Sania Saeed has explained why Beena ran away with the sabziwala in the top-rated Pakistani drama Aap Ki Izzat, saying that Beena had no weapons to defend her own dignity.
By Imran Malik | Entertainment Desk | MediaBites.com.pk
Aap Ki Izzat is Pakistan’s most-watched drama right now. And the moment everyone is talking about is the one nobody quite knows how to feel about.
Beena ran away with Behram — the sabziwala. And Pakistan’s drama audience, which has collectively watched countless men abandon their wives and families without this level of moral outrage, is struggling to process a woman doing the same thing.
Sania Saeed, who plays Nafeesa aka Maa Jee in the show, has now explained why Beena made that decision. And her explanation cuts far deeper than any plot point in the drama.
What Sania Said
“As a woman, I will not judge Beena,” Sania said, “because, as Aap Ki Izzat shows, Beena has no weapons to fight for her dignity.”
She elaborated with a clarity that has resonated powerfully with audiences across Pakistan.
Beena has been crushed and sidelined by everyone around her. She was raised by a society that taught her she exists as her husband’s izzat — his honor, his property, his possession. She has no identity of her own. No agency. No tools to fight back through any legitimate means.
“She harms herself in order to harm him,” Sania explained. “She ran away as she felt that is the only way to humiliate Tabish.”
And then the line that stops every viewer in their tracks.
“If Beena was an educated woman with her own agency, she would have separated from Tabish a long time ago.”
Why This Drama Is Uncomfortable — And Why That Is the Point
The discomfort Pakistani audiences are feeling about Beena’s decision is the entire point of Aap Ki Izzat.
Pakistani drama has spent decades showing women abandoned, betrayed, humiliated, and crushed by men — and audiences have processed that with sympathy for the woman and condemnation of the man. The moral framework was clear and comfortable.
Aap Ki Izzat has reversed the scenario. The audience’s discomfort reveals something important. The instinct to judge Beena more harshly than a man who does the same thing exposes the double standard that Beena herself has been trapped by her entire life.
Sania Saeed’s performance as Maa Jee — the woman who has spent years putting Beena down — and her off-screen explanation of Beena’s psychology together form one of the most thoughtful pieces of social commentary Pakistani television has produced in recent memory.
Beena did not run away because she is immoral. She ran away because nobody ever gave her any other option.
