Hassan (character)
Encyclopedia
Hassan portrayed by Fawad Khan) is a main character of Razia Butt’s novel Bano, and of Hum TV
drama
production
Dastaan
. He is from the province of Ludhiana. Hassan was engaged to neighbor and family friend Bano Naseeb
, but the two were never married due to partition
-induced circumstances. He was an outspoken supporter of the Muslim League and avid follower of Muhammad Ali Jinnah
.
. He thinks of his aunt, Suraiya, who is only a few years older than he is, as a big sister. Hassan is portrayed as a very intellectual person, who is adored by everybody. Most of his family members think of him as a very bright student, and love his responsible and respectful personality.
Hassan is first introduced as the nephew
of Suraiya, who is about to be married to neighbor and family friend Saleem. He is studying at the Islamia College, and has taken three days off to visit for his aunt’s wedding. When he goes into Suraiya’s room to see her, he meets Bano, Saleem’s sister. She is hiding under the bed to avoid being seen because, according to tradition, she is not supposed to see Suraiya. Hassan teases her, calling her a ‘'billi’’ (kitten).
The day of Suraiya's and Saleem's wedding, as Suraiya and Rashida, her sister and Hassan's mother, are exchanging embraces, Hassan catches up to Bano as he sees her crying. He asks her the reason for her tears, as Suraiya is moving into her house after her marriage. He jokingly asks her whether she is trying to fantasize what it will be like when she is married and leaves home. Bano replies by saying that she will never leave home, no matter what. Hassan asks her if her decision will still be the same no matter how much her groom loves her. Bano, picking up on his hidden meaning, quickly hurries away, pausing to look back only once. She finds that Hassan is staring at the spot where she had just been standing, his hand on the tree she was leaning against.
Bano begins to warm towards Hassan, and soon the two fall in love. A substantial amount of months pass, with Hassan visiting Ludhiana every now and then. As things between Hassan and Bano heat up, tensions grow across all of India between Hindus and Muslims. This greatly affects Hassan and Bano, since Hassan is an avid supporter of the Muslim League, whereas Saleem is a supporter of the Indian Congress
. Their different political viewpoints often cause trouble for Hassan, as Saleem is extremely hot-tempered. When Rashida asks Bano's father for her hand in marriage for Hassan, Saleem is extremely unhappy and, speaking for his father, denies Rashida's request. He tells his father that he thinks a more suitable option for Bano would be his friend Ram, a Hindu; his father is outraged that Saleem would even suggest such a thing, and immediately accepts Rashida's offer. Hassan and Bano are engaged, much to their delight. Soon, Hassan gets a job at an engineering
company in Rawalpindi
. Hassan and his mother leave with the promise that they will be back 8 months later for Hassan and Bano's wedding. He tells Bano that he will write letters to Suraiya, and that Bano should read them and pick up on his double-sided words.
As political tensions between Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs rise, and with the determination for the formation of Pakistan
growing stronger, Hassan begins to hear that violence is becoming more and more widespread. Months pass, and Hassan realizes that Suraiya is replying to his letters later and later. Soon, she stops sending letters altogether. Hassan soon learns that there have been severe violent outbreaks in Ludhiana, and fears that his family might have been killed in the riots. He listens to radio stations, reads newspapers, and asks every single refugee coming from Ludhiana if they have heard anything about his family. His efforts are fruitless, and he decides to go to Ludhiana and find out for himself, but his friend Nadir stops him, knowing that conditions are too dangerous for Muslims to be traveling to India
. Months later, Hassan finds out that Bano’s home was attacked, and all residents were killed.
After hearing news of his family’s, and more importantly Suraiya and Bano’s, deaths, Hassan falls into a deep depression. His mother, still recovering from grief herself, tries her best to bring him back to reality, but fails. Hassan then sees a dream in which, dressed in wedding attire, tells him that there is tons of work to be done for such a young country, and that sitting and grieving over her won’t help anybody. Soon, Hassan begins to go to work again.
Rashida repeatedly badgers Hassan about getting married, but he always replies that he is already married to Bano, and he doesn’t want to cheat on her memory. Rashida soon surrenders to her son’s wishes.
But then, nearly 5 years later, Rashida’s friend Sultana and her daughter Rabia visit Lahore
, where the mother and son have moved to. Rabia, who has had her eye on Hassan ever since she first saw him 6 years ago at Suraiya’s wedding, is very shy towards him, and Hassan becomes uncomfortable by this endearment. Slowly, with his mother and Sultana plotting to bring the pair closer together, Hassan begins to warm towards Rabia. The two are soon engaged. Hassan tells his friend Nadir that the feelings between him and Rabia are much different than those towards Bano, and that Bano will always be more important to him.
Days after their engagement, Hassan gets a letter saying that Bano is alive and living in a women’s shelter. He immediately goes to find her, and the two are reunited. He finds out that she and her mother were able to escape the massacre, but that he mother died along the way. She was kidnapped by a Sikh
man, and was forced to live in his home for 5 years, where he beat her and raped her. She also gave birth to his son, and the man died 5 years later. Bano lost most of her sanity during these traumatic experiences, and Hassan realizes that she needs him in order to be sane again. He breaks off his engagement with Rabia. But his mother and Sultana don’t let him go without a fight, and are always finding ways to bring Rabia back into his life.
When Bano finds out of their engagement, she runs away from Hassan's home, where she is already treated as an outsider by Rashida, who dislikes her because of her mental condition and circumstance. Bano and her son are taken in by a woman named Musarat and her family. As Bano gets a job and explores the Pakistan she had been dying to reach for 5 years, she realizes it is nothing like the speeches Hassan used to give about it. It is not a wonderful place like she had expected it to be, and slowly, Bano's mental condition worsens. Hassan blames her leaving on himself, and decides once and for all that he will not marry Rabia. One day, he sees Bano at the Badshahi Mosque
, and she tells him that she cannot marry him because she's not the same Bano he fell in love with due to her circumstances. She tells him to marry Rabia, and he agrees to it because it's her last request to him.
The day of their wedding, Bano shows up at his house covered in blood. The place where she had gotten a job was, as it turns out, run by a corrupt politician, who attempted to rape
her. She lost control of her sanity and stabbed him repeatedly with a box opener until he died. She says to Hassan in hysteria, "Mainay iss pak sar zameen ko pak kardiya. Mainay Basanta ko mardiya. Ab yahan koi Basanta nahi. (I have killed Basanta. I have made this Pakistan pak [clean]. Now there's no Basanta here anymore."
At the end of the show, Bano is shown in an asylum
. Hassan and his newly wed Rabia are visitng her. She asks them how her country is doing, and they tell her it is perfect. The last words she says in the show are "Pakistan zindabad," which she says repeatedly while using her mother's ta'wiz as a prayer bead necklace
.
Hum TV
Hum TV is a 24-hour Pakistani entertainment TV channel based in Karachi. It is the first brand of Eye Television Network Limited, Pakistan. Hum TV began its transmission on January 17, 2005.-Serials:* Manay Na Ye Dil * Akhri Barish...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
production
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Dastaan
Dastaan (drama)
Dastaan is a Pakistani drama serial dramatized by Samira Fazal, and based on the novel "Bano", by Razia Butt. It is based on the Partition of India , and takes place between 1947 and 1956. The drama depicts the story of Bano, a girl from a close knit Muslim family living in Ludhiana in the...
. He is from the province of Ludhiana. Hassan was engaged to neighbor and family friend Bano Naseeb
Bano
Bano Naseeb is the protagonist and main character of Razia Butt's novel Bano , and of Hum TV drama Dastaan. She is from the province of Ludhiana. Bano was engaged to neighbor and family friend Hassan, but the two were never married due to partition-induced circumstances...
, but the two were never married due to partition
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...
-induced circumstances. He was an outspoken supporter of the Muslim League and avid follower of Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a Muslim lawyer, politician, statesman and the founder of Pakistan. He is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam and Baba-e-Qaum ....
.
Character Information
Hassan is an only child from Ludhiana, IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. He thinks of his aunt, Suraiya, who is only a few years older than he is, as a big sister. Hassan is portrayed as a very intellectual person, who is adored by everybody. Most of his family members think of him as a very bright student, and love his responsible and respectful personality.
Hassan is first introduced as the nephew
Nephew
Nephew is a son of one's sibling or sibling-in-law, and niece is a daughter of one's sibling or a sibling-in-law. Sons and daughters of siblings-in-law are also informally referred to as nephews and nieces respectively, even though there is no blood relation...
of Suraiya, who is about to be married to neighbor and family friend Saleem. He is studying at the Islamia College, and has taken three days off to visit for his aunt’s wedding. When he goes into Suraiya’s room to see her, he meets Bano, Saleem’s sister. She is hiding under the bed to avoid being seen because, according to tradition, she is not supposed to see Suraiya. Hassan teases her, calling her a ‘'billi’’ (kitten).
The day of Suraiya's and Saleem's wedding, as Suraiya and Rashida, her sister and Hassan's mother, are exchanging embraces, Hassan catches up to Bano as he sees her crying. He asks her the reason for her tears, as Suraiya is moving into her house after her marriage. He jokingly asks her whether she is trying to fantasize what it will be like when she is married and leaves home. Bano replies by saying that she will never leave home, no matter what. Hassan asks her if her decision will still be the same no matter how much her groom loves her. Bano, picking up on his hidden meaning, quickly hurries away, pausing to look back only once. She finds that Hassan is staring at the spot where she had just been standing, his hand on the tree she was leaning against.
Bano begins to warm towards Hassan, and soon the two fall in love. A substantial amount of months pass, with Hassan visiting Ludhiana every now and then. As things between Hassan and Bano heat up, tensions grow across all of India between Hindus and Muslims. This greatly affects Hassan and Bano, since Hassan is an avid supporter of the Muslim League, whereas Saleem is a supporter of the Indian Congress
Indian Congress
The Indian Congress occurred from August 4 to October 31, 1898 in Omaha, Nebraska, in conjunction with the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition. Occurring within a decade of the end of the Indian Wars, the Indian Congress was the largest gathering of American Indian tribes of its kind to that...
. Their different political viewpoints often cause trouble for Hassan, as Saleem is extremely hot-tempered. When Rashida asks Bano's father for her hand in marriage for Hassan, Saleem is extremely unhappy and, speaking for his father, denies Rashida's request. He tells his father that he thinks a more suitable option for Bano would be his friend Ram, a Hindu; his father is outraged that Saleem would even suggest such a thing, and immediately accepts Rashida's offer. Hassan and Bano are engaged, much to their delight. Soon, Hassan gets a job at an engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
company in Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi
Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...
. Hassan and his mother leave with the promise that they will be back 8 months later for Hassan and Bano's wedding. He tells Bano that he will write letters to Suraiya, and that Bano should read them and pick up on his double-sided words.
As political tensions between Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs rise, and with the determination for the formation of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
growing stronger, Hassan begins to hear that violence is becoming more and more widespread. Months pass, and Hassan realizes that Suraiya is replying to his letters later and later. Soon, she stops sending letters altogether. Hassan soon learns that there have been severe violent outbreaks in Ludhiana, and fears that his family might have been killed in the riots. He listens to radio stations, reads newspapers, and asks every single refugee coming from Ludhiana if they have heard anything about his family. His efforts are fruitless, and he decides to go to Ludhiana and find out for himself, but his friend Nadir stops him, knowing that conditions are too dangerous for Muslims to be traveling to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Months later, Hassan finds out that Bano’s home was attacked, and all residents were killed.
After hearing news of his family’s, and more importantly Suraiya and Bano’s, deaths, Hassan falls into a deep depression. His mother, still recovering from grief herself, tries her best to bring him back to reality, but fails. Hassan then sees a dream in which, dressed in wedding attire, tells him that there is tons of work to be done for such a young country, and that sitting and grieving over her won’t help anybody. Soon, Hassan begins to go to work again.
Rashida repeatedly badgers Hassan about getting married, but he always replies that he is already married to Bano, and he doesn’t want to cheat on her memory. Rashida soon surrenders to her son’s wishes.
But then, nearly 5 years later, Rashida’s friend Sultana and her daughter Rabia visit Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, where the mother and son have moved to. Rabia, who has had her eye on Hassan ever since she first saw him 6 years ago at Suraiya’s wedding, is very shy towards him, and Hassan becomes uncomfortable by this endearment. Slowly, with his mother and Sultana plotting to bring the pair closer together, Hassan begins to warm towards Rabia. The two are soon engaged. Hassan tells his friend Nadir that the feelings between him and Rabia are much different than those towards Bano, and that Bano will always be more important to him.
Days after their engagement, Hassan gets a letter saying that Bano is alive and living in a women’s shelter. He immediately goes to find her, and the two are reunited. He finds out that she and her mother were able to escape the massacre, but that he mother died along the way. She was kidnapped by a Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
man, and was forced to live in his home for 5 years, where he beat her and raped her. She also gave birth to his son, and the man died 5 years later. Bano lost most of her sanity during these traumatic experiences, and Hassan realizes that she needs him in order to be sane again. He breaks off his engagement with Rabia. But his mother and Sultana don’t let him go without a fight, and are always finding ways to bring Rabia back into his life.
When Bano finds out of their engagement, she runs away from Hassan's home, where she is already treated as an outsider by Rashida, who dislikes her because of her mental condition and circumstance. Bano and her son are taken in by a woman named Musarat and her family. As Bano gets a job and explores the Pakistan she had been dying to reach for 5 years, she realizes it is nothing like the speeches Hassan used to give about it. It is not a wonderful place like she had expected it to be, and slowly, Bano's mental condition worsens. Hassan blames her leaving on himself, and decides once and for all that he will not marry Rabia. One day, he sees Bano at the Badshahi Mosque
Badshahi Mosque
The Badshahi Mosque or the 'King's Mosque' in Lahore, commissioned by the sixth Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1671 and completed in 1673, is the second largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and the fifth largest mosque in the world...
, and she tells him that she cannot marry him because she's not the same Bano he fell in love with due to her circumstances. She tells him to marry Rabia, and he agrees to it because it's her last request to him.
The day of their wedding, Bano shows up at his house covered in blood. The place where she had gotten a job was, as it turns out, run by a corrupt politician, who attempted to rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
her. She lost control of her sanity and stabbed him repeatedly with a box opener until he died. She says to Hassan in hysteria, "Mainay iss pak sar zameen ko pak kardiya. Mainay Basanta ko mardiya. Ab yahan koi Basanta nahi. (I have killed Basanta. I have made this Pakistan pak [clean]. Now there's no Basanta here anymore."
At the end of the show, Bano is shown in an asylum
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
. Hassan and his newly wed Rabia are visitng her. She asks them how her country is doing, and they tell her it is perfect. The last words she says in the show are "Pakistan zindabad," which she says repeatedly while using her mother's ta'wiz as a prayer bead necklace
Prayer beads
Prayer beads are used by members of various religious traditions such as Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Anglicanism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Bahá'í Faith to count the repetitions of prayers, chants or devotions, such as the rosary of Virgin Mary in Christianity and dhikr ...
.