Woh Khawab Woh Khayal (Sidra Abbas)- Review by Shoby

Woh Khawab Woh Khayal (Sidra Abbas)- Review by Shahbaz Ali Naqvi (Shoby)

Women Empowerment is the voice of this century. We have seen some great women in the history who have stood up firm against the tyranny faced by either themselves or other women in this male dominated society. Same is depicted in different art forms and almost every domain of art has done its part in this regard. Sidra Abbas took the same subject matter and gave us her take in this mystery titled as Woh Khawab Woh Khayal in TMS Darr Matt.

Let me tell you that regardless of being relatively new in the business, Sidra is a very authentic writer and her command on portraying social taboos is amazing. I have been a fan of her story Dhool, for which she won a position in TMS Season One. So, it was quite obvious for me that whatever she will write, she will surely highlight some serious social issues and WKWK is the picture of my words.

WKWK is a beautiful blend of two stories with the primary focus on the little developing love story between a young college going boy with a lady in her mid 30s (a love story with different religious backgrounds too) and another story which makes the ultimate background climax of the story of a courageous woman, who tried to fight for her right but ended up being abused in the society both morally and physically. You know what, the fear emerges from where the tyranny ends and here the writer produced the same.

Although the premises of the story seems to be a tested & tried formula but Sidra has done well to mark her own stamp onto the story. She is a keen observer and what I like about her writing is her dialect which goes smoothly well with the aura of the story. She used the environment of ancient Aligarh in this story and used two different languages. One being pure Aligarh style Hindi dialect of Urdu and second, native language of the locals with a bit hard & stretched accent. The backbone of this story is the amazing use of old song's lyrics and Ghazals amalgamated well with some dance.

The writer has a habit of using some real eye catching lines after every now & then. See how beautifully she portrays the feelings. Kabhi kabhi main sochti hoon ke is puri dharti mein aik ramz hai, aik taal hai...Raat mein aisa kiya hai... Raat mein khushi hai, jashan hai, milan hai...Woh sangeet ki malka thi... Jab gaati to jatey musafir ruk ker sunney lagtey... Jab naachti to waqt ki dharkan bhi saakin ho jati... Woh kala ka fakhar thi...

In order to gel in with the theme of the competition, writer used some amazing chill creating scenes where a woman is shown dancing in nights. The mystery enhances with the supremely graceful lady sings or listens to some of the great old compositions with all the sorrow and sadness, depicted through her face. Dialogues are rich and give a feeling of you being there right into the proceedings. Sidra was never in a hurry and she brought the penultimate climax with sheer ease and flexibility.

Let me also discuss some short comings in the story that the writer needs to work on. First of all, this story was placed in such an environment, where we have already seen multiple stories already. I would have been more happy if the writer would have taken some unique premises. I expect these writers to do some extra effort and come up with diverse unexplored ideas. Secondly. apart from a couple of scenes, no serious fear factors were present in the plot and it looked more like a social drama than a horror mystery. But still,m this story is a winner in its own domain and it remains with the reader for her larger than life scenes and classical dance and musical background.

PS: Don't Forget To Give Your Valuable Comments in Below Box

Jo Tu Chahey To (Zohra Khalid)- Review by Shoby

Jo Tu Chahey To (Zohra Khalid)- Review by Shahbaz Ali Naqvi (Shoby)

Vanessa: Let it end. With a kiss.

Ethan: With a kiss. With love.

Vanessa: With love.

(Penny Dreadful)

Horror, mystery, suspense and thrillers are the genres, I love the most. I believe, trying any of these genres is as much difficult as writing comedy. Reason is quite visible, here, you have a vast land to explore but in the same time, you have a very less margin of getting diverted from your main pitch of ground. The intensity of the risk even more increases, when you are coping up with a psychological thriller and Zohra Khalid is a brave writer, who tried to write on this genre.

I read Zohra Khalid for the first time in The Master Storyteller (Season One) and to tell you honestly, her first story didn't impressed me much, even if I give her the margin of being a new comer. But as they say, hard work is the key to success, I have never seen someone more hardworking than Zohra and result is quite clear. From Muhabbaton Ke Jahan Mein to Jo Tu Chahey To, she has come a long way and I have witnessed immense improvement in her writing. Her thought process & brainstorming is a clear indication of how unique, she wants to write and this story JTCT has strengthened my belief that she is here to make her own mark in our literature.

JTCH deals with the complexity of human emotions and reactions of individuals on the actions of our so-called society. The more we try to hide ourselves from others by avoiding their miss-deeds, the more they try to influence us through their desperate and demotivating acts.

JTCH stands tall on depicting two major phenomenon. One, how a couple especially the ladies of our society goes through both mentally & physically, when they are lacking something and secondly, how the overall society damages their integrity & abolishes their own confidence through their negative feedback. It is a simple say, if you cant solve anyone's problem, don't try to become the part of the problem, but alas, we, collectively, does not endorse the same. On the same page, Zohra very delicately presented a nice strong bond of the couple and their cooperation with each other, while going through a dark phase of their live. This is actually what relationships require, to be with each other, in every thick & thin.

Considering the theme of TMS Darr Matt competition, what excited me the most in JTCH, was Zohra's different game plan to go with. Believe me, this was one of the genres, I wanted participants to explore but unfortunately, no one paid attention on this shade of fear. Frank Herbert says, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

This psychological thriller was a nice compact tale of how you should overcome with the fear of uncertainty, in order to achieve the triumph. The nice little dream sequences in the story were a real winner and I just loved the way Zohra used English mono-liners. Lines like I don't live in darkness, The Darkness lives in me... All monsters are humans... I love the darkness in you... are penned beautifully and they really brought some chills in the plot.

They were more than effective in enhancing the overall flavor of the story. It was indeed a sigh of relief to see a young writer summing the whole thing up by using merely two main protagonists with a couple of supporting characters. Thankfully, she conveyed her message clearly without making any mess by using needless number of characters.

I would also like to mention a few shortcomings, that should be avoided in future by the writer in order to make her writings more powerful. No doubt, she is a keen observer and her research is visible in the plot, but she needs to focus more on dialogues structure building. It is a very bad habit of our new young lot of writers that they don't focus on grammatical & phonetic detailing. And the worst part is, they don't differentiate between narrative & dialogue writing. This is a matter of concern for Zohra as well. But I believe, she will improve in future. Considering it as the initial phase of her writing career, I must say, with a little more hard work & creative thinking, she can become a brilliant writer. You all should remember Paulo Coelho's famous saying, "Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure."

PS: Don't Forget To Give Your Valuable Feedback in The Below Comment Box