Maat: The Other Side

Note: I have used lesser pronouns in this article of mine because of the fact that pronouns were creating a lot of ambiguity in the sentences. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Airing on Hum TV, Maat has become one of the top-watched shows on the channel. The introduction of the TV Serial on www.hum.tv is as follows:

“Maat is the story of two poor sisters with opposite personalities – Saman, who is overambitious and has no scruples when it comes to making it big in life, and Aiman, who believes in the fundamentals of contentment, sacrifice and compassion and always upholds them as her guiding force.

Despite loving her sister Saman never loses an opportunity to snatch away from her whatever her sister loves the most, including her fiancé. Saman believes she can give maat (defeat) to anyone and everyone anytime.

The wheels of time keep spinning till finally, Aiman decides to put her foot down and fight for her rights. Will Saman’s selfishness and greed overpower Aiman’s patience and inherent goodness once again, or will Aiman be able to stand her ground? Who faces the final maat in life?”

Hmmm… Inherent goodness? Patience? If you (reader) are watching the serial, you might agree that these words are very underestimating to what Aiman has been doing in the drama. There is also a normal conviction that Aiman is a very ethical person, which is not very true as ethics is not a term understood by all.

First, lets take the case of Aiman being very “inherently good”, well I think Aiman is not inherently good, either she is very ignorant of the negativities of what her sister is doing or she is unaware of what is happening around her. I could even use the word “stupid” for her.

I say this because she loves her sister too much. Now taking Aiman out of the serial and into real life, her “inherent goodness” may cost herself her life. Who knows whom will she be able to marry? Who knows what will he be like? And still she does not see what jealousies have developed in her sister’s heart. I don’t respect either character. Saman has no morality and Aiman has no perception of ethics.

Personally, I also termed Aiman as very patient and inherently good. But after the episode that aired on the 7^th of January 2011, I do not want to do that anymore. Even after so many losses, she is still motivated to gift her only set of gold earrings to Saman. Is she that dumb? Ok the first “sacrificing her fiancé” was really good of her, no doubt about that. What about everything that happened afterwards? Aiman still fails to see all that? That is just pure stupidity.

After that, Aiman is believed to be a very ethical person, hmmm. Is she really? What about her responsibilities to her own life? Is she ethical to herself? And plus, if she is like this right now towards Saman, you can imagine how much she would have spoilt Saman when she was a teenager or even an adolescent. Now Saman does not hesitate to snatch things away because, may be, when she was little, Aiman must have sacrificed what was hers just to make Saman happy; now Saman has forgotten the feelings of Aiman. As you sow, so shall you reap – fits perfectly with what Aiman is going through. Aiman is not at all an ethical person because of the absence of self-interest. I strongly believe that a bit of self-interest should be present with an ethical person. Complete self-sacrificing behaviors are not at all ethical only if the sacrifice is done for one’s own satisfaction. So now a question arises, what if Saman is doing these things to satisfy herself? Yes that may be the case. But then her self-satisfaction will prove to be an evidence of the absence of the “inherent good”.

I am certainly NOT supporting Saman’s character (Irony: She actually does not have a character), instead I am saying that if Saman is a very immoral person than even Aiman is not at all an ethical person. And I believe that the people who are not ethical and authentic to one’s own self cannot be ethical to anyone around.