Bilqees Kaur

Bilqees Kaur is a very unique story of sacrifice, deceit and the process of everyone being encouraged to change and be confident in standing up for themselves.

The story is about an old Pakistani Sikh woman who converts to Islam after getting married to a man that she truly loves, however, due to his laziness and lack of interest in any kind of work, she takes responsibility to become the ‘man of the house.’

This drama is set in New York and shows Bilqees (Bushra Ansari) owning a small Pakistani restaurant which helps her bring bread and butter onto the table. She is seen as a very controlling woman and makes the children as well as the husband feel less of themselves by telling them that she is the reason that their house is running properly. The couple have four children, two sons and two daughters, who are very different from each other and most definitely different from their mother.

Although they live in New York, the kids are forced to live in a ‘pendu’ atmosphere where the daughters have to wear unfashionable salwar kameez with oil plaited hair and the sons are also forced to be like so-called typical Pakistani men. However, one of the sons, Sultan (Ahsan Khan), takes the courage to rebel against her after marrying a modern and confident, Pakistani girl, Soha (Syra Yousuf) and that is where the actual story begins. 

Review

This drama has got to be one of my favourite dramas as it is not just a story about the main character, Bilqees, it focuses on each character’s story, their issues and how they are trying to deal with them. However, Bilqees is the sole reason for everything that is happening around everyone in the drama. 

Bushra Ansari needs no introduction. She is a legend of the Pakistani entertainment industry and one of my favourites from the older generation of actors. She is a versatile actress and can play any kind of role without any problems. You will laugh with her when she does comic roles, you will cry with her when she does emotional roles and in this case, you will hate her as Bilqees in the beginning but eventually feel sympathy towards her after you see what she had been through for her to become bitter towards everyone and everything. I personally have not seen an uneducated older lady in a Pakistani drama owning a business and being the breadwinner of the family. I have always seen them at home bragging about how amazing their sons are and how much they don’t like their daughter-in-laws (lol). Therefore, this was definitely a good change as well as refreshing. There is no doubt that Bushra Ansari portrayed this character to the T and she should be very proud of this. 

Ahsan Khan was the rebellious Sultan and I had never seen him play something like this before. I had always seen him play a sweet, loving and romantic guy or so this character of his was definitely a treat to watch. Ahsan has definitely portrayed this character really well and you could feel for him when he was in anger and despair due to his mother, Bilqees. You could also see that the things that he did were justified and you would root for him, well I most certainly did. Although he was bitter towards his parents, he was very loving and caring towards his siblings and sister-in-law. We also got to see a romantic side of him later on when he meets Soha which was also quite cute as this was a different side to his character and showed that he is not always bitter, he can also fall in love and be nice and caring. Ahsan has done a great job, to be honest I don’t even need to say it as he is always so amazing.

I really liked how outspoken and strong Soha’s character was in the drama considering she was someone who was from Pakistan and not America. This is quite rare to see in Pakistani dramas and it definitely showed a different side to Pakistani girls for sure. She supported Sultan in each step that he made and she also made sure that the rift between Bilqees and the rest of the children goes away. This showed that just because a girl is modern, vocal and stands up for her rights, that does not make her selfish. She wholeheartedly cared for her in-laws and tried every attempt to make things better for everyone. She was definitely my favourite character in the drama. Syra Yousuf did a great job playing Soha considering this was only her second drama after Mera Naseeb and she played a completely opposite character of a quiet, sensitive girl in that. This proved that Syra can play different roles and should not be typecasted for playing just one particular type of role in all her dramas.

Overall, Bilqees Kaur is a must-watch if you want to get away from the typical saas-bahu jhagre (mother-in-law & daughter-in-law fights) to a unique storyline of how a modern Pakistani girl tries to bring everyone together in the family.

Rating: 9/10

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