‘Parwarish’ seats parents and children at the same table

What started as a family drama has turned into a national conversation

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.