KARACHI:
Wali wants to make music, but his father sends him to medical school. Maya wants to become a doctor, but her father forces her to get engaged to a man she has met only once. Aania wants to end her life because no one hears her when she says she is tired.
These characters are the main Gen-Z ensemble of ARY’s Parwarish, but off-screen they are all of us.
Directed by Meesam Naqvi for Big Bang Entertainment, the show follows a joint-family home shared by two brothers, Jahangir and Suleiman. Jahangir (Noman Ejaz), rash and stern, comes back from the US with his wife Mahnoor (Sawera Nadeem) and their kids, Wali (Samar Jafri) and Aania (Nooray Zeeshan). They find it hard to live by the ways of a tight-knit, middle-class life in Pakistan. Suleiman (Saad Zameer), calm and soft, stays in the same house with his wife Panah (Saman Ansari) and their kids, Sameer (Abul Hasan) and Amal (Reham Rafiq), who are all too familiar with this life – including the unique problems that come with living in it.
In the sub plot, sisters Maya (Aina Asif) and Mashal (Haleema Ali) live with a strict father who makes each call for them; until Maya and Wali, both in med school, develop a relationship.
What follows shows what it means to grow up in a culture shaped by generational differences.
That is the distance Parwarish has captured. Every week since it first aired on April 7th, the TV serial has given young twenty-something Gen-Zs in Pakistan a version of themselves that is not reverse-engineered to be ‘relatable’. (Exhibit A: we all remember when Abubakr Shak’s painful “Sorry my foot!” hit our timelines). At the same time, it has given the 50 plus Gen X parents, raised in a much stricter “don’t ask, just do what you are told” culture, the chance to look inwards with more honesty. In doing so, the show brought two generations closer, giving them the chance to finally talk.
In Episode 29, Maya hugs her father Shaheer for the first time. She apologizes for insisting on meeting Wali, bracing for the rejection that has always followed. But for once, Shaheer – a man who has spent the entire show clinging to the idea of family honor – softens. He tells her they will figure it out. Later that night, he confesses to his wife that while they were raised to fear dishonor, refusing to support Maya might mean losing her entirely.
This is a moment for catharsis for both and a major turning point in the story.
Muhammad, 26, had a similar experience, as he entered the room to his father watching the scene where Maya’s mother, Saadia, allows her to meet Wali. “It switched something in me,” he said. “He didn’t say anything but somehow watching that made it easier for me to blurt it out. I told him about my relationship right then.”
Still, Parwarish is not the first TV drama to tackle the Gen Z experience. College Gate (2023), Judwaa (2024), and Midsummer Chaos (2021) tried, but fell short because their main focus was on appearance and not lived struggles. These characters might have looked like Gen Z and talked like them, but that was all.
“I don’t really watch Pakistani dramas because they only show Gen Z as brats,” Muhammad said. “It also always feels like the parents and kids are constantly at odds with each other which is so boring to watch.”
And that is what Parwarish has done differently. Just like the children, it has shown parents in shades of grey, as works in progress too – anxious like Parna, second-guessing like Suleiman and even harsh like Jahangir. But they are trying.
Watching the drama made me pause and reflect,” said Irum, 52, mother of two. “Care and control are not the same. Sometimes, in trying to protect our children, we end up owning their choices. I didn’t realise how deeply that can affect them until I saw it play out on screen specially when Aania hurt herself. It made me think about how heavy things can feel for our children when we don’t listen.”
It is a realization that confirms what Dr. Shelina Bhamani, Assistant Professor and Youth Specialist at the Aga Khan University, has often seen. “In our culture, parental control is mistaken as love,” said Dr. Bhamani, in conversation with The Express Tribune Life & Style. “Parents think, if I can control you, if I don’t let you go out with your friends or sit in your room alone, that is love.”
This is precisely the difference that drives Jahangir’s story throughout the show. He cannot separate his role as a father from that of a patriarch. For him, his son is not a person in his own right, but rather an extension of his own reputation. So, when Wali is adamant on pursuing music full-time, it offends Jahangir so deeply that he is willing to let his son sleep on the streets rather than accept his choices.
“This is where individual identity is compromised for family honor,” said Dr. Shelina.
It is not just Wali’s autonomy that is denied, Maya’s love for Wali is also not seen as a relationship between two consenting young adults, but rather as a threat to her family’s image. When their relationship is exposed, it is Maya who pays the greater price. Her engagement is called off, her father pulls her out of university, and he even storms into Wali’s house to confront him in front of his entire family.
Despite that, Parwarish does not reduce Maya’s relationship to scandal. Instead, it becomes the heart of the show. “The relationships were the most emotional part to watch,” said Mariya, 19. “Because they were not shown as shameful but something that is a natural part of growing up. Even Maya’s parents eventually come around, and it’s shown as healthy, not rebellious. That felt rare.”
This progressive depiction has still been criticized. Commentators online have said that the show overemphasises on teenage freedom and relationships. To them, it gives too much space to feelings that should be discouraged or at the very least, managed. “There are many lessons and goals to teach your children other than falling in love. This is not the age for that and should not be portrayed on television.” said Kiran Naz, a right-wing conservative anchor on SAMAA TV, in her TikTok review. Over five hundred comments flooded in agreement.
But this is simply reality that Parwarish reflects. Teenage love is messy, all consuming and deeply visible in this culture too. The creators just make a clear effort to address that in a practical way rather than looking the other way. In Episode 32, Maya, who has spent the last three episodes doing nothing but talking to Wali and fixing his problems, misses her mock exams. She breaks down, devastated, as she realizes she is losing herself in the relationship. She draws a healthy line with Wali, and they agree to step back so she can focus on her studies.
“What critics often overlook is the media’s pedagogical potential,” said Shelina Bhamani. “Media is a teacher and it can teach parenting to a great extent. Many parents could see themselves on the screen when this drama was projected. They could see their kids, they could see their social situations. So, in that way it is brilliant.”
Writer Kiran Siddiqui echoed this in an interview with The Express Tribune Life & Style, saying, “By the end it came to a point that people understand the complexity of life, the complexity of human nature, the complexity of a human brain and how eras or generational differences can become a factor that even the most basic emotion of an individual can be misread.”
It is Suleiman’s character that brings this complexity to life. He meets each person where they are – whether it’s standing by his son Sameer’s decision to become a gamer, even after he’s caught at a drug party, or swallowing his pride to apologize to his brother only because his aging father asked him to.
This, ultimately, is where Parwarish leaves its deepest mark.
In a culture where the emotional vocabulary between generations is such a mess, it shows us that children and parents can talk to each other and that authority and adolescence can sit across from each other at the dinner table. It helps young people make sense of their silence and forgive parents for all that they could not be.
As Kiran Siddiqui said, “Everybody has their own experiences with their family members and friends. If it can happen somewhere that we get to understand each other’s struggles, there can be a path of forgiveness.”
And that might just be the kind of parwarish we all need.
Parwarish airs every Monday and Tuesday on ARY. The last episode is set to air on August 11th, 2025.
