Wednesday 25 November 2015

episode 242 of love and lies




the sweetest moment of this episode for me was when a tycoon who hates his wife, looks at her with a childlike desire in his eyes, wanting to be a part of her wildly dancing free and happy world. walks up to her awkwardly, tries to follow her steps and join her in that dancing. so willing to be a part of her world and be happy with her, a desire larger than the realities that pull him back propels him. 

he is only 27 or so but it is so easy to forget that, so easy to think he is completely in control and a much older guy just because he takes on the mantle and lives up to it. almost har baar. in this beautiful story where two people unlikely to fall in love with each other, do exactly that, once in  a way, just that love is the hero... perhaps that's what i felt about this episode.

he was sure he knew he was having an illicit affair with his beloved sister's husband. at too many levels this was not just painful, it was abhorrent. galat had no place in his life... never after what his father had done. his sister was the only human being he allowed into his heart, which lay dormant beneath an icy layer, barely beating. this girl was the only one in the whole wide world that had cracked that layer,
sunshine as it were, and touched his dhadkan, making it race, becoming part of it. he had just thought he might start a life with her where there was a chance of laughter and of joy.

was arnav singh raizada really not hurting terribly inside? pragmatic, powerful, preponderant... he may be all of that, but he is also a man who loves, a man who hurts, a young man who wants a bit of happiness in his life. life has denied him so terribly that he doesn't even think he deserves such things. when your mother commits suicide on your sister's wedding day... almost without caring for what happens to her offspring, do you start feeling some crazy anger and do you perhaps start feeling guilty... that you could not stop it... we are complex beings and a myriad inexplicable emotions and urges grip us.

barun sobti's asr exuded this sense of complexity... more than what you see is who i am how i am.

khushi too had no plans to love such a man, but she did... and who could ever love someone after they treated you like that? that terrifying claustrophobic wild hungry wedding with something darkly fiery and sacred in it... who could love anyone that forced one into such a nuptials? who threatened the destruction of one's sibling's marriage. who threw one out onto cold stone floor. who accused and ranted. who never explained why he did what he did, but carried on relentless.

yet, khushi did love him.

neither could deny that love, no matter what.

in two moments of this episode that was so tenderly and terribly clear.

as he stepped up to dance with her. and as she turned away and lied to her mother.

this was no daughter allaying a mother's fears, this was a lover who wanted to guard her lover's image, he was hers, part of her ego, her self, she would not let him be viewed as unworthy in any way. had it been only to allay her mother's fears, she could have simply said she was happy, or maybe even said a few wonderful things about him, but look at the words she chooses to describe him and his feelings for her... isn't there a lot of what she wishes for from him in that? what she knows instinctively he is capable of giving?

i think true lovers have a sixth sense about each other, where they know beyond the obvious, they see potential that many can't...

both have been given a tough task... to see way beyond the obvious and feel the truth of the other. how do you perceive such things but? i guess you have to see with the eyes of the heart.

i completely agreed with the way that was ultimately shown. at this point this otherness of love and lovers is on display. in an episode that didn't thrill me often, because of execution, i still felt that love and its power.

just moments ago
she has overheard a conversation, and her disturbance is justified... why this whole thing happened still plagues her... but she is not keen to negate the relationship, instead find out, who this man is.
"kaun hai yeh, shaitan yehi raajkumar yehi..."
who is this, devil he is, prince is he too.

the mystery of the man, ek insaan ke do chehre... one man and two faces.

writers choose to bring back the beast and prince allusion.

i had written about this rajkumar shaitan thing after 226 where i think it makes its first appearance, now i find i had referred to these episodes there without even realising it came up here too... so the storyteller must be telling the story well.

a little bit of what i wrote then:
later she described asr to her mother as "duniya ke sabse achhe pati" the best husband in the world, attributing to him several rajkumar qualities... which no doubt he had. but again the beauty of it was that it wasn't true yet... and still she loved him... her own shaitan.

"hum inhen kabhi samajh hi nahin paayenge."
i will never be able to understand him.
"ek pal mein itna pyaar... aur doosre pal mein inse itna dar lagta hai..."
one moment so much love and the very next i am so afraid of him.
"yeh aise kyun hain?"
why is he like this?
"hume pata karna hi hoga..."
i must find out.

he is too much a part of her to deny him, break the tie. this i guess is love. this is essential connection.

she is now determined to find out why the rushed wedding had to happen, there must be a reason. every time she sees this man doing something decent, reasonable, positive, she lets her heart fill with hope and with renewed vigour chases the reason for that horridness.
love this attitude in a girl especially, given the passive role women are encouraged to play in our world... gah, i never thought growing up i would start talking like a women's libber, but this world doesn't give me an option, hello hi bye bye.




going back to the dance:

"no, i... don't dance..."

aww. shy guy.

cute standing around looking out of place in formal suit and perennial aloofness among dancers. cutest moment, slowly walking up to khushi and starting to somehow get in step with her, join in, like a kid i repeat gleefully.

and he has actually overcome that insane anger... in any person i would love such a moment. bua ji is the first to notice and is totally floored, she and garima have sensed all is not well with babua.

jerky stiff movements, my mama would have said "oont ki chaal," the gait of a camel. she sees him and is astonished. he is almost imploring her to help him out here.

bua ji is ecstatic, both she and garima are so relieved.

asr inept in a situation... something awfully sexy about it.

rabba vey as she sees him dancing by her... then someone pushes him and he  stumbles, gets nudged closer to her...



and like holi, together they stand... this time also he had walked up to her mesmerised, but now minus bhang...


  
that endless searching look again... what is it? i don't know. why can't i be in my senses around you? why can't i? do you... need me? do i need anything else? tell me it is for hamesha... hamesha is what i have every time i have you.

there is no shyness, no awkwardness, fluent full dialogues their eyes do deliver...

then he has to remember shyam again and walk away...

leaving her bewildered.

a glimpse of the opening sequence:



"i really like her...," said the bridegroom of his bride to be. earlier inside khushi had asked the uncle or aunt if there was any "kami" in preeto. i wonder why we are so unmindful of our own self respect. why is the girl's personality, her abilities always the topic of discussion. instead of asking people to shut up and not be obnoxious why must we actually go and ask is there something wrong with us that they behave so badly. if this is our culture, time to change it.

asr speaks reasonably and not nobly or culturally correctly or anything. an out there character he deals with life looking at it straight and real and not fudging his mind with a thousand cluttering thoughts. which is why that airconditioner as solution, and now a straight and simple question...

"phir bhi tum chup ho!" even then you are quiet. brusque harsh truth.

loved this dialogue for its freshness and unfloweriness, remembered salim javed. "tumhare gharwale 1960s ke in laws ke tarah ghatia aur stereotypical demands kar rahe hain..."

your family members are speaking like in laws from 1960s films and making third rate demands...

"ghatia" seems to be damad ji's favourite epithet.

"tumhari apni marzi ka koi matlab nahin hai kya..." doesn't your own will have any meaning?

we need to hear this. to be collaborative, part of a whole, even "good" if you will, one need not not respect one's own self, one's own desires and wishes. i always loved asr's "main." he was no merged and part of an amorphous "hum." khushi and all girls in hindi serials are always "hum," worth a ponder why... why they can't be the more assertive, steady, "main."

but this entire piece didn't quite speak to me, saved by barun and asr's exciting energy and sense of claiming.

the best husband in the world:



i wish the sequence had a little less of the tearjerker element. i liked the fact that khushi said specific things about him... painting pictures, as though she had thought them many times in her mind.

garima says it so beautifully that very drama dialogue about what will i tell your mother when i meet her.

"hamari amma toh aap hai.. aapko kissiko bhi koi jawab dene ki zaroorat nahin..." you are my mother, you don't have to answer to anyone anywhere, comes khushi's response. i liked her saying that in that most khushi way. her love for this adoptive family of hers is complete and resolutely unselfish. it is beautiful.

he watches them and is shredding within... "haan, amma, arnav ji iss duniya ke sabse achhi pati hai," yes, amma, arnav ji is the best husband in the world.

he leaves. maybe because he is somewhere the best husband in the world.

sleep eludes him... a man with conscience suffers, his beloved's voice is in his mind, murmuring in him.


"arnav ji apno ka bahut khayal rakhte hain... aur doosron ki madat karte hain... jab hi hum aap sab ke baare mein sochkar thode dukhi hotey hain... toh aapko pata hai woh kitne pareshan ho jaate hain?... phir hamare chehre pe muskurahat laane ki jee tod koshi karenge..."

all the lies she tells, all that he really wanted to do for her.

"hum bahut khush hain.. ki tumhe itna accha pati mile..." i am very happy that you got such a good husband, says amma.


"haan, amma... arnav ji iss duniya ke..." yes, amma, arnav ji is this world's. and he is up, breath ragged...



turns to look at her, she sleeps... the ultimate innocent, his heartbeat  tripper, with whom his breath is one... yet this is what it has come to, a look of such keen guilt, what have i done to you...









......................

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