A Journey from Darkness to Light

In one of my all time favorite movies, Hey Ram, a calm, peace loving, moderate man, Saket Ram (played by Kamal Haasan), goes through a traumatic, life-altering experience, when his beloved wife, Aparna, is brutally raped and killed in communal riots right in front of his eyes. Does a person who suffers a personal loss in such a traumatic way ever be the same person as before? No. His helplessness, guilt and self-loathing turns into hatred and revenge, as he was not able to protect his wife when she was tortured and killed. Completely shaken by the traumatic experience, he takes his gun and goes out to hunt those men who killed his wife. While he gets his revenge, he ends up killing an innocent muslim man as well. Is he really happy after revenge? No. He goes away to his hometown and marries another girl, Mythili, who with her gentle love and understanding heals him a bit. Then he meets his old friend at a party, whose traumatic story during the partition times triggers his hatred again. Trauma can drive people to do things they would not do normally. Each person reacts to trauma differently. Each stage of trauma is different as well. One thing is certain, people grow tremendously in a positive manner when they are forced to fight their inner demons. They have a better understanding of people and they are more accepting of people. When Saket Ram comes face to face with Mahatma Gandhi to kill him, as he sees him as the demon responsible for the partition of his motherland, he ends up identifying his own demons inside him. There is always a conscience inside us and it always forces us back onto the right path even when we are momentarily swayed by circumstances.

Noor is going through such trauma of losing her mother, who has been her anchor all her life. She lost her fiance, whom she just started weaving her dreams around. It is traumatic. Noor will never be the same again. Margayi Noor. She feels helpless as she couldn't save them and she feels guilty for Faiz's untimely death, as his mother blamed her. She is angry at Shayra for a while, as she thinks she was responsible for fire, by Shayra's own admission (though I believe its Khalid who did it and he has a strong motive). Now she is in self-destructive mode, harming herself someway (committing suicide) or the other(marrying Khalid), drowning in depression, fighting desperately for a puff of hope and love. That happens to be Azaan for her. He can calm her fears and reason with her even when she is obstinate. He is the one who calmed her mad anger against Shayra, though she was not able to forgive her yet. Her world is limited with her mother and Azaan at the center of it. She doesn't have many people to rely on. When she says she wants Azaan from Shayra, she feels that love gets precedence over friendship. Honestly, like any family, they tried to cover up the fire accident case and didn't cooperate with the police properly, because Shayra took the blame on herself. They are worried about family reputation. In Noor's mind, Azaan's wife got the precedence over his friend. Right now she is fighting for herself and with herself. She knows when she is not doing something right but she can't help it. At some point she will realize that she is hurting the people who matter to her the most in this madness she is going through. Eventually (hopefully), she will expand her world and grow as a person by fighting her own demons. Ideally, I want Noor to leave that place and end up in a place where she can help people in need. Helping others would empower her and she will be away from the setting that triggers her trauma all the time. Some time away from it will help her think with a calmer mind. She will one day shine more brilliant than before. After all, a diamond forms because of pressure and it shines better after its cut and polished! 

* Just a small observation about Khalid, he has an abusive mother. Thats long term repetitive trauma and it has affected him psychologically. I don't think such people can form healthy relationships in their adult life. His obsession with Noor is creepy. He is probably looking for a version of his mother in all the women he meets. He would always try to gain control over the life of any woman in his life, because he hates being controlled by his mother. *

Hi Dsr, nice analysis you will hear a lot from haters of Noor with bold quotes from your post, these people are taking it personally and abusing Sami .. I think the main flaw is direction and creative, who hasn’t given enough time to showcase depth of each character .. positive characters are easy to understand as there won’t be much to think about , they are good characters of the show, for positive turned grey you need proper showcase to understand why that person is behaving that way , without that it won’t reach audience .. many people are lacking that analysis 

Originally posted by: Smiley3262017

Hi Dsr, nice analysis you will hear a lot from haters of Noor with bold quotes from your post, these people are taking it personally and abusing Sami .. I think the main flaw is direction and creative, who hasn’t given enough time to showcase depth of each character .. positive characters are easy to understand as there won’t be much to think about , they are good characters of the show, for positive turned grey you need proper showcase to understand why that person is behaving that way , without that it won’t reach audience .. many people are lacking that analysis 

can you show any post abusing samiksha?people here criticises noor not samiksha.

Edited by Silpa91 - 4 years ago

Originally posted by: Smiley3262017

Hi Dsr, nice analysis you will hear a lot from haters of Noor with bold quotes from your post, these people are taking it personally and abusing Sami .. I think the main flaw is direction and creative, who hasn’t given enough time to showcase depth of each character .. positive characters are easy to understand as there won’t be much to think about , they are good characters of the show, for positive turned grey you need proper showcase to understand why that person is behaving that way , without that it won’t reach audience .. many people are lacking that analysis 

Are you serious? Who is abusing Sami here? Is criticizing a character in a show abusing the actress now? I think you both take it personal and thats why you try to justify Noors character with weird analyzes. But Noor is antagonist of BB till now. You cant ignore this and blame other people for not liking her just because your fav actress plays this role seriously.

Edited by Yezabel - 4 years ago

My issue with Noor's trauma stems from the fact that her mother was fine at first. She and her mother got out and were safe from the fire. Regardless of who and how the fire was caused, for a good amount of time Yasmin was safe.  Yasmin, alone, chose to enter a building with a raging fire to save a dupatta. I forgot exactly how it played out scene for scene in the episode, but it's very clear that she walked in on her own will.  This is the part of the traumatic event that Noor is conveniently forgetting/ denying/ choosing to ignore.  

Yes, people react to trauma differently, but it doesn't make their reactions and actions 'ok' just because they are in a state of trauma and shock.   I think most viewers are just annoyed because her reasons just still aren't good enough to gain sympathy in what she's doing.  She's in complete denial that it's actually her mom's own fault that she died, and no one is reminding her of this important detail either.  

I think many of us were ready to sympathize with Noor, but personal pain doesn't justify what she's doing, or fully explain why she's doing what she's doing because enough is not shown.  That's the production company / writers' fault.  And IMO, she's gotten to this point too early in the show for people to want to continue to root for her or believe that she's truly redeemable. 

Originally posted by: Smiley3262017

Hi Dsr, nice analysis you will hear a lot from haters of Noor with bold quotes from your post, these people are taking it personally and abusing Sami .. I think the main flaw is direction and creative, who hasn’t given enough time to showcase depth of each character .. positive characters are easy to understand as there won’t be much to think about , they are good characters of the show, for positive turned grey you need proper showcase to understand why that person is behaving that way , without that it won’t reach audience .. many people are lacking that analysis 

While I don't disagree that the main flaw here is direction and plot (they're not showing enough of Noor's turmoil), I do think that viewers are allowed to criticize actors and their work.  I don't think anyone here is abusing Sami, & they shouldn't be if they are. Personal and/or derogatory attacks aren't ok.  However, we are allowed to criticize her ability to emote Noor's feelings/ inner thoughts. Part of her job is to get us to sympathize with her, even if she is a grey/black/negative character.  While she needs a good script/director to do this, we can't just ignore her performance either if we're going to analyze every other aspect of the show. Each member of the cast and crew has a hand in how the show is portrayed on television. IMO, I think majority of the problem falls on the direction/plot of the show itself, the actors (all/any of them) could also be part of the issue. It's not hate or abuse, it's just an observation.  

Trust me, I was really excited about this show and when I heard that Sami & Diana were good actresses (Of these 3, I've only ever seen Arjit), I was even more reassured that this couldn't be bad. I think I set the bar a little high for this show- maybe it's my fault🤣, too many high expectations. Sometimes I think they're all really good actors, and sometime's I'm like, why didn't the director do a retake of that scene. And sometimes I'm like thats really horrible editing. What can we do but watch and vent our frustrations out on this forum? lol

Noor jaisi aurat jis kisi ke bhi zindagi mein ho, light to darkness ho jayega !