(Courtesy: Feroze_addict)
Feroze Khan as Basit Salman
A childhood spent battling with loneliness and the trauma of abandonment had left Basit Salman scarred and embittered. With a mother whose absence had engendered a wariness in him about the dangers of loving someone, Basit had looked to his father alone for love. Family and marriage were not for him, he had decided, having tasted heartbreak at such a tender young age. All his father's wishes and cajoling could not convince him otherwise. He would never marry.
With the death of Salman, Basit suddenly realises that his father's will stretched beyond the grave and by a cruel twist of fate, he finds himself in the sudden need of a wife. Without a wife, he would not have the access to his inheritance and Basit Salman finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place. Having long determined never to tie himself in this relationship that in his eyes could only bring grief, pain, and betrayal, Basit finds himself setting aside everything he has always believed in as he forces himself to woo Soha, daughter of his father's dear friend, and a girl his father had wished him to marry. However, despite Basit's attempts, Soha finds his rush to get married as an attempt to control her. Never one to be influenced by others or forced to do anything against her will, Soha breaks off their engagement, leaving Basit in the legal and financial crisis the one clause in his father's will had drawn him in. Basit Salman will have to marry in order to have access to his inheritance.
If this wasn't bad enough, Sadia, his mother is back, and Basit is caught battling with his past and present fears as he is forced to make a place in his life for the woman he had loved and lost as a child. Basit ignores his mother's attempts to help him extricate himself from his financial crisis and in desperate need to stop Sadia from trying to persuade him into marrying a girl of her choice, he announces that he is already married to his P.A., Ms. Ayesha Sadiq.
A man of power and influence, Basit finds it easy enough to convince Ayesha's family into agreeing to this marriage. It is only a matter of time before he finds himself married to Ayesha. The crisis resolves itself and Basit is freed from the noose his father's will had put around his neck.
However, Basit had now voluntarily stepped into the very nightmare that had haunted him through his adolescence and made him the man he was. He had gotten married. Will this nightmare turn into the blissful dream that had eluded him all his life? Would Basit finally find it in him to face this new relationship that he had entered into? And as Ayesha slowly but surely makes a place for herself in Basit's heart, would he finally be able to let the chains of the past fall and be free to embrace the happiness that life might have in store for him?
Ushna Shah as Ayesha Sadiq
Having experienced struggle and need for almost half her life, Ayesha Sadiq had seen her elder sister Bano make one sacrifice after another for the sake of the family. Yet no sacrifice seemed to be enough in the eyes of her mother. Ayesha could understand Qudsia's bitterness and insecurity and feel the anxieties of a woman trying to hold a family of five women together. Yet Ayesha's heart bled for Bano especially as she saw Bano's struggle to hold on to the love of her life while her mother remained unconvinced of her sincerity in fulfilling the responsibilities towards her mother, aunt, and sisters.
Ayesha, a bright student with a scholarship under her belt, decides to let go of her dream of studying further and instead take on Bano's responsibility. Ayesha knew once she started earning, Bano would be free to marry Talal, the man who had become everything to her elder sister. However, man's plans are rendered void before the plans of Destiny. Ayesha's good intentions do not stop her sister and Talal's relationship from breaking up. Interference from the families on either side sees to it. Ayesha meanwhile settles into her job, appreciating the work ethics and culture of the company she has been hired by.
Life would have gone on as she had always known it to. However, a sudden announcement from her boss, Basit Salman, changes everything. Ayesha finds herself in a situation she had never thought she would be in. Growing up with a keen sense of her responsibility to take care of her mother and sisters, Ayesh had long decided she would never marry. She now finds herself ironically being convinced into consenting to this marriage and that too to a man who was far superior to her in his station in life. It was almost a fairytale but Ayesha had no belief in such children's stories.
Bano's advice and support guides her into taking a decision and Basit Sir's assurance that nothing will change with their marriage, finally convinces her. However, before the ink can dry on their marriage document, things begin to look less simple. Married to a man who has shuttered his heart, Ayesha now grapples with her inner torment as she tries to figure out her place in his life.
She feels the bars of this gilded cage she had willingly stepped into closing in on her and desperately tries to push back. She finds every step she tries to take running into a dead end. She loses her job and she finds herself in the unenviable position of being an unwanted wife. Her husband freely gives her money but emotionally distances himself from her to the point where she is convinced of her total insignificance in his life. Ayesha begins to let go of her own dreams of finding love or even companionship from this marriage.
In the midst of these growing sentiments, Sadia, her mother-in-law, passes away. Her death is sudden and brutal, pushed on as it was by her husband's bitterness towards his mother which he never hesitated to demonstrate. And now her husband, who had always appeared emotionally detached, indifferent, cold almost, was suddenly shattered. And Ayesha, ever the responsible sister, daughter and now wife, steps in. She picks up the pieces and finds her husband seeking her out for what she interprets as comfort and consolation.
Till everything that could go wrong goes wrong. He suspects her of the worst and Ayesha finds herself thrown out of his life unceremoniously. It looks like things will end between them for sure till Ayesha is pulled back. Basit is injured badly in an accident. It leaves Ayesha devastated. He could have died. And so she, as his wife still, once more picks up the pieces, supports him through his dark days in the hospital. And he expects her to forget everything that had happened and return to his life. Just like that. And Ayesha, ever the compliant, forgiving, silent one, rebels.
Her rebellion breaks her husband's complacency and Ayesha finds herself demanding more from him, till she had let out before him all the pain that had been building inside her since the day they had been united in marriage. She tastes happiness of a sort she had never expected from this marriage. The bars of the gilded cage seem to recede.
However, will this bliss last? Will her husband's past come back to haunt them and snatch their happiness away? Will she finally find this relationship she had entered into be not a cage she was trapped in but rather a source of strength that could launch her into the skies as she makes her own path to happiness?
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