episode 225 why do you hide

where are you? why do you hide?
where is that moonlight trail that leads to your side?

~~~ from moonraker ~~~

i've seen your smile in a thousand dreams
felt your touch and it always seems
you love me, you love me

~~~ moonraker ~~~

just like the moonraker knows
his dream will come true someday
i know that you are only a kiss away

~~~ moonraker ~~~

for almost five minutes the camera followed one actor as he followed a feeling. missing. normally this would get boring, but this is ipk and sorry there is no "normally." hardly any words. but then hardly any were needed. with every part of his being, barun sobti expressed asr missing, wanting, needing, loving khushi kumari gupta singh raizada, "meri pattni". started where such things start... in the heart...

"khu..." he called out unconsciously when he came out of the bathroom refreshed. yeah, that's when he is used to seeing her in the room... doing some khushi like thing, like talking to a goat while being berated. then he stopped in his tracks, shrug-shrugged and said, good she's not there, he'd get some peace and quiet. but alas, that was not going to happen. the missing grew, he started seeing her in his mind's eye... laughing, dancing close with him... khushi who laughed, who poured jooice into shoes, who peeped out of cupboards, whom he'd just told she'd made his life hell... all because he was so peeved she wouldn't accept his apology. and then she had gone around being cold, being aloof, he'd tried to shout at her, something in him perhaps hoping he'd get a sassy saucy answer from her... he hated seeing her so down and quiet and away from him.

but hah! he was arnav singh raizada, he was not going to admit that... yet that missing... that need. when his eyes open they search for her first, on the bed, by the pool, where is she? and why is hp mentioning her, "maine poochha?" did i ask, he snaps. by the end of the second day he is almost wilting. nothing feels good without her. hate her love her whatever, she must be before his eyes.

barun was so good, looking for her, his eyes darting here and there, his whole body language somehow restless, then sad, how he let that star go, standing before the poster that offended him all he could see was her laughing smiling face. how helpless he seemed without her. almost lost.

and so he was.

interestingly, he recalled her laughter and not her morose face as he missed her. she was laughter in his life. a life bleak and fairly lonely at one level (the episode showed that well, he met no one practically for an evening and a day). because he'd kept nothing for himself really. just that determination to win at all cost. he had forgotten lightness and joy.

for himself.

she was that.

and she wouldn't show herself. where are you, why do you hide?

 

if he was in that state after being really nasty to her, she was in a painful place of her own. he doesn't even want to see her...

of course, he was being awful because he so wanted her... convoluted maybe but true. had she accepted his apology, he'd have felt calmer within. never occurred to him that she really should not have to tell him where she was... that he had lost his temper in his usual way, and crossed a line...

and she, when she saw him being sweet to di, for once a thought came before she could bar it, a thought, a feeling, a need for her own self, her bruised heart... how could this man be so different with two people. she had felt his love once and then in an instant that had been replaced by this chaos... and she so wanted him to love her, care for her, be nice... because she did love him so... even though he was being perfectly hateful.

her passive aggressive resistance came out... and expressed her displeasure. her hurt. not being able to handle it – a bit of a universal male trait i must say, teehee – he felt hemmed in... no idea how to make it better. and why should he make it better?!! huh! she was the one at fault after all... she had made his life hell. he had to say that too and she felt all the hurt she could.

sanaya had just a few scenes but how beautifully she expressed a state of mind. a young girl, tender, loving, innocent, who had dreamed of love and now this. how hard she has tried to make things better, though she had no clue why this craziness had been unleashed on her. yet she couldn't hate him, not really... she could pester him and fight with him... but not hate... then had come his heer ranjha words followed by complete denial of any feelings and then a right royal tantrum out of nowhere. gussa fit. she was tired, worn down by this emotional roller coaster ride... drooping. her sunny side badly in the shade. and he goes and tells her she's made his life hell, he'd rather not see her. the feelings that flow through her.

but of course, in the middle of all that... "kuchh dhang ka karo..." he would like her to do something with her life. and she too despite her suffering has to get him the file, though without a ward. interrupted in the middle of his rant to aman, he must look at the file, then her turned away face, react to it completely, and snatch the file away.

had he not been nasty to her. had he not snatched the file. had she not gone into a hurt angry quiet... there might have been cause for concern. but this complete lack of indifference to each other. this reacting to every beat and breath of the other... what was this if not love.

a nearly 30 year long relationship has taught me all this happens. including the senselessness and hurt and misery when love is involved. in fact, these are possibly as characteristic of that thing as are joy, ecstasy, euphoria, wonder, teasing, humour, happiness, desire.

the acting took a written thing to another level. khushi and asr looked like themselves, young and beautiful and sexy, but the feelings they plumbed and expressed were deep and timeless. the way his eyes searched for her, you could feel the lift and fall and longing and pain and need of his heart.

how they created the atmosphere they did with shot of tacky things like salman poster, plastic taarey, garish mobile remains unfathomable for me. ipk is not at all sophisticated in terms of production values. its creatives, pushed for time, shooting every day, working nonstop... had hardly any time to devise arty options, such as shooting a particular way to create a mood, a look. but somehow they knew how to get the maximum out of a thing. it is true perhaps that if you have the content, the form really does not matter that much. nice to have it, if not, the content still sees you though.
 
there were lighter segments in the episode. some creepy shyam tactics though to what end we never knew. a lovely grandma grandson interlude, again a set of emotions there. and ipk really was all about emotions. there was the opening scene with di, key to introducing the main theme of the day, and of course mami the virulent with payal the vapid. all of these were there i felt to just punctuate and hold the central emotion in place, to accentuate it somehow. it was good to run into some eye flickering by snake, a little tycoon talk on i make my own kismet, etc., and then dash back to a poolside tryst, a conversation with a loved one's back and eyes filling up.

the episode had a poignance, a "dard" in it that really reminded me of a ghazal. a song written to express longing for the lover, extreme longing, perhaps the lover doesn't return the love, or has lost interest...

often have asr and khushi and their thing for each other brought music to the mind. when they canoodled by the poolside, they were definitely "i wanna hold your hand". here they were like a ghazal... he was perhaps "ranjish hi sahi", she maybe "yun hasraton ke daag". i may not have chosen the most apt songs, but the pleading for the loved one in a ghazal, the dard which is a mix of pain and sadness and all its sweetness, it was all there. and because this was asr in this frame of mind, there was a touch of the blues and jazz in it. a mournful sax played somewhere. picking up when he turned sharply at the sound of her voice.

"yun hasraton ke daag mohabbat mein dho liye
Khud dil se dil ke baat kahi aur ro liye

ghar se chale they hum to khushi ki talaash mein
khushi ki talaash mein
gam raah mein khade they wo hi saath ho liye
khud dil se dil ke baat kahi aur ro liye

the stains of desires I washed in love
had a heart-to-heart talk with my heart and cried away

i left my abode in my quest for happiness
in my quest for happiness
found sadness in my path and picked it up
had a heart-to-heart talk with my heart and cried away"


"ranjish hi sahi dil hi dukhaane ke liye aa
if it is grief so be it, come to break my heart again
aa phir se mujhe chhoR ke jaane ke liye aa
do come, if only for the act of leaving me again"

credit for lyrics and translation to uploader.

end note
this is the end, my friends, between the first shot and the second one, indi rolled over and died. and the man buttons his top button after knotting his tie, how precise and specific and aaa.

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