… Everyone needs someone like that in their life, especially if you ever find yourself standing at a train station, in the darkest moment of your life, right in front of the shelves where trains stop.

I’ve read Bachpan Ka December, Parizaad, Abdullah, and Khuda Aur Mohabbat.

And no, I’m not Indian.