KARACHI: Pakistani actor Mira Sethi, currently starring in the drama serial Kuch Ankahi which has gotten widespread praise for its exploration of ‘progressive’ themes, said on Sunday the show was also receiving an “amazing” response from neighboring India.
Kuch Ankahi went on air in January this year and, twenty-two episodes in, has been making waves not just in Pakistan but also in India over its portrayal of issues like minority rights, women empowerment, mental health and gender stereotypes.
“The response from India has really been amazing, I actually get a lot of messages from people in India saying that they love watching something so progressive coming from Pakistan,” Sethi told Arab News in a live session on Instagram.
In fact, the boom in social and video-sharing media, particularly YouTube, could help Pakistani dramas cater to audiences all over the world, said the actress, who has also authored a collection of original stories that upend traditional notions of identity and family, titled ‘Are You Enjoying?’
“The small screen is so powerful. For every one person who has read my book, 10,000 people have watched my shows. We genuinely are living in the golden age of TV,” she said.
“We have audiences in India, Bangladesh, America and UK. With social media and YouTube, you can bypass that formula ... you can cater to people in all of South Asia.”
Sethi said rather than looking at entirely weak or strong women characters in Pakistani dramas, there was “a dire need to convey fully formed human beings.”
“We are told audiences do not want to watch dramas like Kuch Ankahi. It’s crap, frankly,” Sethi added. “If you make something good, people do watch it. It [Kuch Ankahi] was a slow burner but it eventually found its audience.”
Kuch Ankahi revolves around a middle-class family with three daughters, each trying to break away from the social conditioning of their mother. Sethi plays the role of the elder daughter, Samiya, who is calm and quiet but always has a plan.
In real life, Sethi said, she wasn’t very “quiet” like Samiya but she did identify with the character for her “foresight.”
She also hinted that a transition in Samiya’s character would surprise audiences at the end of Kuch Ankahi, which has only three episodes left, and credited the writer of the drama, Syed Mohammad Ahmed, who also plays the father of the three sisters, for adding “nuance” to the narrative.
