she keeps staring up at the sky, her arnav ji is going away, leaving her, not convinced of her innocence. how will she live now. a chapter seems to be ending in their lives. asr and khushi, who had met one strange evening in lucknow, though even before they set eyes on each other, she had looked up to see the helicopter that brought her rajkumar into her life... today she stands watching him go far away.
a bereft lonely khushi, slowly with every second losing hope, losing connection with the man who means what to her she has not yet been able to tell herself, but she knows he means everything... and possibly a bit more.
sanaya irani is getting ready at another level to take on the challenge of holding the fort and keeping it from caving in while her seismically popular co-actor barun sobti takes some time off.
i use a big word and extend its meaning because that is how humongous the impact of his leaving was on the show and he was extraordinarily popular. even now despite more than 18 months without being on a single screen, he continues to be so. and my belief, no matter how much you planned it, the absence of barun sobti as asr would still be pretty earthshaking.
to accept the onus of calming this turmoil and filling the void couldn't have been easy. the first time i saw these episodes i was not sure how sanaya would manage. would she at all? or would i stop watching.
sanaya surprised with her complete taking over of command. her writers did try to make khushi real again. the girl i had met back during diwali and her teda choti days, no she didn't return, not entirely, but someone she might have become having gone through all she had did.
the other character that was upped to keep story tight was shyam's. my feeling, here the calibration went haywire and the writing as well as acting took on a thick ugly melodramatic feel which just gave me the creeps and also seemed to interfere with the nature of ipk. flattening out of characters is always such a pity.
a hand lands on khushi's shoulder. she spins around, maybe arnav ji is back once more...
alas, it is shyam. the word "ashpardha" pops into my mind. the audacity of this man, touching her with a proprietary air as though this is his right. yet in a way, his character would do such a thing... he knows that asr is not coming back... well, that is his plan. and sneaky characters like this would do this chance pe dance i imagine.
prior to getting here, shyam, thanks to lakshmi ji, has unearthed buried treasure. the whole lakshmi and treasure thing plus anjali's very obvious, "yeh lakshmi toh aap ke haath bhi nahin aa rahi hai..." this wealth/lakshmi you aren't being able to catch... are too pat and seem to only say the writers are worried.
ultimately, these papers on which so much time is being spent will become meaningless sadly.
a voice calls out the dear name. khushi is almost awakened by it, she looks around, is it him? no it's a little boy his father calls out to. again i get a sense of ankh micholi, the kanha playing thing. radha looks for him everywhere, in every touch, in every name, in every face... but he is gone.
on the other side babli is playing hide and seek and is locked up in a dark claustrophobic space. was this a hint of kidnap? and that krishna thing too?
separated from her mate would khushi become lost and bereft like radha? she had danced magan for him during holi, and been coloured in his colour... and ever since she has heard why he married her, instead of anger she feels only his pain... she has started merging with him at one level, though she still has not asked herself why.
a night and a loneliness... his space, his room is quiet and forlorn, emptiness in its every corner.
khushi walks into their world alone... he is gone, lights play with the pool; lights catching reflections, memories shimmering in them.
khushi is losing her moorings a bit, the viraha stabs her heart, plays with her mind. arnav ji has forgotten his medicines, she is in tears, vulnerable, she runs to her sister in law and flings herself on her.
anjali is alarmed by this frantic khushi... he has taken his medicines she assures her. khushi is still restless, like someone deeply attached she imagines all sorts of things going wrong with her beloved, undercurrents of something not right hang in her, wrap around her. she will call him. that's not possible, he's in a plane.
she puts her head down on anjali's lap like a child, like a woman torn. she blurts out how hard she tried to tell him... a little misunderstanding again. anjali thinks about their mother's birthday, khushi wants him not to be by himself.
i always liked this thing in khushi's character, she made relationships. she liked getting involved with people. a childlike innocence in her and an openness. she is indeed a very young woman in a difficult situation here and somehow that little bridging sanaya does between child and woman with her khushi is lovely. makes her her.
she took to anjali from the moment they met and anjali reciprocated with the same feeling, instinctively liking her. in fact, she is the one who told khushi how to enter this house, with the right foot first. auspicious was there bonding always, a lot of beauty in it.
in a wan voice, anjali say, "chhotey woh hi karenge jo unke dil ko sahi lagey..." chhotey will do what his heart feel sis right.
dil.
his sister knows he has that dil and maybe in the script it is time to bring up the topic and dwell on it too.
a desolate air permeates the frame, no matter where we are. he is gone.
the music of love plays again and again, memories plague her... his face, his eyes, his pain...
then comes a realisation, the papers are missing... the desperate search begins.
after a 251 that completely knocked the breath out of me, i am grateful the creatives chose to take things a little easy this episode. it's really about khushi as she finds her jogan, her magan, her woman, her mate, her saans and submits to love. becomes his... while he is far far away.
radha in viraha, pining for milan with her kanha. shades, rasas of prem being explored. and the first episode without a single new shot of barun is done.
akula radha-rij ati jarajara ...
jharawa nayana-dau anukhana jharajhara...
tuhu momo madhava, tuhu momo dosaara, tuhu momo taap ghuchao...
marana tu ao re ao...
~~~ rabindranath tagore as bhanu singha~~~
radha's heart is full of pain and turmoil
her tears flow continuously
(death) you are my lord, you are my friend, you are the reliever from pain
oh death (krishna), come, ye come
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