Moksha World

This month’s show is not a crime drama, not even a mystery. I’m not a big fan of comedy, so this is about as “fun” as I get when it comes to television!

This is a Pakistani series whose title translates to “Life is Beautiful”. I was captivated by the characters and the storyline. The acting is outstanding and shifted my perception of Pakistan. The central theme of the show is the relationship between Kashaf and Zaroon. They come from different social classes, each with their own emotional baggage. They do not like each other at first but end up agreeing to marry. Needless to say, their marriage doesn’t start out well.

Zaroon’s family is upper class and modern, and he is rather arrogant and entitled. Kashaf comes from a traditional family and is working hard to complete her education in order to help support her mother and sisters. Her father left her mother when she failed to produce a son and he now has a new family. He pays little attention to his daughters and we see the scar this leaves on Kashaf and her mother throughout the series. I spent a lot of time between each episode worrying about how Kashaf and Zaroon would rescue their relationship. There were several times it seemed they would give up as neither wanted to compromise, on anything. 

I expected a series from Pakistan to be full of unfamiliar issues. Yet, most of the disagreements between Kashaf and Zaroon were quite common. Since the beginning of time, men and women have been in an endless cycle of negotiating our co-existence on this planet. Each gender wants to live by their own principles as much as possible given their environment. But if neither wants to compromise, we all suffer the consequences. It was interesting to see how Kashaf’s relationship with her father became so central to her relationship with Zaroon. Their relationship begins to improve as she accepts that Zaroon does not share her father’s view on women.

Sometimes my experiments to watch just a few episodes of a show to see what it’s like are disappointing. But this series is why I do these experiments, for the occasional delightful find. We’ve all dealt with people that we feel we can never find common ground with. Someone that we think we can never agree with, on anything. But maybe, just maybe, there is someone out there that is worth all the frustration. Eventually you’ll understand each other and can’t imagine life without one another. At the end of the series, I was full of hope that humanity could begin to reconcile their differences. It is possible if we stay open to seeing things we didn’t see previously, or didn’t want to see.

The series is available on Netflix and isn’t terribly long. There are more episodes than a typical Netflix series, but a lot less than a telenovela. A friend of mine also watched this series and loved it as well. I hope you’ll give it a try. This is one of my favorite onscreen couples – flawed, yet interesting and endearing. 

I wasn’t able to find a trailer with English subtitles but if you watch this short clip, I think you’ll get an idea of what we’re dealing with. They are in the library and Zaroon is speaking about Kashaf, not realizing that she is overhearing his conversation. The tone in her voice when she confronts him is clear even without subtitles!