Shehzori

About This Drama

Shehzori (1973) holds a special place in the history of Pakistani drama as the debut serial of Haseena Moin — the writer who would go on to become the most influential dramatist in the history of PTV. Adapted from a work by Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai and directed by Mohsin Ali, the drama told the story of Tara and Mustafa, a young couple who marry without their parents' knowledge and must then navigate the consequences of that decision across the full opposition of two families. Neelofar Abbasi's portrayal of Tara — determined, clear-eyed, and refusing to be diminished by the disapproval around her — introduced a kind of female protagonist that Haseena Moin would develop and refine across her entire subsequent career. Shehzori was, in the fullest sense, a beginning: of a writer's voice, of a character type, and of a standard for Pakistani drama that would take the medium to extraordinary places in the years that followed.