Some dramas begin with a bang. The drama in this Rutba review begins with a prayer.

In its first three episodes, Rutba gives us a gentle village boy, a talkative city girl, an eight year wait and, in episode 3, a first real test. It is sweet, funny and full of warmth, and then it gets serious in the best possible way.

Rutba is written by Umera Ahmed and directed by Haseeb Hassan. Talha Chahour plays Hadi, and Hiba Qadir, also known as Hiba Bukhari, plays Mahnoor. Mehwish Hayat as Sheely and Zahid Ahmed as Meer enter the story in episode 3. If you want to know who else is in the cast, read our Rutba drama preview.

Here is our Rutba review of the first three episodes, told through the seven moments that stayed with us.

Our Rutba Review of Episode 1 to 3: The Story So Far

Hadi lives in a village near Kotri. He is a teacher, but he has also cleared the CSS exam and is about to join the police academy. He will be the first police officer his village has ever had.

Mahnoor is a city girl and the daughter of a professor. She loves animals, she drives well and she talks a lot. Her dog Pluto is her baby.

Hadi and Mahnoor met years ago, and for eight long years she has waited for him to become ready. He told her that when the time came, he would bring his own parents to her door. In episode 1, that time finally comes.

Hadi’s parents visit Mahnoor’s home, and the visit goes better than anyone expected. In episode 2, Mahnoor’s family visits Hadi’s village. She sees the mud roof, the buffalo shed and the wood stove. Her parents have doubts, but she does not.

Then come the nikah, the rukhsati and a wedding night full of promises.

That is a lot of story for two episodes. Rutba does not stretch the courtship. It goes from the azan to the nikah very quickly, which tells us that the first two episodes are the setup.

Episode 3 is where the real story begins. It jumps ahead two years. Hadi is now an ASP, Mahnoor is expecting a baby, and the government has given them an official house that is in terrible shape. The new job brings new pressure, and two new faces: Mehwish Hayat as Sheely and Zahid Ahmed as Meer.

Now let us look at the seven moments that make this Rutba review worth reading.

1. Gentle Concern From Mahnoor’s Parents, and a Daughter’s Choice

Let’s start with a scene that Pakistani dramas usually get wrong.

When a girl from a city family wants to marry a boy from a village, we expect a fight. Parents say no. Relatives interfere. Somebody becomes the villain.

Rutba does something different. After visiting Hadi’s village, Mahnoor’s parents sit down with her and speak with love. They tell her they never had any objection to her choice, and they still do not. They have known Hadi for years, and they call his family good, simple, honorable and sincere people.

But they have now seen his lifestyle for the first time, and a few doubts have come up. Life in a remote village with no GPS and few basic amenities is very different from the way Mahnoor was raised. Even if she lives in the city with Hadi, she will have to travel to the village and stay there from time to time. For someone from the city, they say, that can feel like walking on the edge of a sword.

So they ask her to do one thing. Put her emotions aside for a while and think it through, so that she has no regrets later. Hadi’s own father had asked her to think it over too.

Notice what they do not do. They do not forbid. They do not pressure. They say, plainly, that the final decision is hers.

And Mahnoor decides. She has waited eight years, and she says yes. Her parents do not argue. They accept it happily, and the message goes out that Hadi’s family can come to fix the wedding date.

It is a very nice scene because everyone behaves like a grown up. The parents are worried, but they are worried out of love, not ego. The daughter listens, but she makes her own choice. That is rare, and it is exactly why this moment stays with us in this Rutba review.

2. A Romantic Napkin Scene Worth Rewinding

If you like romance, this is the scene for you.

Hadi calls Mahnoor to meet him, and he starts with a thank you. For eight years, he says, she supported him, put up with him and waited for him. Apart from Allah and his parents, everything he has become is because of her. He must have done something very good in life, he says, to have found her.

Mahnoor, being Mahnoor, plays it cool. Who told him she did it all for him? She did it for herself, she says, with a smile that gives her away.

Then she asks him to write whatever he wants to say on a napkin, with today’s date and his name. Hadi tries to write, but the two of them keep watching each other and arguing about who should look away. It is a tiny moment, and a lovely one.

Later, Mahnoor complains that the napkin looks blank. Hadi says it is not blank. It says, “Dear Mahnoor, with love, Hadi.” Nothing else, because he has too many words for her to fit on a single napkin. Words cannot describe her, he says, and they cannot describe his love for her either. He asks her to keep it forever, so that it reminds her that Hadi loves her endlessly.

Then he sings for her.

Romantic scenes can easily feel forced, but this one feels natural because the two of them are so comfortable together. Small touches like this are why this Rutba review starts with a smile.

3. Pluto, the Kalma Test and a Car Full of Laughter

If the napkin is the sweet moment, this one is the funny moment.

Before the visit, Hadi warns Mahnoor not to bring the dog in front of his father, because his father considers the animal impure. Mahnoor has a fair reply. He is not just “the dog”. His name is Pluto.

On the day of the visit, Mahnoor is late coming back from a walk for animal rights, and Hadi’s family spots a girl with a dog at the gate. Hadi quickly tells his parents that the girl is her sister. They do not buy it for a second.

In the car, Hadi’s father calmly asks Mahnoor how many dogs she has. “Just one,” she says. “The one that barked when you opened the gate. He only barks. He doesn’t bite.”

Then comes the Kalma test. Hadi whispers a warning that his father may ask her to recite all six Kalmas. His father, a Hafiz of the Quran who leads the prayers at the village mosque, asks her to recite. She does. He is so pleased that he gives her a little money as a reward and says that elders’ gifts should be accepted gracefully.

The best part is the phone call afterward. Mahnoor calls Hadi to ask how his parents found her. His father tells him to say that they really like her, and Hadi passes it on. “Can Uncle hear me?” she asks. “Of course he can,” says Hadi. “You’re speaking so loudly!”

Scenes like this are why this Rutba review is so much fun to write. Nobody is a villain here. The humor comes from kind people trying to understand each other.

4. The Mud Roof Scene That Said Everything

The most important scene of episode 2 happens on a mud roof.

Mahnoor’s family comes to the village. The GPS stops working, the streets are too narrow for the car, and her sandal breaks on the way in. It is clear from the start that this is a different world from the one Mahnoor knows.

Hadi’s father had told him to show Mahnoor everything. So Hadi does exactly that. He shows her the kitchen, where a gas cylinder is used only when guests arrive and the family cooks on firewood otherwise. He shows her the buffalo shed and tells her he has been bathing, milking and feeding the buffaloes with his father since he was a boy. He tells her that when the power goes out in the village, it does not come back for hours.

Mahnoor remarks that his father is very modern for sending them off alone. Hadi says he is not modern. He is wise.

If you read only one part of this Rutba review, read this one. Mahnoor says the line of the episode. She has waited for him for eight years. Does he really think a few cows, a wood stove or a mud roof will scare her away?

Hadi’s answer is the real heart of the scene. If there was any fear in his heart, he would not have brought her there. A relationship, he says, should not be built on illusions.

That honesty is what makes the scene special. Hadi is not trying to impress her. He is trusting her with the truth.

5. Hadi Sings for His Bride

The wedding scenes are the sweetest part of this Rutba review. Hadi’s mother puts a pair of old earrings on Mahnoor, a keepsake from her own mother in law, and prays for the couple to have as many happy years as there are pearls in them. She asks Mahnoor to treat Hadi like a king and rule beside him like a queen. “Don’t turn him into a piece of coal,” she says with a smile.

Later, when the couple is alone, Mahnoor says she is tired of being a bride, and Hadi tells her she looks even more beautiful as Mahnoor Hadi. They thank each other and tease each other. Hadi even promises to pluck the moon, the stars and the sun for her, and Mahnoor jokes that then there would be nothing left in the sky.

She asks him never to change. Hadi says that if she ever sees him changing, she should pull him back, and if she cannot, he jokes that she can just kill him. It is a sweet, playful promise, the kind that only two people in love can make.

And then Hadi sings for his bride. The song is soft and full of devotion, and the scene ends on exactly the right note. It is the perfect way to close the first part of this Rutba review, and the sort of ending that makes you press replay.

After that, the story moves forward by two years, and the real story begins in episode 3. We could not wait to see what the drama would do with it, and it did not disappoint.

6. Hadi Says No to Easy Favours

Episode 3 jumps ahead two years, and Hadi is now an ASP. The government has given him an official house, and it is in terrible shape. It has been empty ever since the last ASP, Mr. Feroz, passed away, and the gas has been cut off because nobody paid the bill.

His staff has easy answers. Private contractors, they say, will make it look brand new, and that is “standard routine.” For the gas, they suggest pulling a connection from the neighbor’s house. “We are police officers,” one of them says. “Who would dare say no to us?”

Hadi would. No private contractor will touch the repairs of his official residence, he says. About the gas, he is clear: “I am saying no!” Get it restored legally, however long it takes.

Then comes the phone call with the SP, the best scene of the episode. The SP says it is simple. A contractor can do the work in a week to ten days, and there is nothing wrong in it, because these contractors get contracts worth crores from the department anyway. Hadi says, with respect, that he wants to go by the book.

The SP is not written as a villain, and that is why the scene works. He is tired and practical, and he honestly thinks he is helping. Twenty five years ago, he says, he gave the same speech. Idealism is a good thing, but only as long as it stays within the pages of books. Government employees have power, and because of that power, the public has a lot to offer them.

Hadi’s answer comes straight from the village. Mud walls and broken floors neither scare him nor embarrass him. What terrifies him is the misuse of the uniform, because an insult to the uniform is an insult to his parents. And his parents have always told him to accept an insult if he must, but never to accept tainted money.

The SP gives in. He will allocate whatever discretionary funds he has, and the rest is Hadi’s choice.

The same honesty shows at the office. Hadi arrives early, finds the staff sleeping and tells them he will be arriving this early every single day. When he hears that the previous ASP hardly sat in his office, he decides to stay until the last file is cleared.

Remember Hadi’s father in episode 1? He asked his son to use his position for the welfare of people and never to lose his way. In episode 3, that advice becomes a decision. This is the scene that makes this Rutba review take a serious turn, and it is where the title Rutba really starts to mean something.

7. Money Is Tight, but the Home Is Warm

Honesty has a price, and our Rutba review of episode 3 would be incomplete without the money talk.

Hadi and Mahnoor sit down with a notebook and add up what they have spent. The car took most of their savings, the house took more, and the bank account is almost empty. Mahnoor, who is expecting a baby, wonders what got into her when she quit a job that paid around 30,000 to 35,000 rupees a month. Hadi reminds her he never asked her to quit. She offers to teach O Level students nearby. He asks her to hang on a little longer, because once he is promoted, they will get a bigger house.

Her parents are worried too. Her mother sees a broken house, a pregnant daughter and a salary that also supports a village home. Her father stays calm. Look at how happy she is, he says, not at how many luxuries she has. Hadi has even refused to take household items from them, the same way her father once refused to accept anything from her grandfather. Mahnoor has married a man very much like her own father.

And then there is the warmth. Hadi’s mother knits baby clothes by hand. Mahnoor says she does not care what the house looks like, because she is happy to be building a home with him. He shares his cold sandwich with her. When he works late at the office, she calls to say she is hungry, and they joke about filing an FIR for his going missing.

The scene ends with a playful “Forever. Any doubts?” It is a sweet little moment, and a very Rutba one: small things, said with love, in a house that still has no gas.

Sheely and Meer Enter the Story

No Rutba review of episode 3 can skip the two new faces. Mehwish Hayat joins as Sheely, and Zahid Ahmed joins as Meer.

Sheely visits the house while the repairs are going on. She says she was a friend of Anam, the wife of the late ASP Feroz, and was passing by when she saw that a new officer had moved in. Then she mentions that her husband has a construction company and offers help. Mahnoor thanks her but says she will manage on her own. Sheely leaves her card and says she is just a call away.

Meer’s name comes up later. Hadi is in his office with an old man whose livestock was taken away, his only source of income. The man has come many times already. The staff says a respectable man named Meer, a friend of the SP, wants to meet Hadi. Hadi’s reply is simple. Even if he is the SP’s friend, he should wait for his turn.

The staff tries to help by placing flowers and a gift in Hadi’s room. Meer waits, but he says one line that stays with you: “Let’s see how long he keeps us waiting.”

How are Sheely and Meer connected? The episode does not spell it out, but the pattern is hard to miss. First, a friendly neighbor whose husband is in construction. Then, an influential friend of the SP with flowers and a gift. Both arrive right after Hadi has said no to contractors and favors. With these two now in the story, this Rutba review is very curious about what comes next.

Umera Ahmed’s Writing and the Cast Behind It

Umera Ahmed’s writing is at its best in the small details, and any Rutba review has to mention them.

Even the very first scene is part of it. After Hadi’s azan, his father tells him that an ordinary person may fall a hundred times but can also get up a hundred times, and that anyone given the power to uphold justice must use it for the welfare of people. Hadi answers that he has dreamed of the uniform since childhood so that he can stand by those the system has failed. It is gentle advice, but it matters, because Rutba means rank and status, and Hadi’s rank was about to rise. In episode 3, it has risen, and that advice turns into a real decision.

Take Hadi’s brother in law Naseer. When Hadi visits his sister Aneesa, Naseer taunts him. He says that when a boy becomes an officer, he starts looking for a wealthy family to marry into. He says Hadi is not a fool like them, because he would be happy even if his wife came with only four outfits.

Hadi leaves some money for the children. Naseer demands it, keeps most of it, and lets Aneesa keep only 2,000 rupees for the kids. Later, Aneesa quietly asks Hadi not to tell their parents about her husband’s behavior.

In episode 2, Naseer is rude on the phone to Hadi’s mother. He says her pride was already sky high and has now reached even greater heights.

Now look at the principal in Hadi’s school. When Hadi resigns, the principal says society does not respect teachers, it only respects officers. He asks whether a Grade 19 principal and a Grade 17 SP stand as equals in the eyes of the government. Hadi replies that societies can survive without good officers, but they cannot function without good teachers.

See the pattern? Everyone reacts to Hadi’s coming rank. His family is proud, his brother in law is jealous and his principal is a little hurt. Rank was changing the room before Hadi even wore the uniform, and in episode 3 it changes the room even more.

As for the cast, the first three episodes give both leads a lot to do. Talha Chahour has the job of making Hadi believable as a good man without making him boring, and the early scenes suggest he is up to it. Hiba Qadir gets a lively, funny Mahnoor, a girl who talks too much, loves her dog and still does not run when she sees the mud roof. Together they feel comfortable, and that comfort is what the drama needs before it starts testing them.

The older generation also deserves a mention in this Rutba review. Hadi’s father and Mahnoor’s father talk about earning a halal living and the real wealth of character. Hadi’s mother is warm and a little sharp. These scenes make the two families feel real.

From a Sweet Start to a Real Test

To sum up this Rutba review of the first three episodes, Rutba has started in a very smart way. The first two episodes gave us a love story we want to believe in, two families we can like, parents who trust their daughter’s choice and a hero who is genuinely good. Episode 3 then showed us what that goodness costs.

Hadi has his new post, and he is already being tested by contractors, shortcuts, an SP who thinks idealism belongs in books, and a friend of the SP waiting with flowers. With Mehwish Hayat as Sheely and Zahid Ahmed as Meer now in the story, the next test is probably already on its way. A father’s advice about using power for people is no longer just advice. It is Hadi’s daily choice.

If the rest of the drama keeps this level of care, Rutba could be one of the most thoughtful dramas on ARY Digital this season. We will be watching to see how Hadi handles what comes next.

You can watch the episodes on ARY Digital’s YouTube channel: Episode 1, Episode 2 and Episode 3. Rutba airs every Monday and Tuesday at 8 PM only on ARY Digital.

If you are following other dramas this week, check out our take on Dar e Nijat’s latest episode and our review of Mitti De Baway episode 5.

That is our Rutba review of the first three episodes. Now we want to hear from you.

What was your favorite moment from the first three episodes of Rutba? Tell us in the comments.