Diyar-e-Dil ( ; ) (also known as Dayar-e-Dil) is a Pakistani television drama serial, that originally aired on Hum TV from 17 March 2015 to 27 October 2015, in 33 episodes.Diyar-e-Dil follows the lives of a dysfunctional family led by Agha Jaan and his grandchildren, Wali and Faarah. The story is told in a heavily serialized manner. It revolves around the lives of Wali and Faarah, who were forced to commit to each other for the cause of reuniting their family, which had fallen apart long ago because of Agha Jaan's eldest son Behroze, when he called off his long engagement to marry his late love interest.
Diyar-e-Dil features an ensemble cast with Abid Ali as Bakhtiyar Ahmed Khan, Osman Khalid Butt and Maya Ali as his grandchildren Wali Suhaib Khan and Faarah Wali Khan, Meekal Zulfiqar, Ali Rehman Khan as his children Behroze Bakhtiyar Khan and Suhaib Bakthiyar Khan and Sanam Saeed, Hareem Farooq as his daughters-in-law Ruhina Behroze Khan and Arjumand Suhaib Khan. It also stars Behroze Sabzwari, Tara Mahmood, Ahmad Zeb and Mariyam Nafees in recurring roles. It was created by Momina Duraid, and aired on Hum TV as part of night programming under Duraid's production company. It was written by Farhat Ishtiaq based on her novel of the same name and directed by Haseeb Hassan. The show is set in Skardu, Gilgit–Baltistan and Karachi, Sindh. Diyar-e-Dil premiered in Pakistan, the UK, USA and UAE on 17 March 2015, with prime slot on Tuesdays.
Diyar-e-Dil was 2015's highest rated and most acclaimed program of Pakistan. It received critical appraisal for being visually-appealing for the male audience, due to the maintenance of their relationships in the story, and was praised for its direction, cinematography and visuals. It was the most awarded show at 4th Hum Awards, and won awards for Best Drama Serial - Jury and Best Drama Serial - Popular. At 15th Lux Style Awards, it won two awards including Best TV Play out of six nominations.
Premise
Diyar-e-Dil depicted the story of Bakhtiyar Khan / Agha Jan (Abid Ali) and his family. Agha Jan's family parted ways a long time ago due to the rebelliousness of his son, Behroze Bakhtiyar Khan (Mekal Zulfiqar) as he refused to marry a woman of his father's choice Arjumand Bedar Khan (Hareem Farooq) and went on to marry his college love interest Ruhina Arsalan (Sanam Saeed) instead. After getting disowned by his father, Behroze left his city to marry Ruhina, while Arjumand was forced to marry Behroze's younger brother, Suhaib Bakhtiyar Khan (Ali Rehman Khan). Soon after his marriage when Behroze came back to apologise to Agha Jaan,he and his wife were insulted and banished for life. This left the two bitter towards Agha Jaan’s family and they chose to continue their a newly married journey in away from his city. The two couples navigated various problems in their marriage, which for Behroze and Ruhina were financial problems, and for Sohaib and Arjumand were emotional disconnect. The series then focused on the transitioning of their life after marriage and showed how Suhaib and Arjumand grew close and fell in love after the birth of their son Wali Suhaib Khan (Osman Khalid Butt). As Behroze and Ruhina gradually achieve financial stability, their lives begin to improve, and they welcome their daughter, Faarah Behroze Khan (Maya Ali).
After twenty years, Behroze became a successful businessman, while Suhaib and Arjumand raise both their children with Agha Jan. Both the couples were settled and satisfied. Despite the estrangement, Sohaib continues looking after his elder brother in hopes of reuniting the family. After Sohaib’s untimely death, Behroze finally came back home and reconciled with Agha Jaan. Their children were married, fulfilling Suhaib's last wish to reunite the family. Behroze and his family returned back to Lahore with Faarah’s rukhsati (the formal departure to her husband’s home) set to take place four years later, after she completes her graduation. However, Ruhina opposed this decision and, influenced by her brother Tajamul Arsalan’s (Behroze Sabzwari) manipulation, left Behroze, making her return conditional on him choosing between her and his father. As a result, Behroze was left heartbroken and died of grief. With the grief of her father's death, Farah never managed to connect with Agha Jaan and Wali, and if she ever managed to, she was pulled back by her mother. Her mother now pressured Agha Jaan to give them a monthly allowance for (Faarah’s care) that she spent on her brother and his wife. With constant persuasion of her mother, maternal uncle and cousin, Faraah demanded for a divorce from Wali along with her inheritance, which further increased tensions within the family and became the cause of Agha Jaan's developing illness. Faarah told her mother she did not want her inheritance to be used bh her mother, and that it was added to her divorce agreements without her choice, due to which Ruhi left the house in anger, leaving her daughter alone.
After Agha Jaan's second heart attack, Wali, driven by rage, kidnapped Faarah from her house and drove her to his summer resort, locking her in a room so she would not be able to escape. Once Faarah calmed down, Wali made an agreement with her; that if she agreed to live with Agha Jaan for three months, he would give her a divorce so she could marry her cousin Moeez (Ahmad Zeb) whom he thought she loved. Following the agreement Faarah grew attachment to the household. One night broke down infront of Agha Jan when she developed affection towards him, and realised her mistakes and lies told by her uncle Tajamul Arsalan (Behroze Sabzwari) and mother. She eventually developed a soft corner for Wali, befriended his sister and chose to spend the rest of her life with Agha Jan. Tajamul and Moeez's truth was revealed to Ruhi after which she regretted her doings and was locked up by Moeez. He kidnapped Faarah to retain her inheritance to invest in his business, where Wali saved her and gets wounded of gun shot. Moeez ended up in jail, while Ruhi breaks all ties from her brother and reunites with Agha Jaan and her in-laws apologizing for her doings. Faarah admits her love for Wali the day her three-month contract was due, the two reconciled removing all the misconceptions they had in their hearts and complete the valley of heart (Diyar-e-Dil) paved by their fathers a long time ago.
Cast
Main characters Abid Ali as Bakhtiyar Ahmed Khan/Agha Jan Osman Khalid Butt as Wali Suhaib Khan Maya Ali as Faarah Wali Khan Sanam Saeed as Ruhina Behroze Khan Hareem Farooq as Arjumand Suhaib Khan Mikaal Zulfiqar as Behroze Bakhtiyar Khan Ali Rehman Khan as Suhaib Bakthiyar Khan
Recurring characters Behroze Sabzwari as Tajamul Arsalan Maryam Nafees as Zarminey Suhaib Khan Tara Mahmood as Zuhra Tajamul Ahmad Zeb as Moeez Tajamul Eshita Mehboob as Laila Feroze Khan Rasheed Naz as Bedar Khan Azra Mansoor as Yasmeen Beddar Khan Fariya Hassan as Hafsa
Background and production Concept and development
Diyar-e-Dil was developed by Hum TV's senior producer Momina Duraid of MD Productions, the channel hired the award-winning director Haseeb Hassan to direct the series. Story of serial is based on award-winning writer Farhat Ishtiaq's novel of the same name Dayar-e-Dil with few variations. Screenplay is also written by Ishtiaq while script composing is done by Muhammad Wasi-ul-Din. Farhat has previously worked twice with Momina, when she wrote mega-hit drama serial in Pakistan television history Humsafar and Mata-e-Jaan Hai Tu.
Song composition is done by Shany Haider while background music is given by Bilal Allah Ditta, who chose Zeb Bangash and Momin Durrani for singing. The show approximately airs weekly episode for 35–40 minutes (minus commercials) every Tuesday.
There were several discussions laid on its time slot, previously it was announced that the show will air on Friday's replacing Sadqay Tumhare, and was also reported that the series will originally start its airing in April or May. However, due to promotional reasons the show was given a time slot of Tuesday, 8:00 pm and the pilot episode was released on 17 March 2015, replacing channel's drama series Zid to Sundays.
Writing The drama serial screenplay is also written by Ishtiaq. She explained that Momina Duraid gave her a full freedom of writing, while writing she discuss the story-line with Duraid and with mutual ideas and aspects Farhat wrote the scripts and made changes in several drafts of screenplay. Farhat said, "I did everything I wanted to and as I wanted to. I had the havelis [hilly] scenes planned out but was a bit scared ke it might be too much, but Momina made it happen and exactly like I had imagined it." Farhat wrote thirty plus episodes which she explained that "it isn't because it was the demand of the channel or producer, it is because that’s how I wrote it. You will see that it will not drag. But to do justice to the story (which revolves around 3 generations), the characters and their feelings, thirty plus episodes had to be written, otherwise bohut kuch reh jata."
In an interview with Hum TV Farhat states that, "Diyar-e-Dil as a novel was not my best thing. It could have been written better which I tried to do in the script. I personally feel Diyar-e-Dils script is far better than the original novel. I'm planning to rewrite Diyar-e-Dil novel with all the additions that I've made for the script. In my opinion Diyar e-Dil script is my best script till date. Diyar e Dil critics can disagree with me." Commenting on characters, she emphasized that they are based on, "Family ties, relationships and love. It was a journey which my characters took to find out whether love is enough for us or do we need blood relations also? Can a person survive without his/her parents, siblings and family? My characters chose different paths and some of them later regret their decisions. How one generation's mistakes bring troubles to the next generation was also a big problem which my characters faced."
Novella
The entire story of the series is based on Ishtiaq's novella. While developing screenplay Farhat made several changes, in an interview she said, "There are some differences, but they are very positive. I wrote several drafts of this novel back in 2006. While adapting I took some scenes and situations from my earlier drafts of the novel. Interestingly Momina and I think on the same wavelength. She came up to me once and said Farhat, it would be great if the story had this and this and I said, that is what I had written in the earlier drafts and we just used those. In the novel, there were flashbacks here the story is very linear. Now we have a very strong linear story and I have strengthened the characters even more. I have really enjoyed this script and it was very difficult for me. There are so many characters and each with their feelings that I had to do justice to the feelings of all the characters. I Enjoyed the difficulty as I had also challenged myself."Farhat Ishtiaq (2015), Interview with HIP TV, Few characters were added, who only introduced namely in novel. Characters like, Laila, Ibrahim Feroze and parents of Arjumand, Yasmin and Bedar were expanded. Arjumand’s character itself had a less appearance in book while in serial it is one of leading character. Ruhina's miscarriage was also not written in the novel.
Casting
Producer Momina Duraid, writer Farhat Ishtiaq and director Haseeb Hassan mutually chose the cast which includes Abid Ali, Sanam Saeed, Maya Ali, Osman Khalid Butt, Mikaal Zulfiqar, Hareem Farooq and Ali Rehman Khan, for the portrayal of leading characters.