Aangan (2018 TV series)

The story is set in a pre-partition India. Khameera Illahi (Zaib Rehman) is a strict and serious matriarch of the haveli, having three sons and two daughters. Muzaffar (Abid Ali), her husband, an unfaithful man who doesn't care for his family, brings his son from another woman, Israr, to the haveli. Although Khameera lets him stay in the haveli, nobody accepts him in the family. Salma (Sonya Hussyn), the young and beautiful daughter of Khameera, falls in love with a poor man, Subhan (Ahsan Khan). When her family opposes their union, she runs away with Subhan. She passes away after a few months due to TB, leaving Subhan and her infant son Safder behind. Subhan leaves his son and goes away. Muzaffar dies, and Mazhar (Omair Rana) takes responsibility for Safder and his sister Najma. When his wife opposes the arrangement, Najma is sent to a boarding school to complete her education. Mazhar and his family keep relocating because of his job. A few years have passed, and Mazhar's daughters Aaliya (Mawra Hocane) and Tehmina (Hira Mani) and Safdar (Ahsan Khan) have grown up. Aaliya and Tehmina befriend their neighbour, Kusum (Rabia Butt), a Hindu widow who lives a lonely life in her paternal house and loves a man named Mohan, whom she cannot marry as per the faith her family follows. Tehmina confesses to her that she and Safdar have feelings for each other and that her mother dislikes him. Due to the disapproval of Tehmina's mother of their relationship, Safdar is asked to leave their house while Tehmina’s marriage gets fixed with her cousin Jameel (Ahad Raza Mir). Kusum commits suicide because of Mohan's betrayal. Safdar is not courageous enough to take a stand to be with Tehmina and leaves a letter for her to get married and move forward in life. He leaves the city and promises her mother that he will never return. Tehmina commits suicide by ingesting poison. Mazhar gets arrested because he attacked a British officer, and Aaliya and her mother (Madiha Rizvi) move back to the haveli. The haveli now mainly consists of six people: Khameera, her elder son, Azhar (Mustafa Afridi), who is usually busy in Congress work and the independence movement, his wife (Uzma Beg); and sons-Jameel, who he loathes because he is a jobless poet and Shakeel, Chammi (Sajal Aly), the abandoned daughter of Jafar and Azhar's niece, the old house help, Kareeman and the always neglected Israr. Jameel keeps flirting with Chammi casually to fulfil the expenses of his education, not aware that she has fallen for him. He stops this after completing his education, and Aaliya comes to the haveli. Jameel starts getting interested in Aaliya while she keeps going away. Aaliya has started dreading love due to her experience with Kusum and Tehmina dying due to heartbreak. While Chammi gets in touch with a boy in her neighbourhood, Jameel keeps persuading Aaliya even after her constant refusal. Aaliya starts to develop feelings for Jameel, much to Chammi's dismay, who admires Aaliya. Things keep going on in such fashion for a few days. Aaliya despite having feelings for Jameel, still detests the idea of love and remains distant from Jameel, she focuses much more on pursuing her studies. Dismayed by Aaliya's constant rejection Jameel joins the British forces and leaves the haveli for his job. Things take an awry turn when Mazhar dies in jail, leaving Aaliya and her mother alone to fend for themselves, though Azhar and his family still support them. A now heartbroken and betrayed Chammi is married and visits them at the birth of her daughter 'Tameezan', while Jameel is away. Aaliya observes that she has become quiet and compliant and has accepted her fate of being married to a man who is nowhere close to the likes of Jameel and has forgotten her identity in a loveless marriage. She is sad to see the forever happy go lucky Chammi become so depressed. Jameel returns in one last attempt to assure Aaliya of his love but his apparent betrayal of Chaami has left Aaliya with a bitter feeling, and she refuses to accept him once more. In the wake of the independence of India and Pakistan and the partition, things get heated up politically. The haveli is also in chaos as Aaliya and her mother decide to leave for Pakistan to her maternal uncle's place. Quite opposite to her mother, who thinks that they will be better taken care of there by his brother and his English wife than in haveli, Aaliya is not much excited about this turn of events. They are not welcomed very warmly by her uncle and his English wife in Pakistan, who shift them to an old bungalow left behind by a Hindu family during partition and fend for themselves. While in India, Azhar is killed by his congressmates for being a Muslim. This leaves haveli very quiet and desolate. Aaliya gets to know of this news from newspaper and is heartbroken to hear of her favourite uncle dying. She reflects on his life and sacrifices for a country which could not do him justice. She joins as a teacher in a refugee camp to pass her time where she meets a doctor, Dr. Ehsan (Shahroz Sabzwari). They gradually form a bond, but that bond is broken when Aaliya sees him as what he is, a money minded, classist man. In between, a now homeless Shakeel also meets Aaliya, Shakeel had run away from home to Pakistan and now steals as a living. Aaliya who considers him her brother provides him with shelter at their home but is duped by him when he runs away with her jewellery as well. All these events make Aaliyah realise that this was not the Pakistan everybody envisioned it to be, and it still had shortcomings because of some dishonest people present with them. Aaliya also meets Safdar in Pakistan, initially angry with him she blames him for her sister's death. He then visits her at the camp and apologizes; she feels bad for him and realizes he also didn't get his true love. She starts communicating with him and develops feelings for him and falls for him, thinking of him as his old honest and caring self. Her mother initially angry that he is at their house but after he tells her he is now a rich businessman. She then agrees that he can marry Aliyah, but as soon as Aaliya listens to him speaking of wealth and how important it is convincing her mother, she rejects his proposal, because he too, has become money minded and cannot provide love to her. At last, Aaliya receives a letter from Chammi, illustrating the events that happened after she left haveli. Chammi is now divorced having returned to Pakistan with her daughter. Her ex-in-laws were forcing her to move to Pakistan with them. This and years of other forms of abuse by them makes Chammi stand up for herself and leave them. She returned to haveli, which now only consists of Kareeman bua, Jameel and his mother. Kareeman bua and Jameel's mother were planning on getting him married, an idea which Chammi supported. Having realized that she could never get Jameel's love and wanting him to be happy with a family of his own. She tries to persuade Jameel to get married but is instead questioned by Jameel as to why she did not move to Pakistan with her ex in laws when she was the only one in their family along with Jameel who supported the idea of Pakistan. To this Chammi honestly replied that she only supported the idea of Pakistan because she wanted to support Jameel and that she could not move to Pakistan leaving him behind in India. She admits that she could not get his love but will now be able to see his face and be with him in the same house, she again insists that he get married and that she would take immense care of his wife and family. Jameel is moved by Chammi's love and one day proposes her for marriage saying that he will forever be indebted to her love. Reading the letter, Aaliya realises that at the end she lost to her fears and is now actually quite loveless in life. The series ends with her contemplating on the lives of those around her, who spent their whole life in the quest of something or other they desired and she, despite having love in her life, lost it due to her fears. ==Cast==

Main • Mawra Hocane as Aaliya : Mazhar's daughter; Tehmina's sister • Ahad Raza Mir as Jameel; Azhar's son; a poet and a politician • Sajal Aly as Chammi : Zafar's daughter • Ahsan Khan as Subhan : Salma's husband; Safdar's father/Safdar : Salma and Subhan's son (dual role) • Hira Mani as Tehmina : Mazhar's daughter; Aaliya's sister • Sonya Hussyn as Salma : Subhan's wife; Safdar's mother Recurring • Zaib Rehman as Khameera Illahi : the domineering matriarch of the haveli; Salma's mother • Abid Ali as Muzaffar : Khameera's husband ; Salma and Israr's father • Omair Rana as Mazhar : Salma's brother; Tehmina and Aaliya's father • Madiha Rizvi as Mazhar's wife; Tehmina and Aaliya's mother • Mustafa Afridi as Azhar : Salma's brother; Shakeel and Jameel's father • Uzma Beg as Azhar's wife; Shakeel and Jameel's mother • Hassan Noman as Israr; Muzaffar's son • Shehroz Sabzwari as Dr. Ehsaan • Rabia Butt as Kusum; a Hindu widow • Beena Masroor as Mazhar's mother; Tehmina and Aaliya's grandmother • Shehryaar Ali as Shakeel : Azhar's son; Jameel's brother • Shabana Bhatti as Kareeman Bua • Shehzad Kashmiri • Ali Rizvi as Mohan; Kusum's love and ex-husband • Shamayal Tareen as Najma : Subhan and Salma's daughter; Safdar's sister • Haleema Bint Fatima as young Najma • Waseem Manzoor as Zafar; Chammi's father • Akbar Islam as Kussum's father • Khizer Gul • Alizay Javed • Shazia Goher as Didi; Mohan's sister ==Background and production==

Writing The novel Aangan was written by Khadija Mastoor in 1962, and won the Adamji Literacy Award in the next year. It was also translated into 13 languages, with ''The Women's Courtyard in English by Daisy Rockwell. While the original novel is set in the 1940s and 1950s, Dawn Images'' reported in December 2017 that this drama, which is based on that novel, is planned as a three-part series spanning a number of decades and will also feature the story of the 1980s and 2000s as in continuity. The director Ehteshamuddin told The News in a March 2017 interview, "It was initially thought out as a film but now we're making a play out of it," adding, "We might turn it into a film later." He chose Mustafa Afridi to write the screenplay. Mustafa told Daily Times in a September 2018 interview that it took him a year to "understand the novel and a year and a half to adapt it" as a script. He commented that "all the characters have been defined in" skilled great detail by the author, and he worked hard to "stay true" to the "essence of the novel and its characters" while script-writing. He strongly hoped to "take the story forward from where" Khadija left it, into two sequels. It is based on the partition of the Indian Subcontinent and the resulting independence of Pakistan. It depicts a Hindustani family that was divided mercilessly before the partition of Pakistan by the unfortunate time incidents. The story also has a political take, including British Raj, All-India Muslim League and Indian National Congress. In a January 2018 interview, the director praised the simplicity of the novel, "It sheds light on the revolution that women went through in those times", and "Set in an inner courtyard, the story has been told from the perspective of a woman." On 17 October 2017, it was reported that Mawra Hocane had signed up for the project. On 28 March, Dawn Images published an interview with Mawra, in which she revealed she will be playing the protagonist and narrator of the story. The story will be told from her character's perspective, who will be seen romancing three men. Casting and filming On 19 October 2017, it was reported that Ahsan Khan had signed up for Aangan, along with Sajal Aly and Ahad Raza Mir. On 4 November, Sonya Hussyn signed up for the project, all in the lead cast. Principal photography began on 7 November 2017 in Wazirabad. Sajal confirmed her shoot on 5 December, while Mawra on 27 December. Other cast in supporting roles include Abid Ali and Zaib Rehman, along with Omair Rana and Uzma Hassan. The first spell was completed in January 2018, and then the second spell was completed in March. Hira Mani joined the cast in third shooting spell, also as in lead role. On 19 July, it was revealed that Rabia Butt will have a cameo role in the drama and two songs have been picturised on her. Other cast include Madiha Rizvi, Shehzad Kashmiri and Ali Rizvi. The spell took place between June and August 2018 in Karachi. On 26 September, the role of Shehroz Sabzwari was also revealed. The casting was mostly done by Momina Duraid, who reportedly kept delaying the shoots to cast the right actors she wanted, as they were not available before. Khizer Idrees has served as the cinematographer for the drama. Sajal Aly told Gulf Times that every character "is equally important", having "its own journey", as it "follows multiple beautiful characters" and is "about everyone involved". She added that "it focuses on the partition of a family" as "physical and emotional divide of a country". The curtain raiser, hosted by Sanam Jang, was telecast live on 13 December 2018. The drama began on 20 December, and aired an episode every Thursday. The drama marked the second appearance of Ahsan Khan with Sonya Hussyn and with Mawra Hocane after the Haasil (2016), and Ahsan with Sonya after Marasim. It also marked the second collaboration of Ahad Raza Mir with Mawra after Sammi (2017), and with Sajal Aly and Hira Mani after the Yaqeen Ka Safar (2017). It was the fifth collaboration of the director with MD Productions after Aseerzadi (2013), Sadqay Tumhare (2014), Preet Na Kariyo Koi (2015) also starring Ahsan and Hira, and Udaari (2016) while director's third collaboration also with writer after Aseerzadi (2013) and Mohabbat.PK (2017). == Release and distribution ==

Broadcast Aangan's first episode was aired on 20 December 2018 while before the series premiere introductional program of the show The Curtain Raiser was aired on 13 December 2018. It aired weekly episode every Thursday at 8:00pm succeeding Duraid's Main Khayal Hoon Kisi Aur Ka. It was aired on Hum Europe in UK, on Hum TV USA in USA Home media and digital release After the series premiere, Hum TV announced that the episodes of the serial will not be uploaded on YouTube. Later in April 2020, Mawra Hocane who played the role of Aaliya revealed that Aangan will be released on a digital platform with some editings. ==Reception==

Critical response The series received mostly positive reviews from critics with praise towards the performances, visuals and cinematography. Aly's performance received widespread critical acclaim as is regarded as one of her best. In November 2018, the series received immense appraisal for its promos. On its first episode, the series received positive reviews. Sadaf Haider of DAWN Images praised the writing of the series due to the nuanced characters and the treatment of the minority characters, and noted the direction due to authenticity of the era and visuals. Sajal Aly's performance as Chammi received widespread acclaim from critics, and is regarded as one of her best. Maira Kiari of Dawn Images ranked her performance among the top 6 performances of the television in 2019. Buraq Shabbir of The News International praised the character of Chammi for its strong headedness and resilience including it among the "inspirational characters". After concluding the series, In another review she hailed it as "her lifetime performance", and further opined that she, "stole the limelight and overshadowed everyone and everything else surrounding the recently concluded play." While writing for Masala.com, the reviewer noted the grey shades, problems and the free-spirit of the character and praised Aly's performance. Ratings The show was popular in UK where it mostly topped the chart among the Urdu television serials while the 15th episode of the show took the lead among all the Asian television shows and was watched by 49,200 viewers – peaking at 50,500 viewers according to the exclusive data obtained by BizAsia. ==Soundtrack==

The various soundtracks were prepared for the serial. The original soundtrack "Haari Haari" was performed by Farhan Saeed and Naveed Nashad, lyrics were written by Imran Raza while composed by Nashad also. The other soundtracks such as "Bholi Bano" and "Wavella" were played and picturized on a single specific occasion. == Accolades ==