episode 251 please don't go

khushi looked up and her eyes followed a plane as it took off. her head turned all the way to one side, a sadness terribly deep in her. as i watched an echo from the very first day we met them came back, a young woman, fresh, innocent, unmarked by this knowledge that she has today... looking up at a helicopter, another sky rider approaching. no idea her rajkumar is sitting inside. today, she knows who is in that large machine that defies gravity and wings her love away. she has been marked now, once and for all by love.

like bookends, the two scenes, between them the first book of a pyaar that is difficult to name. from not knowing to knowing we have come, what awaits us next. a clear sense of a whole phase coming to its end and a new one beginning... like an ocean's ebb and flow... the tide has turned, the ebbing starts, yet below the surface and tow, a pulling in, can anyone ever go away again?

251... a pain filled yet exhilarating long episode. this is the last day we shall see asr the way we are so used to seeing him, in a long time. the actor is going away on longish leave, but we have been assured he will return from time to time and shoot. we know he will be kidnapped... he is not in that plane. we also know that airport scene was not shot in an airport... it's a shopping mall.

we know many things. and we are tense... i was very very tense really. yet the actors reached effortlessly and unfalteringly in and touched hidden places, i felt my feelings soar.

baat aapki hai... kyun khushi se door jaane mein...

you are the sun, i am the moon, you are the words, i am the tune... play me. neil diamond from the seventies in a scene here suddenly. a beautiful, startling shot of a very disturbed asr waking up as a dejected khushi opens the curtain to let sunlight in. ever since the bridge, a sadness and longing wraps the two, a yawning distance between them. and in khushi now a simple realisation and an absolute need. he is hurting terribly about this whole shyam thing, he is in pain... she must convince him that it's not true, because even she can't live if he should think so badly of her.

the word love may not have been stated, but these two were lovers true. and of a kind that never felt hackneyed, never felt jaded, but always as alive and radiant as that sunlight. or darkly sparkling like a star wrapped night sky.

that shower of sunlight on his face, if only it were so easy to bring light... the veil of deceit was as thick as that curtain but not as easy to draw.

an awkwardness to the morning. where does one go from here... her voice signals things to him... he senses her, she senses him, somewhere in all the hate and nafrat, in all the i'll show you swami and harassing laad governor, in all the accusing and counter accusing, in all the rage and chhap gaya hai and everything that has transpired, somewhere since that very first day when a man opened his eyes and a girl shut hers, something indelible has taken root and grown and is now in place... phenk do, throw it away he had told her... but she couldn't... he had tried to turn and walk away, but he had had to turn around. palat.

"ji shukla ji..."

and a palat. he knows she is down, he even knows why to an extent, and he can't bear it. it bothers him.

she hands him his towel, head down and looking wan, and he remembers the squabbling and race for the bath just a couple of weeks ago, a smiling crazy sanka khushi. the girl he wants, the girl he adores. he even recalls, humney kaha uthiye na... swami. maybe he enjoyed that ragging by her, maybe he felt a bit tickled by her supreme madness?

missing. longing. needing.

quiet portrayals of it in looks, in eyes, and turn of head and a pace, like little paintings strewn across the wall, each shot of the two this difficult morning after. khushi knows she must make him sign the papers. he knows he will go away.

each and every shot between the two eloquent, layered and moving. little mattered that shyam and anjali scenes were somewhat flat and loud. perhaps they needed to be noisy as they had to claim our attention today if not our hearts. the lead is going away, the visual play is shifting, hear ye hear ye. there's a sensitivity among the creatives when doing the asr khushi scenes. so delicately handled, taking time over every emotion, every action. kyun dard ha itna like a clear brief through it all.

"n..nahin shukla ji ab humse yeh dabba service nahin hoga..." she can't do this dabba service any more. a khushi forlorn, so unlike herself.

another palat.

again a memory of a smiling girl... "tum kya kar rahi ho, khushi?" what are you doing, khushi? "arre aapko pata nahin, hum apna naya business..." oh you don't know i am starting my new business.

smiling happy loopy mad khushi... girl that makes his heart beat wildly, why is she so sad so down? why ... it does bother him..

the truth has taken its toll on both.

sanaya and barun for a moment as just asr and khushi... a man and a woman who are in each other, part of each other. connected.

she looked lovely in that pink... and he darkly gorgeous.

he sits down to eat and she is up to her pranks in his heart, throwing water on him, lecturing while walking on top of the bed... he is irritated he can't stop the thoughts. memories come of the fight on the terrace. and a girl snapping a thread with her teeth, her head resting almost on his chest... so close to him, his heart beat...

"dammit!" there's only one thing to do, banish the thoughts. "main kyun usske baare mein soch raha hoon. mujhe faraq nahin padta... usski baato se, ya usski behaviour se... usski awaz bhi nahin sunna chahta main... na usski kisi baat ka explanation chahiye..."

why am i thinking of her. makes no difference to me... her words, her behaviour... don't want to hear her voice even... nor do i want her explanations.

"usska hona na hona mujhe itna pareshan kyun karta hai... kyun soch raha hoon main itna usske baare mein... why dammit!"

her being or not being around, why does it bother me so much... why am i thinking so much of her, why dammit!

this is an intelligent, articulate man. and this struggle to acknowledge and submit to a feeling is genuine and difficult to bear. he can see he is immersed in her thoughts. his dimaag says he can't have feelings for a home breaker, his sister's husband's lover... but a part of him is rebellious. it doesn't listen to his head. it does its own thing. tormented is he by her thoughts... and he misses her smile. one day he will say as much... he will do anything to put that smile on those lips. the first time he had seen her, they had registered before all else.

at the poolside he sits, looking stunning in jacket and that trademark distracted air. he sighs, memories plague him.. khushi is drunk at diwali...dancing... beguiling... feelings well up again. the entire day today, knowing full well that he leaves soon, and perhaps even more vulnerable because it's his mother's birthday the next day, he thinks of khushi and nothing but her. she is embedded in his being now. is it really possible to leave any more?

he bangs shut the computer and looks up. there is the real girl right before him.

he yells at her for no reason. maybe needs to talk, needs to try and be in control... i want you to understand mujhe in cheezon se koi faraq nahin padta..

a little later in the day. in the meantime, shyam has switched papers, she has had them signed, hidden and photographed them, and shyam has made a disgusting declaration of love, creeping everything, i bet even the fly on the wall, out. shyam's dialogues were so well crafted, raunchy, base, sickening, but wrapped in shuddh hindi, with plenty "aap" and pseudo courtesy. while the man she wants only says blatant, in your face "tum" and doesn't seem to care about the purity of language, as long as it says what he wants to and the way he wants to, dammit... what the... tum kya kar rahi ho... faraq nahin padta. and she does thrill to it all. baat aapki hai.

she calls him, he ignores the call.

the phone as a prop to convey intense despair... so well used. and kind of real. the frantic calls, the switching off. the emotional roller coaster such simple little things can set up.

stop calling me khushi.

and it is anjali who tells her sister in law that her brother is going to london. he likes to be alone on this day. can't share his pain...

khushi is stunned by this news of his leaving town, but it isn't of herself she thinks... it is only of him. many might think this is wimpish, but that is love... in this already sad state of mind, his dukh is increasing because of her... she must tell him...

a lover is filled with fear and panic, no i won't let him go, i must prove the truth... she runs out... eyes already beginning to look desperate... he is leaving.

the episode here onward felt like a song, a balad or a ghazal or a gut wrenching love song with a tempo, a beat, a tune, and a cry for love, for life itself... saans hi nahin le...

throughout in the car he thought of no one but her. he reached the airport. a concentrated and lost look on his face.

she is getting there in a cool cab. a little detail bothered me here. surely he has several cars and drivers. in such a well directed and sensitively handled situation, a little what the.

he is inside the airport, walking in... she has reached.  he is leaving without telling her... how much is said in just that.

she has no money to enter, she has forgotten to take the change back from the taxi driver, she is frantic, runs to the gate where they won't let her in... he is walking away. her heart calls out...

"arnav ji," she murmurs looking hassled.

and he hears her... he stops...he knows it is her. bas, pata chal jata hai... and after a long time, a gust of wind... as it has come again and again, in 57 when he thought she was gone, now when he is going away... it comes... a couple of minutes and goosebumps... an entire episode here, a lead up just in his missing her smiling laughing triumphant face.

she would have turned away, but the wind comes and touches her... she turns back... and a slightly stooped dejected looking arnav singh raizada turns too. she sees him at last.

hey hey, the piano notes trill, you can leave each other maybe but the song never leaves your heart your memory.

as his eyes found her, his lips moved just a hint, an involuntary rush of joy in his heart.. a smile, almost. a beautiful smile, eyes lighting.

across the distance a longing and a need spanned... he needed her like he needed nothing else... and she him... to know this truth it will take a bit of time. what if it takes forever. the heart sank at the thought. why did these two actors' love matter to a jaded one like me? maybe because nothing felt like acting. it was real. and in that longing was a preciousness that is so rare, so invaluable. it completely threw off the veil of jadedness that the years bring and said, come, dare to live, to love, to break, and die.

she saw his gaze, she felt the yearning, a happiness seemed to touch her... oh the relief and joy at finding him.

on diwali night a recognition of things that can never be denied had taken place... she had looked through a glass later as he had taken another wild step to somehow escape her spell, not ready to succumb to such a huge feeling. today again, she is behind a glass, tears streaming down her cheeks and he is off.

rabba vey. a few moments of forgetting all reality and just being in each others hearts.

then she was stopped, she called to him... she wanted to speak, suddenly reality stepped back in... jerked him out of that beautiful trance... he turned away...

she called him, he disconnected the line, looking at her all the while... were there tears in his eyes.

she called again... she was not going to stop today, not till she got him to hear, to understand, to come back to her... she couldn't live without that...

agony gripped him, then he, who so wanted to believe that all he had seen was a lie, did give in to his gut, his heart, and answered the call.

"kya sunu...!" what should i listen to... he gritted out, brusque abrupt tone... no one hurts like a man who knows he is hurting but doesn't yet understand why...

"kya bolna chahti ho...!" what do you want to say. sharp words, like shots.

"hum aapko batana chahte hain ki shyam ji..." i want to tell you that shyam ji...

a jerk of a wrist and the phone is off the ear. shyam... the mere mention hits him hard, blinding pain.

she is heartbroken, he is leaving. she has lost touch with him, her life ebbs... yes it does feel like death... maran re tuhu mama shyam saman.

arnav ji, ruk jaiye... arnav ji, stop... her words float around as the world swirls uncaring and busy with everyday mundane things... ticket. you don't have a ticket...

beautiful juxtaposition of the mundane and pointless with that deep anguish and an emotion that brings light to everything, even a plain glass door with bright blue frame and plastic palms. 

he wanted to look back... why? and yet he did and he shook off the feeling again and again...

rabba vey played as he left her and she cried not caring where she was, just her feelings mattered.

and then he returned... perhaps that string that ties them is too hard to break, no matter how many times you snap it. he can't stay away.

"aap gaye nahin..." she is mystified, elated. you didn't go.

"aap ruk gaye..." you stayed.

"tumne zabardasti roka," you made me stay. who can do zabardasti with this man. looks away, and back, so much in the eyes.

"kyun kar rahi ho yeh sab?" why are you doing all this.

"kyunki hum aapse baat karna chahte hain!" because i want to talk to you. a spirit in her now... when he is near, she is whole again. the classic lover, incomplete without her love, divine and even mere mortal lovers in culture after culture have been like that. a right, a huq she keeps feeling...

how can you think shyam and i... she starts, and again that name he cannot tolerate. possibly especially from her lips. it is tainting, obscene almost.

"mujhe iss baare mein kuch nahi sunna..." don't want to hear anything about this.

khushi moves swiftly and does a very khushi thing, she snatches away his ticket. he is astounded.

please wait a bit, soon your doubts will clear... she pleads. she believes shyam is on his way to talk to asr. she still believes this will happen.

the hope in his eyes, the plea in hers...

"aapko rukna hi hoga..." you have to stop... again that right.

"agar aap hamare baare mein aisa sochenge toh humse bardasht nahin hoga..." if you think this of me, i won't be able to tolerate it.

"bardasht nahin hoga... bardasht toh main nahi kar sakta!" you won't be able to tolerate it... i can't tolerate it!

i have done nothing that you should think this of me or give me such a sazaa... punishment.

just looks... liquid, limpid and flecks of fire. a look, a swallow... he leaves...

yet again he returns. beautiful... this push me pull you. unmistakable sign of a vital emotion.

"10 minutes.. dus minute hai tumhare paas sach sabid karne ke liye..."  you have ten minutes to prove the truth. sach... he asks for it finally. soon he won't care, he will know what is the greatest truth. and that in fact cannot be proven.

"usske baad i'll be gone!" then i'll be gone.

crowds jostle the girl he hates... a man moves forward, an arm protects, a body stands between a woman and the world... she is his patni, he her pati, he always her protector. hamesha. this is an instinct he cannot deny. a beautiful moment thought up by creatives. speaks eloquently without a single word.

di said why you are going today, if you stayed... she feels his loving, she tries to break through, touch his core, tell him she is always here... make him feel better.

conventional wisdom: lady, the man has called you all sorts of pretty bad things, don't care, make him apologise and till he does, stay away, be angry. never give in. demand your right.

the wisdom of love: feel his pain, give him care, love him, no matter what he thinks of you, don't stop loving him, if need be just forgive him and forget what he said, he says all this because he hurts.

great love stories have that wisdom. correct sounding tales with political correctness its main aim, will never feel this ecstasy. where submission is the ultimate conquest.

"tumhare pas sirf teen minute hain..." she has only three minutes. a countdown to what...

"tumne aakhri baar mujhse kuch manga aur maine diya... got to go now," he speaks of the last time... akhri... is it the end? you asked me for something for one last time and i gave it to you... imperious... he who gives and asks for nothing... yet the undertow screams, i needed this, i needed you, i wanted you to give me yourself, i need to know you are not that woman, my mind doesn't listen, too many layers of pain numb it befuddle it, my past, my present, your voice, you in another man's arms, release me from this pain, tell me it isn't true. she can perhaps hear all that and more... without words, without perfectly flowing senstences, a lover knows, just like that.

but now he must claim himself back from this vulnerabilty, this defenselessness... he's got to go, cool urbane, invincible, don't care.

she won't let him...

"stop it, khushi, stop it NOW. i know koi aanewala nahin hai... main ruka sirf issliye tha kyunki..." i know no one's coming, i stopped only because... and that terrifying pause after kyunki... because.

but this time a thought needs to be expressed.

a slight air of helplessness on a stern face...

"kyunki kahin na kahin (voice breaks on kahin) main chahta tha ki tum apne aap ko beqasoor prove karo.. shayad ek hope thi ki shayad tum galat nahi ho... par galat main tha..."

because somewhere i wanted you to prove your innocence... maybe i had a hope that you are not wrong... but i was wrong...

"lekin iss aakhri mauke ko bhi tum utni wafadari se nibhaya jaise apni har galti ko... enough khushi, ab aur nahin... i am going khushi... ab toh sach bata do..." he is so disappointed, sad, miserable really. did he ever ask himself why it was important? why he cared.

she must have made some "stoopid" plan to mislead him he says.

"mat jaiye..." don't go. that's all she can say, she can think or feel. her whole being seems to say that in that torn desperate voice.

her hand on his shoulder... she is getting physical like him. that tension between two people very close, a frenetic feel to it all.

"kyun tumhe faraq padta hai..." why does it make a difference to you? he has felt so badly unloved on that terrace that night. he thought he made all the difference to her, but apparently...

"kyun? kyun faraq padta hai? kyunki baat aapki hai issliye faraq padta hai... aur agar aap hi aise chale jayenge toh hum saans hi nahi le p-"

and she says the words he surely does understand... and long to hear. sanaya's voice trembles, fills with tears and love and a surrender, khushi must say what she feels, though she too has not clearly articulated thoughts, she knows but if he should go, everything would cease to be, especially her breath, she... maran re...

makes a difference because it is you... if you leave like this... then how will i even breathe...

i can't live without you...

the hour of separation is near. hearts are open and vulnerable... inevitability lurks all around, bidding all to rush to it... time ticks, refusing to stand still...

and memories come, one upon another, in pictures, in sound, in every pore of one's being... aisa kyun hota hai...

in his heart echoes of what he had said in an unguarded moment and meant every word, every silence... jab jo bura kaha uska koi matlab nahin.. jab jo bura kiya uska koi matlab nahin.. iss pyaar mein sahi aur galat ka koi matlab nahin, bas... ke main hamesha hamesha tumse...

she is galat, he is certain now and broken even more, yet what does galat really mean in a love such as this?

she clutches his hand to stop him, please don't go, but he is adamant, he pulls her hand off his, having already taken back his ticket ad putting it into his pocket, beautiful direction here as we will see later.  

he leaves. and the saddest walk down the gallery, looking downcast, almost ill, the distance between him and the girl struggling at the doorway increases.

somewhere in a colourless place, a no man's land, he touches his feelings... the voice in his head asks, "kyun aisa feel kar raha hoon main, kyun khushi se door jaane mein ittni taqleef ho rahi hai mujhe... why dammit."

why am i feeling like this... why is it hurting me so much to go far away from khushi... why dammit.

beautiful dialogue. a precise understanding of a state of mind in the language of the man who says it. the distance bothers him. to hate her while she sleeps next to him or makes his life hellish is acceptable... this distance. yet it is this very thing that will bring peace and reconciliation within.

she looked up at the plane... there up in the sky where she  had once seen his chopper...

asr didn't make it to the plane. barun shot his film. we got the beautiful and emotional kidnap track. maybe his film did not release, but by necessitating this separation, it did a far more magical thing.

have i ever seen such beautiful lovers or felt so much of their feelings. khushi the lover is among us now... that bridge onward she was never the same. the girl is metamorphosing, a woman is emerging, a lover has laid claim... and a man who never had a chance to be a boy has asked the question only a lover can ask, who else bothers to ask why it hurts to leave the one you think is a fallen woman, the one you hate.

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

baat aapki hai episodes

episode rambles

fanfiction