episode 272 a villain and a goddess

it wasn't easy getting here to write my thoughts. despite the rather stirring scenes that opened the episode, the emptiness echoing in me seems to override everything.

this time round i know where all this is headed. which is actually... nowhere. this is extreme timepass while everyone waits for barun to be able to give more time. that was really the pity of the whole thing... if that wild violence and beating up of a man led to a story told well, we might have hit classic drama... i recall seeing the untouchables while in my twenties... blood erupting across the screen, spraying on walls, bodies letting go of life and slumpin, gory, terrible. i remember the godfather and its violence. i must have been 15 or 16 when i saw it... but all of that made perfect sense. stayed logged in the memory cells as, ah that was some movie. so good.
here... it all came to naught. pity is really that. because the actor and the henchman were actually pretty neat. better than many, these henchies, geography teacher like rotund boy included.

then there was the elaborate "reveal" of the boss. ah it is shyam. oh it is shyam. really, it is shyam?

much melodrama to get him out of the dark into light as we are brought into it too. first the hand and bracelet of course... oh, i know that... the felt the first time i'd seeen this i think i'd had a sinking feeling of disappointment. making a villain is no easy task...especially the filmi type villainiya shyam finally was moulded to.

yaadon ki baraat. dharmendra in black. ajit is white. i know and everyone else around that ajit is shakal... the man a boy had seen killing his parents. today the boy is all grown up but he remembers the man wore shoes of different sizes. then at the right moment, the man we all loved to mimic... ajit... his legs go up onto the desk at and the different sizes are instantly noticed by the hero... the truth hits dharmendra hard.

it was quite a scene really... smooth, filmy, unreal yet exciting, and this despite not having several six pack torsos onscreen.  in fact, i think the hero wore a wig, the villain certainly did. while amjad's brother imtiaz khan looked slithery in orange...
if you'd like to see the scene, it's here on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/65162961
that shoe reveal is in my memory for years and i think the concept was perhaps gypped from an angreji phillum. somehow the blue turquoise bracelet, also kept alive from the first day we met shyam, just doesn't do it. nor does the rather apt dhaiya ho, also with us since day one of shyam. and that i think is mainly to do with the writing, also directing from a distance and acting that is losing touch.

so yeah, seven odd unnecessary minutes. all of it could have been done in a couple. and who reads a will standing out on the road then loudly wonders about how to kill off someone. surely this is not the clever dude, man in black kidnapper? and what's that rocking chair doing there? now which movie was that filched from? psycho? was there a little joke there and a deep prayer to the movie greats to save this shyam this sham this show?

also what happened to the clause about accidental death then? thank g not too many lawyers were ipk fans. one profession and idea too often profaned here. i will never forget asr saying khushi is his legally wedded wife and that meaning nothing to no one. also if legally wedded, would have been nice if they established it somewhere before the show ended.

anyway... asr's beautiful arms, wanting to reach, to do damage, to unmask the offender, very touching. noticed the whole episode was shown through a lot of hand and arm shots... then there were the feet of khushi... and a head coming to close to the boss's feet.

there were two things that sort of did make an impression. one was the little drama three women in brown suits put up for a girl who missed her suited booted man. little did these ladies realise that now she yearns for him in his vest... she sees him crossing the boundary and walking toward her with only desire, pretty naked, in his eyes... or she sees herself running to him in a filthy godown, throwing herself on his blue shirt chest... yeah he had left in a suit, but alas...

very loving scene by three good actresses. and this family love, which managed to stay not nauseating despite it being a hindi soap, where for quite a while effort was made to build individual characters, not even very predictable ones, and the vibe the actors shared was so good, often gave ipk a great place to escape to when everything was off.

along with khushi i lost myself in the sweetness of it. sometimes fam does do weird stuff to make a loved one happy. here they were really bizarre in brown, but oh i did think of the hot one, especially on the morning he walked down the gh verandah looking at her. maybe that was the intention back of director's mind.

and did you notice, anjali spoke of rain? last year's rain. oooph. she remembered two scenes, the khushi sneezing one did not look right... and pity, khushi did not have a flashback of a man rushing out of nowhere and catching her and spinning away taking her to safety. holding her... it seemed for an eternity... like he'd never let her go.

but even without the flashback, the heart swelled and sighed. ah rain. really, chhotey shuts all windows and sleeps with ac on at high? why is he so d real... why?

the other scene was the patch up with dm. i am not much for mixing religion with entertainment. and so often is it used to make you buy some idea or manipulate you. but the concept of ishta devata, your personal god, or rather your personal take on the eternal is i think quite prevalent in hindu thought. i know too little to comment. but i have had mine, and i still do... and this is a private and personal matter.

to that extent, the way khushi's relationship with dm was handled, i really enjoyed it. yeah, there was a bit of the unreal chunari floating thing, but that is fine with me, a bit of flight is always okay in creative things... and really i too have looked for signs, so if khushi reads them... who am i to make fun of her.

but mainly it was her relationship with dm that i really enjoyed and thought was central to khushi's personality... helped us see and read her and connect with her too. an orphan girl always chirpy, trying to make things better. that was her strong and revealed side. but surely there was vulnerability inside? a feeling that no one was really her '"own"? a fear even and trepidation? surely she quaked and felt tremors inside, just sometimes?

this is an orphan girl's very deep relationship, made of her own free will, the only the only relationship perhaps, beside with asr, where she has and happily exercises "huq." her right.

right from day one it is there... she is not scared of dm, never fears dm will desert her. she owns and loves and possesess dm. she feeds her what she wants to, chats with her about everything, requests her to show signs, loves her and wants her love. reaches always for her blessings. and then when her whole world crumbles and she has no one to turn to, she goes to her... dm with her unmoving idol, unblinking eyes...

and she fights with dm.

all her anger, all her frustration... all her hurt... every bit of helplessness... and pain sadness confusion fury, with all of it, she goes to the one over whom she has eternal right.

her god.

her dm.

and raves and rants.

and says, go, won't talk to you... katti.

but now, now that such difficulty is upon her... now that the man who tormented her and whose tormenting she d rather live with than the love of another... now that he is in such terrible trouble... and her heart is breaking, her mind ripping at the memory of the state she saw him.. again.. she can go to no one...

but she can go to the one.

the one who is always hers.

whom she can rave and rant at and love and cajole and who will be there no matter what.

her devi maiyya.

khushi's going to see her, straight after the overwhelming moments with her family wearing suits and her heart immersed in missing him, wanting to get him out of the hell he is in, was significant and poignant.

i liked the way the director showed her hesitation with the halting feet. and i did like the way khushi slipped back into her chatty conversing style with dm... and though she did not do too much of drama, she told dm how badly she needed her man. that the same one who had taken her away from dm, brings her back.. don't let him suffer. let me.

for whatever reason... i do think some people actually talk like that and are as desperate to make the one they love feel okay, make them safe.

sanaya was for a few moments again the khushi i knew. i had really liked her raging at devi maiyya the night of suffocating terror and hurt. khushi had to show her feelings on something... someone... and she had not been turned into achhi bahu yet, so she could do the anger so beautifully. so need to sweeten the whole thing. thank dm.
and today too she slipped back into her relationship with the ease only the deepest of relationships allow... that say, no need to explain, i need you too... and yes, i like the thought that the divine needs to be told your thoughts, your mind... omniscient is the divine but i as human have been given the ability to have free will, that can be exercised only if i can state what it is that i want in the first place.

and when the chunari came via the purohit i was happy for khushi. she needed something today.

something.

and that only her divine one could give.

it was like a master within had reach out and given direction.

perhaps there is a master like that within all of us. and i hope we all find that one within.

can i please hit shyam sham shambles on his snout and please what's with the hairstyle. uff such a waste of an opportunity to create a full masala villain. every hero needs one really. asr deserved better. and that down there was a ridiculous scene... even when i realised director wants me to connect it to the blood that had fallen on shyam's shoe, didn't make me feel better... at all.

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

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