The third episode of Aangan was heart-breaking and quiet emotional because we saw Subhan and Salma’s love story come to a tragic halt. She had been suffering from Tuberculosis and even though she knew that she would not live longer, that did not stop her from staying positive in life and let her love for Subhan and her unborn child remain. And within the next 10 minutes of the episode, Aba Mian shuns his mistresses out of the village because and Ama Jaan orders that his illegitimate children stay with them.
The first half of the episode was played in fast forward, a lot happened but everything was left to be expressed in the second half. The way Salma’s story line was crafted seemed quite promising at first, however in mere 3 episodes, you see her rise and fall without impact. The morbidity of the situation was also complimented with the death of 2 of Abba Mian’s children with Akhtari, but the conversation between him and wife lacked empathy and connection as if neither one of them was bothered by the situation. A little disturbing perhaps, which leads us to wonder that the characters have been strongly crafted but they lack emotional maturity and depth.
Salma’s death did bring a strong reaction from some of the family members in the second half, particularly the one when Amma Jaan finds out about her demise and runs into the house screaming like a frantic woman. Probably for the second time in the first 3 episodes we see Amma Jaan in a vulnerable state, a mother who has bottled all her pain and knows that something ill going to happen. So when she bangs her hands on the door and blames Abba Jaan for Salma’s death is the only strong moment in episode 3. All the characters in the house do not have any bonding and it was highlighted even more when the bari bhabhi and choti dulhan are talking about Salma’s death. The choti dulhan clearly isnt sympathetic and disagrees with the mourning of Salma’s death whereas the bari bhabhi is defending the feeling any mother would have when she looses a child.
We see Azhar finally returning after his sister’s death, but his silence and callous attitude towards his wife and to the news of his sister’s passing seemed like a miserable trick played on us. We were expecting a little heart and emotion, but maybe that’s upto Mazhar to care in his own way. Towards the end of the episode, when we see Subhan warming up some milk for his new born son, the situation kid of felt a little misplaced. We wanted to see more of anguish and pain from a man who just lost his wife but the only loss we saw was when he gave his new born Safdar to Mazhar (who we’re assuming will be taking care of him from hereon).
Over all, episode 3 of Aangan was high on emotions, anger and aggravation, but it did not have the impact that we were hoping for. Like we said earlier, the characters lack emotional depth and everything happened so fast, you almost feel like you’ve lost connection and therefore not engaging enough. But we’re expecting more from episode 4 because we get to see glimpses of Sajal and Ahad.
