Hassan (character)

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.

Character Information

Hassan is an only child from Ludhiana, India. 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.^[1] 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.^[2] 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.^[3]

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.^[4] 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."^[5]

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.

References