bairiyaa... enemy mine : a vm

watch bairiyaa here.

this is the second vm i made if i am not wrong. when i started watching ipk, i had no idea what a vm was.

heard this song by chance. of course instantly fell for the words and thought of asr khushi, i liked the smooth pace and the dreamy singing. taking that as a sign, but of course, i started making the video, not quite sure what story it would tell. then it went smoothly to the end.

hope you enjoy it. my other favourite voice, atif aslam, who i think perfectly matches the feel and mood and time-spirit and "hit" of barun is here. the words feel so right.

i could not have made a single vm without the astonishing and immense kindness of katelyn. and if wiwy hadn't started the trend on our blast from the past thread, if supriya hadn't given me lessons on editing... maybe someday we'll look at what all we really did get thanks to a good looking man, a crazy love story, and a rather beautiful girl.

the song is from a movie called ramaiya vastavaiya, i haven't seen it. but was very pleasantly surprised to read that a woman has written it... her name is priya panchal. shreya ghoshal and atif aslam sing, music is by sachin jigar. i am pretty unfamiliar with these names, other than the singers'.

this copyright thing bothers me... i do hope this is not considered uh huh in any way... because it is not meant to be.
 
it's hard to translate the song because there's an emotion in it that needs to be felt. bairiyaa could translate to enemy and yet, it has a sense and a "love," the smell of earth and skin in it, and a non urban texture, a "reach" emotionally which enemy just doesn't have...

re baandhe
ties me

aise mohe baandhe
ties me in such a way

haan mohe baandhe wo nainon ki dor se
yes, he ties me with the tie of his eyes
 
hai yeh pyaar kaisa
what sort of love is this

is kaa raaz hai kya bol de
tell me what is its secret

keh bhi de...
do tell me...

kabhi sakun, kabhi laage bala hai
feels like peace at times, at times a problem this
 
kabhi duaa, kabhi laage halaa hai
at times a blessing, at times poison it seems like

nainon se ye kya ho chala hai
what's going on with these eyes

bariyaa ho bairiyaa mujhe sataa na bairiya
enemy, o my enemy, don't trouble me, o enemy

kaisi yeh peer jo raatein jaage
what is this pain that keeps me up at night

taaron ko chhantey re
and makes me count the stars
 
kaisi yeh peer jo raatein jaage
how is this pain that stays awake through nights

raatein jaage aur taaron ko chhaante re
stays awake and counts the stars

palkon ki dibiyon mein rehte
in the little boxes of eyelids

khwaab hai udne ko kehte
there is a dream that asks me to fly

haathon se chhuta chhuta chala hai jiya
my heart has slipped out of my hand

bairiyaa
o enemy

bairiyaa o bairiyaa mujhe sataa na bairiya
enemy, o enemy do not trouble me, o enemy

udne lagi hai khamoshi se baaton ki parchiyaan
shadows of words have begun to fly silently

udne lagi hai khamoshi se khamoshi se baaton ki parchhiyaan
shadows of words have begun to fly silently, in silence

hone lagi aadhi aadhay aankhon se hi kai baatein
many incomplete conversations do eyes make

sansein jalaaye ishq ki sardiyaan bairiyaa...
the breath is burnt by the winter/shivers of love, o enemy

bairiyaa o bairiyaa mujhe sata na bairiya
enemy, o enemy, do not trouble me, o enemy

bairiyaa o bairiyaa mujhe sata na bairiya
enemy, o enemy, do not trouble me, o enemy

kabhi duaa kabhi kabhi hala
at times blessing, at times poison
 
bairiyaa o bairiyaa bairiyaa...
enemy, o enemy...

n i s h a n a   e p i s o d e s
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just saying

gaur se dekhiye


 


how is one even supposed to think dammit. 
episode 356 buri bahu

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episode 356 buri bahu

mano to the rescue, that's what i thought as editor cut to the shot of mano sleeping on the sofa in the middle of the day.

daughters in law are always presented as objects in hindi serials. they are people who have a prescribed set of duties and emotions that they are supposed to execute and feel. then they get to be seen as achhi bahus, good daughters in law, which apparently makes them into remarkable women and role models.

never occurs to a hindi soap seller to treat women as women and not things that must fit into society in this way or that.

of course, no woman is worth her salt till she has married and proven her achhi bahuness. in fact, achhi or buri, you have to be married... i am amazed at serial after serial going on and on about shadi and sasural and oh the troubles a lovely girl is willing to face for the sake of keeping her sasural together, which miraculously overnight becomes more her family than even the family she's  born into.

there seems to be no story line other than ones involving marriage and ensuing mayhem.

single girls have no place in hindi soap, unless we are going to talk about their marriage.

and no woman has the right to be not so achhi and loved. she better comply with the rules of television and patriarchy and prove her loveworthiness.

no such thing with mano... and oh her totally cool ma in law.

nani ji is marvelous as she smiles and says, "taane marna aur sona yeh toh manorama ki janam siddh huq hai. hogi duniya ki sabse badi alsi, par dil ki buri naahin hai." saying nasty things and sleeping are manorama's birthright. she may be the world's most lazy person but she isn't bad of heart.

i wanted to send a shower of muah muah emoticons to nani ji and our sleeping bootiphool, hello hi bye bye.

unlike what tv says, reality is closer to this, my grandmother never viewed my mother from the point of view of work and doing things, she always valued her and loved her for who she was.

our television is building an obnoxious and regressive image of society with women as its main doers, army of workers... working away to keep all in order. the whole bahuriya culture is dangerous for women. i am not exaggerating...

so when i see mano, i feel peace and joy. yeah, she lies and cheats and is lazy beyond belief, but her family can sees he is not a bad sort really. and that is good enough for them. the value of human beings, of relationships, ipk had a lovely view of that.

i am sad to see how pedestrian ipk is being made to become. maybe that mano nani moment is a protest from the writers, who knows.



the setting up of "automatic confession" was gauche and out of the blue. khushi is sounding more and more like a bahu from another serial, a distinct gopi vahuness to her now, she the saviour of the parivaar. and my shatir tycoon is apparently unable to handle the situation without khushi ideas. oh well.

thankfully, he can still give goosebumps when he looks a certain way...

 

goosebumps continue to do their thing as he reacts to her too obvious cue about now they can do anything as the cameras aren't there, and walks to her and picks up the phone instead... 





then turns and leans forward and asks in smoky voice, "tumhe lag raha tha ki main kuch aisa karne wala hoon?" did you think i might do something like this?



however, even that is not enough to get everyone's mind off shyam. i think shyam did finally what he'd set out to do, hijack the story and become centre of khushi ji's attention.

i reached a head desk (is that what it's called?) moment when shyam ran into his room and started talking loudly to himself about cameras, his plans, etc., making all things clear to us uh duh viewers. tell me, who does that. and why must this be done to ipk.

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episode 355 a world of our own

too many women around the world get bashed every day for this very reason for me not to feel touched by a man who ate food cooked by his wife without even noticing it wasn't well made. i am sure that is not the reason this scene got written into the story, which incidentally, was struggling to find a path clearly. and of course, i realise it was to show how much he loved khushi that scene was devised. but a viewer will always see anything with her filters in place. my perception is my reality.

i thought yet again, how badly our world needed a hero like arnav singh raizada. if there was any woman watching the episode who gets a whack from her husband if she doesn't place a nice meal before him... or a woman who is treated badly by her in laws when the food doesn't turn out right... she would have felt the joy of the moment, its beauty. in fact, husband/boy friend flinging the food one has cooked and then beating her, comes up in many accounts of women who are battered.

yes, a man should be like that fellow sitting there and merrily noshing. someone is bothering to cook for him and serve him with care... that is enough.

"tumne banaya mujhe achcha laga..."
you made it, i liked it.

my favorite dialogue this episode. and my favourite moment along with one other, where nothing was said.





as she walked out of the bathroom, in her simple night clothes, a moment came upon them. his eyes showed it first, then her a slightly unsettled look and pause.. next thing he had pulled her without preamble.



my heart sort of slowed at a certain point as they tumbled onto the bed.


a heat permeated all. i thought yeah, that is the chemistry we all talk about. really what these two actors create on a creen is quite incomparable. and beautiful. makes you greedy, makes you happy. makes your day in just a moment. this was our "chhoti si duniya" really, these two... and the feelings they filled us with. it made that ajeeb duniya we all live in seem not so weird. it brought beauty into our lives.



a chhoti si duniya is a precious thing.

around this time, ours had started to crack and crumble pretty badly. look at that rush to solve the shyam story. i think abhaas had asked to go by now. and maybe a lot of the more adept creatives had started working on other projects, thought the credits rolled their names. otherwise, why this hotchpotch episode design, no traction anywhere. even the lighting feels off. and please, what story telling is this, khushi can't cook halwa poori for breakfast? she who can make hundreds of jalebis in no time, run a dabba service...

the whole conspiratorial air between asr and khushi, then khushi yanking nk into the scheming and planning, everything feels wrong. they have just gotten married after much drama the night before... no, they are not going to be running around trying to stymie shyam right now, even if they have seen those cameras in the room.



please don't tell me, the lead writers and directors were working on these episodes, i just won't believe it. suddenly while watching a black and white visual of shyam at godhbharai, asr said "blue bracelet." how careless are these mistakes. and if the set up for the asr eating badly make halwa for wife's sake was scene was silly, the one that would give them the chance to go peek at shyam's laptop was mind numbing...

i understand serial writing isn't easy. all the daily pressures. so yea, you can have some not too well made/written episodes. but the thing that i can never get is why did khushi have to be changed? her smile, her tone of voice? her demeanour? and one moment she is a little doltish so called cute girl, next she is achhi bahu out to save the world. why? she was a lovely character. a strength in her and a wisdom as also her beautiful sanka, her fey thing, her style, her depth. there was something delicate and graceful about her movements, her voice had a simplicity, an innocence, her smile was infectious, nothing felt put on. an elusive thing really this feel.

and she was immensely  popular as she was.

so why did one have to mess with her? after the remarriage, she was further fixed and really i couldn't get her or this strategy at all. a strident note in khushi now, jarring. that naturalness damaged.

i am glad though her eyes showed she wanted his kiss. it was he who didn't when he remembered the cameras... and for a moment she looked disappointed, uncomprehending. in little things like this i guess my chhoti si duniya got saved.




er, i don't think asr is into cute conversations under the cover. and that too in a soft tone about hamari shadi. he is dragging her into his arms right now and thoroughly kissing her. as i said, my perception is my reality. hyuk.

and my mano darling said, "bahut musskil hai, bhery diphcult!"
i thought, right you are, my sharp one, it is difficult to see what i am seeing.

had to make this edit. he looks so good, absorbed in eating.

 

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gravity... nothing can pull us apart : a vm on a song by coldplay

kate, my dear friend on india forums, spoke of this song called gravity by coldplay which reminded her of asr, i'd never heard it... but since i know kate well i knew she had felt something totally ipk abs asr while hearing it, so i ran and listened. fell for the whole thing. made this vm... it's for kate and all of us who love ipk, khushi, asr.

the force of nature that holds us tight, keeps us rooted and makes us float away... gravity. watch gravity here.

thanks, kate, for the song, this one is made by the two of us i think.

 

 

watch gravity here.

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no copyright infringement is intended. this is a fan appreciation video and there's no commercial transaction involved. thanks to all at ipkknd and coldplay, all the original owners of the material.

 

episode 354 camera finish

there was something so positively strange about 354, it was completely ajeeb. and i don't mean that in a nice way.

just now we have seen the struggle the two have gone through to get married. finally you have the beautiful coming to mandap, albeit somewhat late, by the tycoon... and the lovely jhalli bride throwing her arms around him in front everyone, just holding him, needing him. and he the same.

this has come after days of drama and tension. surely you can wait one episode before jumping into some crazy story involving shyam and cameras. cameras i think are an obsession with the writers, just like dawai, and why is it that shyam has these cameras up at all? and even if he has, must we see him just minutes after episode opens?

i remember cynthia's extreme ire with the post marriage hoopla to avoid any intimate scenes between two people, now twice married to each other.

what is this coyness?

or was it not coyness, more a deal? had the channel allowed the writers to move away from the separation idea and have asr come to khushi at a simple cost... you must have some nefarious drama on and not let any happiness in. that way audience will be tense and trapped.



and yet, ipk writers used to be so good at balancing the good the bad and the shyam. so what happened now? guess i'll never know.

a most bland episode, like kheer without sugar. i am remembering how asr hates it and smiling. so where are those writers?



instead shyam in red on a wedding night. how pathetically boring. he sits peering at a computer while his wife comes and goes without noticing what he is seeing.



khushi and asr spoke of his mother and his hurt. again, nothing touched me, though yes, the dulha looked deadly. such a pat conversation, all the so called right noises made. this show was about making the wrong things sound right, dammit.

couple of lines from one mr asr i did like.

"tum meri behen ho..."
are you my sister...

he said to nk, a weird smile in his eyes. now i have been watching this man carefully when he is with nk, he has such a glint in his eyes as the nand kissore from down under gets going. this is too cute thinks the aged aunty viewer, who has never been part of trp audience alas, for then she might have mattered.. asr is a little helpless before the loopy coz. just as he is before the lunatic bride. and this surely is true bromance.

"di ko uss aadmi ke aage kuch nazar nahin aata."
di can't see beyond this man.

he adores his sister but knows her well. and that slight irritation in his tone, so natural.

"jitni bhi giri hui harkat ho yeh insaan kar sakta hai."
however lowdown an act may be, this man can do it.

he knows his jija ji well too. i like the fact that asr learns from his mistakes. no one can ever convince him again that shyam has changed or is a good guy. he is base, that is all there is to it. human asr is, he makes mistakes, but fool he isn't.

so i am afraid, i don't think on his suhag raat, despite the cheesy linked hearts on the wall, he would waste any time talking about this and that. he would actually lay her down on the bed and start making love to her immediately. with extreme passion.

maybe the writers didn't write that only to spare poor shyam.

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echoes from a love story 2

kissi ko yeh jaanne ki zaroorat nahi hai ki jab hum akele hote hain hum kya karte hain...  
"no one need know what we do when we are just by ourselves..."

echoes from a love story

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to be a man... 353

my favourite moment this episode, when he turned and told his dadi the truth as it is, not as we like to make it. a real mensch he was. and i never tire of watching this scene.

"dadi, inki koi galati nahin, hamari zindagi barbaad karne wali ye nahin thi... aapke bete the..."
dadi, she was not to blame, the person who ruined our lives was not she... it was you son...

"...mere papa... shadi shuda the... phir bhi unhone do auraton ke saath dhoka kiya."
...my father... he was married... even then he went and cheated two women.

"dadi, aap ki soch galat hai aur agar aap apni soch badal nahin sakti toh shayad aapko yahan se chale jana chahiye!"
dadi, your thinking is wrong and if you can't change that, then perhaps you should leave!

"khushi, jaane doh inhen."
khushi, let her go.



i just loved barun's acting. and i was glad writer had chosen khadoos asr to let the dadi role come to an end. ved raj is back. we need more arnav singh raizadas on our tv... real men, who don't think egregious patriarchy is right. if the man is wrong, he is wrong, you got to say it as it is. you have to be fair... and stop this other woman woh aurat nonsense.. the man was married. the onus was on him to be faithful. doesn't matter he was wealthy or belonged to a well established family. rarely have i seen a tv character speak so plainly and say the truth. in a deeply patriarchal society, asr has refused to fudge the truth about his own father, refused to bow down to any pressure, refused his father's name and fully honoured his mother's making it his own. and he doesn't believe in god the way his family does. and yet he succeeds, no, her bhagwan doesn't come and smite him... how did this hero make it through 398 episodes of a gec daily soap, intact. miracle.

 










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episode 353 because of you

shaat shomuddur tero nodir paare...

i wrote this on crooner after first seeing the episode. almost all i wrote at the time works for me even now. this is an edited version of my first thoughts on 353. and even though i may have seen something meaningful here, i still totally disagree with the remarriage idea.


across seven sees and thirteen rivers... did the prince have to travel to find the princess's heart trapped in a box in some secret location, in the bangla fairy tales my grandma told me. it felt as though that distance and more was journeyed by asr from the moment his unloving, unscrupulous grandmother said the words and held up a picture. i saw his eyes then and i could feel him spiraling out of himself toward what heaven knows. while his bride waited, she'd told him not to be late, not on their wedding day. yet he had to go away.

i usually avoid journey as a metaphor for i feel it is overused. but last week what arnav singh raizada went on was an epic journey, no less. one he was pretty much pushed into, and where for a while i feared for him as i had the night he and khushi had a terrible row when he realised she'd left because she was waiting for the contract to end. "tum aise hone dogi, khushi?" you'll let our marriage end just like that? i can still hear the agony in his voice, the numbing pain.

yesterday, as he screamed into the night and broke furniture, i worried that his customary reflex: anger, would again destroy everything. yet one part of me held firmly on to hope: no, it said, this time he will find a way out, khushi is too much in him to just turn away from, no matter how shattering the revelations before him, and even if it is about his mother. he was in her garden and i prayed she would show him the way.

she did. he heard her. his mother's memory and words played gently through his mind, calming him, taking away all horror and pain, bringing him back from the first part of his journey which took him to the edge of disaster, he felt himself unlock and return. milestone.

when he thinks, he never goes wrong. he was on the brink, but love helped him come back and navigate right. his mother's love for him. his love for his mother. and a new love that had taken the place that an old wound had vitiated for too long.



once he took the path, the crossings became easier, yes, many rivers and seas, but all pointing in the same direction: love, life, khushi. and the ocean rushed toward its shore. in those fairytales the prince rescues the princess's heart, but here she was the keeper of his heart, and that's what the path showed him.

i was fascinated by this travel through space and time within. the power of an emotion that guides you from miles and miles away. he could sense her waiting. he could feel her love, her longing, her trust. it brought him back from the moment where trust was broken in his life. by the action of a parent, a father, the one in whom a child puts maximum faith. what a completely broken place he had inside him. one he'd never spent time looking at or mourning, because he a boy of fourteen, had to get on with it, "chhota tha, par himmat dikhai maine." i was young, but i showed courage.

then the princess touched that broken place with her heart.

 

"hum bhi aapse i love you dammit," the culmination of so many clashes, quarrels, attraction, rejection, hurt, pain, utter madness, tenderness, faraq padna, chot, doubting, hating, aching, oh endless feelings, but never ever indifference. for it was always love. even the nafrat was mohabbat, nothing else.

the tale of this journey was told with skill and passion by the writers of dialogue and screenplay, by the directors, and by the actors. i was happy to see ved raj is back. an awkwardly posed remarriage became vital to story and character growth.

i was never comfortable about a second marriage. it felt wrong. but i let it roll, thinking to myself, ipk has always found interesting solutions, let's see what it brings me to this time. so they made a mainstream shadi, into a most hatke one. now what do you say to guys like this. thank you, i suppose.

"khushi aaj main sirf yahan tumhare vajah se khadah hoon, jahan dard, dhokha, aur nafrat ke alawa aur kuch nahin."
khushi, today i stand here only because of you. where there's nothing except pain, treachery, and hate.

oh, that line could be looked at in so many ways. as he stepped away from her touch, the princess, for just a moment, feared; and began to falter. but out he reached as he always had: to hold her, save her, cherish her. as she looked, so did i into his eyes. his eyes lost their ice and grew warm, they said so much to her you got lost in a conversation of love, feeling almost that funny word from my childhood: de trop. she replied with all her heart.

"khushi, tumne mujhe aaj yahan khada kar ke mere saare sawaalon ke jawab de diye."

khushi, by making me stand here, you've answered all my unanswered questions.

"i'm sorry khushi, aane me thodi der ho gai, par aana toh tha..."

i am sorry, khushi, got a little coming... but come, i had to.

then a married man said to his wife:

"khushi, main tumse shadi karna chahta hoon, apne zindagi ka har pal tumhare saath bitana chahta hoon."

khushi, i want to marry you, i want to spend every moment of my life with you.

my insides didn't protest and say, how come he's saying that to her now, he's already her pati. because i'd felt the journey, and i knew it had brought him to a completely new place. he was standing at a spot where perhaps khushi stood the night of her submission. when she felt her vishwas in him and that became bigger than her belief in socially approved conduct.

he was now at a place where he knew his greatest truth. no, it wasn't the truth that broke him, but the new one that restored him, which urged him to leave his past behind and walk ahead into the future:

"sab se bada sach yeh hai ki main khushi se pyaar karta hoon."

the biggest truth is, i love khushi.

"kaha that na jee nahin paaoonga tumhare bina."

had told you, can't live without you.

and so arnav told khushi something he never had in so many words. and he said it as a young man who has not only fallen in love, but has begun to understand what love is. milestone.

brave and righteous that he is, he wouldn't have run away from this marriage, not after everything, but it is a testament to the power of khushi's and his clear pure feeling that he felt its draw, realised the undeniable nature of it, sensed this was the way out of pain and past and let himself be propelled toward tomorrow and its promise. he said all this in those few simple words from his dil. he asked his wife to marry him. this time for himself, not for di, not for social custom, not for maa, not even for khushi.

this time he asked for khushi for himself. perhaps for the first time ever asking for something just for himself.

 

when his venom spewing grandmother stopped him, he told her of his mother's lesson about roses and thorns, he had understood it only today. milestone. this will lead him into the future, looking to nurture rather than ruin. he consciously stepped onto this path, he will learn slowly, but as long as the direction is right, he will surely get there.

the mention of roses brought to mind a day that khushi, lovely in red, stood poring over rose buds musing that soon when they'd bloom and di's child will also arrive. actually, on the same day arrived dadi, ready to oust khushi and set her descendant's world "right." and today as she loses power and khushi is given the place she more than deserves, roses again show the way. (i was not too keen on the roses and the rose/thorn story as presented through his maa when i saw the episodes recently, the problem was perhaps more in execution, there was an idea there.)



into the brave new world, he walked in further and told his dadi, your son is to blame for everything, for he was married with two children. he cheated two women who didn't know the truth. i was delighted to hear the bald, simple, matter of fact words. it was said as it is, minus frills, and one of the most "male" characters on television, struck fearlessly at the root of pretense and semantics that keeps our male dominated society rabid and strong.

bravo, arnav singh raizada, i feel like dedicating the whole of kipling's "if" to you. my most precious poem since childhood.

khushi was beautiful in her steadfast faith. her love had come to her and submitted without condition. but her quiet taking in of various nuances said, she knew her arnav ji better than you thought. she knew this was a new path for him, and it would take all take time. but i take heart from steinbeck's words:

"i believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. i guess a loving woman is indestructible." 



khushi kumari gupta singh raizada got her pheras. on the night of their wedding as the winds tore through the skies, the temple bells swung hazardously, the havan kund fire glowed fierce, and devi maiyya looked on, khushi stared terrified and shattered at asr as he tied her mangalsutra, put her sindoor. he never looked at her, not once. today, she sat absorbed in prayer, happy and contented and her man couldn't take his eyes off her.

asr had found his home, it was khushi. only khushi, he didn't need anything else.

and so it was that we went on to a happy griha pravesh; with a just a little nastiness from mami ji, a little kala tika, to give slip to buri nazar. i mean what's a raizada function without barbs and backbiting by mami ji. but this time payal spoke up. delightful, so the cat returned her tongue finally. nani ji, the just, the loving, the ultimate in nayi soch welcomed them in. and then he carried her over the threshold toward their new life.

 

"all journeys eventually end in the same place, home."
~~~~  chris geiger

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episode 352 the tug of pyaar

 
did anyone see his eyes when she said, "hum jaante the, hum jaante the ki aapke saath koi hadsa hua hai!" i knew it, i knew it that there'd been an accident!

there was that glint there which said love, hope, faith. she would know, he had come to realise that.



he is looking like a prince, i think as episode begins... she like a princess... in pink and green she reminds me of that first day we saw her. she had lied to curious strangers, there's a drama competition in school...

are you the rajkumari? the little boy had asked.

she'd said yes.

so where's your rajkumar, had come the prompt reply.

and a helicopter had appeared in the clear blue sky.



it's night now and the prince and princess have been stymied by the the story taking a turn for the common.
suddenly the least maudlin man you could imagine goes into a fit of endless tears and sentimentality and remembers a conversation with his maa. what could be more pat. 



it had to be a lesson learnt from his mother that would make him take the right decision. i wonder was such childish writing necessary... and if there was a valid reason to show how his relationship with his mother helped him resolve things, surely it could have been written with more thought, not this obvious little interlude. it had to be rose, it had to be thorn, he had to show gussa, she had to tell him don't blame the rose for the action of the thorn. he had to call her "important." and she for exactly what reason who knows had to tell a kid about those you love how you must never hurt them. tiring. also i didn't like the actor who did maa, the little boy was not too bad though.

on the night of the terrace, his sister had spoken to him about how he must treat the people he loves, never hurt them. at that time too, it had felt slightly forced.

somewhere along this phool kanta conversation i felt, ah so, khushi is being compared to the rose. i wonder who he is then... maybe he is always the little prince, the dreamer, who so loved his capricious rose.



i was touched however by what he remembered as he drove. the execution was not pretty, but as his mind went through the sheesh mahal moments, the that heart rending maa filled the screen, and soon it was his other key memory.

the moment that changed his life.



khushi falling into his arms.

something still tugs at my heart when i watch him remember this at key points in their love story. that fall... it was such a cataclysmic event in his life. one he had never planned for or known what to do with... he had tried to walk away coolly from it... but no.. it had started something that brought him here to this instant in his life.

in a series of flashbacks, all those tumultuous unforgettable moments:

he whirls away plucking her out of harm's way as the rain falls incessantly.

he is bringing her home after saving her at the guest house... he stares at her hand holding onto his collar. such an unknown feeling must have assailed him then, one he didn't understand at all.

"toh kya woh sach mein taarey ban jaatey hain?" so do they really become stars, he is asking her of his parents. a rational man who could never believe in fanciful ideas like people becoming stars after their death, yet something in him couldn't hold back that day as he ached and she spoke of this thought... he needed someone to touch his pain and soothe it... he let her do it through a conversation that would seem downright silly otherwise... she knew he is not one to believe in such things, she knew what he really was asking for... baat yakeen ki hai, she had said, it's a matter of belief. kya woh hume dekhkar khush hai, is she happy to see me... he had asked that without thinking. he needed so much to believe in something, believe his maa was there somewhere...

he remembered opening her teej fast.

then she was yelling at him... where were you and why are you standing there so quietly. he had asked, you were worried? mere liye? for me?
haan, aapke liye! yes, for you, she'd said angrily.

"khushiii" he had shouted after an ambulance speeding away, fearing she was in it, she was hurt.

for a moment a voice he wanted to blot out entered his thoughts and reminded him, that other woman was garima.

but the mind is a funny thing, it takes you where perhaps your heart really wants to be.

he remembered bandaging her finger at a temple... covering her ring finger with his care, his concern, even if he had no idea why.

he was pulling a shard of glass from her wrist... he could never bear to see her hurt.

he remembered putting the mangalsutra and sindoor on her. and then leaving her at the airport as she said, baat aapki hai... faraq padta ... because it's about you, it makes a difference. she'd also said she wouldn't be able to breathe if he should leave.

he had known she was in the next room when he was kidnapped. they had hugged that first time, she had protected him from being cut by a thorn, taking the scratch herself...

she was telling him, "hume bharosa hai, aap pe, aap ke pyaar par..." i have faith in you and your love as she let him make love to her.

again it's his dadi telling him who khushi's aunt is... yes, he is torn.. the past has a hold over him, as it has over anyone else...

but his present calls him with a powerful call. it tells him how much he is a part of this, and of his own free will.

he remembers seeing lallan flinging khushi off the cliff.

the day he had feared he had lost her forever.

she's falling, she calls out, "arnav jiii!"

she falls, "arnav ji!"

a distance is swiftly bridged.

"khushi!"

he calls out and swerves as he had once at a terrifying moment.

at the mandap, khushi hears his call... she murmurs, "arnav ji..."

do such things happen? perhaps they do, even if the colours are tacky and the story is too thick... but when two wonderful actors meet and create a reality, everything within it becomes possible.

he swerves, losing control of the car. this is a very serial moment... he will die i think for a second.



she runs in green and pink like the first time she had run back in sheesh mahal. were the two shots intentionally similar? to set up echoes and eddies in the mind, make us experience things more intensely. layers of visuals playing in the head?

rabba vey rises, searing.

he swerves again... nk catches khushi stopping her... he crashes

on a black screen, khushi calls out, "arnav ji."



the cascade of scenes from their lives was of course a device used before... for me somehow it does work when the flashbacks are chosen with understanding. then they take you into a deeper reach of the emotion, a parallel journey. you sense the shape and structure of their relationship, you feel its embedding in their lives, you know there is no longer a question of not being with each other... they are always with each other... they are in each other.

his only memory was of sheesh mahal, now khushi's thoughts fill his heart... he has said before how the moments spent with her slowly started to push aside the bad, and became more real, became meaningful... she added meaning... she was all that had meaning... he wanted nothing else, he needed nothing else.

yet today, he must struggle as if to choose.

but really, is there any choice really?

camera pulls back... trolley shot? the horn blares. he lies unconscious, head on steering wheel. i am tense again. but then his eyes open

"maa..." the first word from him

i didn't like anything about the way khushi's reaction was portrayed and the entire scene there, with hysteria and melodrama taking over everything.

but i was glad for two things.

the flame in the havan kund did die. in normal serials that is it. end of story, hero won't come. but here no such thing happened. khushi lost hope as she is so into such signs and symbols... but he did come. a nice touch there.
this was a love beyond signs and symbols. beyond even hate. beyond oneself.
and nani ji never lost faith in him. she was the only one who dealt with the storm in a plausible way. with dignity and emotion as her character would. she was hurt, but she didn't lose focus... she knew what mattered today and what was right. and perhaps she saw a bit of herself in khushi, whom she had practically chosen for her chhotey. she also knew her grandson... he will come, she said and hugged khushi.

"umeed naahin khoiye... chhotey aa jayenge, aayenge zaroor aayenge," don't lose hope... chhotey will come, he will certainly come, said beautiful nani ji.

i did cry like a fool.

but the girl with vishwas was broken. she began to walk away. her mother screamed out, calling her back.

"amma?" she turned and began to walk back, then she felt the tug.

a hand held her dupatta.

the director decided to leave us hanging from a cliff with slippery fingers. but i had seen the look in his eyes... and i really didn't care.




 

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