he didn't say a word this episode. yet, his eyes, his turn of head, his walk, his stance, everything spoke and said so many things. the most important of all that he was disturbed. very very disturbed. i can try and guess only at the things that were bothering him.
there was that constant thinking about a girl he really didn't wish to think of. at least his dimaag forbade it. there's no point... the girl is gone, plus girls don't make a difference to you... grow up, stop this... perhaps it admonished. yet something in him refused to listen. much later in a lovely conversation that would travel via stars, he will say how much he tried not to let her matter, but alas his own heart didn't listen to him. and now, so poignantly ever since he's seen that locked door, we're watching the waywardness of his dil.
while it might thrill me no end to see him thinking of her, he is really suffering because of it. end of 53, his sleep was gone, and he was most unlike himself as he gently stepped up into the night, held a billowing curtain and slipped into a reverie, almost forgetting to be angry. this is unusual to say the least, it is hard on the personality he has carefully groomed to face life. that childhood tragedy would have broken him otherwise.
he needs to believe in what he says, "arnav singh raizada ko kissi ladki se koi faraq nahin padta." and this has gone way beyond faraq, it's gone to places in his heart, invading his day, his night.
faraq apart, there's a deeper issue at stake here. his take on sahi aur galat. around which is structured his conscience. and that is sacrosanct to his well being. when the unthinkable happened, both brother and sister struggled to find ways to survive. anjali saw a mainstay in her brother, she transferred many emotional and psychological needs that parents fulfill to her younger sibling. he became central to her very existence. he in turn brought all his emotions to her and gave it unstintingly, being a young boy then a younger brother before her eyes only... but what he lived by was not this love.
my belief, stung by his father's betrayal, and hastening to distance himself clearly and completely from such a man, he developed a strong sense of right and wrong, a moral code, around which grew his conscience. he lived by this. any dent in it, the slightest scratch, and he couldn't bear it. this conscience was also possibly a gift from his mother, she showed him its value by the sheer ethical way of life she adopted, i felt her hand in this conscience of his often. (toward the end of the show, when practically the whole story had been destroyed, i still felt with my heart and was so very proud, when he said what he did about his father. in no uncertain terms, objectively stating the case for what it was, he told his dadi, her son was at fault... galat. that was all there is to it. no one was to blame, not his mother, nor khushi's mother, just this one galat person.)
for him to feel he was ok, he had to be sure he wasn't galat. "main sahi hoon," he said that night in the rain, when his conscience pricked him, he laid his head back against his suv just as he did here, worried, tremulous, needing desperately to know he was not wrong. he waned to be nothing like his father. he perhaps feared that he might have some streak of his parent in him, who knows. which is why, there was no place for love in his life, for he'd seen how this could destroy. which is why also perhaps his level of comfort with the limits of the relationship with lavanya.
then that got complicated.
admitted it was his stubbornness which was responsible to some extent for the situation, but he still is unprepared for the repercussions. when la sneaks into his room, firstly he's too wrapped in a girl's dupatta, unable to extricate himself from the memories of their meetings; then la wants to get all cosy behind the family's back. unthinkable, in his eyes. asr is not sneaky. he has accepted his nani's decision they won't share rooms. la is welcome to come to his room before all, in broad daylight, but not like this. a sense of galat in it. and asr cannot have that.
just as he's trying to somehow handle this, in walks nani, and the arch conversation follows, addressed to lakshmi ji but aimed straight at la. that too is disturbing. he is finding his nani's handling of the situation not what he expected it to be. he has seen her cope with tragedy magnificently. he has received her love and care when he most needed it. he knows what a strong and principled woman she is. he battled with her on a matter of principle, and maybe he thought she was resolved enough to know exactly how to manage this new situation.
but no. nani is upset. and while he may not agree with her, he really doesn't want to see her like this.
then there's his duty to la. what's he to do about that? not that la's attitude is helping, why come here now?
the poor man is not in a good place at all.
that is all that registered this episode with me. it was interesting to see, how barun sobti with just a couple of expressions and a few minutes, could convey so much. the look on his face as he heard his grandma's comments, then later the little conversation between her and la. the unhappy perusal and slow walk up to the door toward nani; maybe he wants to say something, tell her off again, i thought. he merely looked at her and without a word shut the door. brilliant. my heart skipped a beat and i swear i felt his worry, his disturbance, his extreme vulnerability.
she turned away with an air of purpose. when he turned around, a tiredness on his face, a pulled down air about him, a quandary that's sucking him in. so so so not asr. i was sad.
the rest of the episode took the story forward, a rather forced yarn around the sacrilege of not bathing before puja was spun. a bit too much of "acting" everywhere. khushi is back and now shyam knows that and is up to his usual galat deeds... disgusting, what's new. mami, even more campy than usual, tried to lighten the day, lavanya attempted to give her company. but all i saw was a man leaning against a door, eyes closed.
i realise, it has to all get pretty serious for di to plan khushi's return. and i do accept that family dramas often unfold around the silliest of things, and so won't crib about the bath story. of course, there's more to come. but what makes it imperative for khushi to return to asr's life is that scene in my head. he needs her... so i want her back. love, huh? :)
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