episode 159 a midnight forever

my baby moves at midnight
goes right on till the dawn
my woman takes me higher
my woman keeps me warm

what you doin in the back aah
what you doin in the back aah?
you should be dancing, yeah
dancing, yeah

she's juicy and she's trouble
she gets it to me good
my woman gives me power
goes right down to my blood

~~~ barry, maurice and robin gibb of the beegees, saturday night fever ~~~

anyone seen saturday night fever here? remember the song? tell me the words were not written for that woman and her man. i have never known what to call this episode. the shut up episode? the bara baj gaye episode? the huma hoon do episode? but as i watched today, i realised call it what you like, this one was about a song in the heart and body, about a dance set up by a certain nand kissore, a midnight melody that was all about a potent thing called love and it struck at the witching hour.

"bara bajne wale hain..." about to strike twelve... she leaps around in the dark with the ubiquitous jalebi.

bara kisske bajne wale hai, i wonder... "bara baj gaye," a colloquial take on someone/thing being messed up, done for... memory of a sardar ji joke. yet despite the cuteness of the moment, nothing feels like a joke. in a darkened room, stand the two who are circling each other in a parallel arena in an unseen plane. a dance of conquest and capitulation in progress... long long before the actual dance comes along.

between them the rose, challenge, the heart of it all... the one whose face you'll see at midnight, the crossover moment from the past to the future, that will be the one with whom you'll live your lifetime. a lifetime decided in one midnight moment. whom will you see at this moment? whom do you want to see? who will pick up that rose and look the other in the eye. as you can tell by now i suppose, i was terribly struck by the episode. especially the opening sequence.

he rises from behind her bed at her words and heartbeats start. were they his? the dhak dhak had arrived just that he was not tuning in? what's that look in his eyes, a little flustered... he knows what's coming.

"dus... nau...aat.." she chimes... no idea that the other person in the room was not her jiji.

"seven... six..."  outside the room and its bated expectations, under the stars an open love affair, gentle soft... stated. lovely, but no dance in it... maybe some sweet poetry. payal and akash... who knows, if the writing had remained steady, they might have reached the level of unsaid underlying communication that khushi and asr always had. payal closes her eyes.

  

"jiji, utho na..." jiji, wake up (open your eyes)... squeals and hops khushi... nice detail.

"paanch... chaar... teen..." he's wondering what to do... sees his phone... maybe he thinks of escaping after he's got what he came looking for?

"ek... aur," khushi takes a crunchy bite of jalebi... meetha for naya saal i guess... khushi is really determined to set up a great year... not see that laad governor's face...

he picks up the phone, she switches on the light, eyes shut still... jumps... "jiji!"

he draws himself up and is standing right in front of her...

she opens her eyes.

he had to be there i guess... there was no way out... not once the fort faraq was showing its cracks, not when he couldn't stop thinking of her no matter how crazy and weird she was. not when he hated to see her dancing with nk and some sixth sense perhaps told him... not tonight... no one else but me.

but that was all deep talk in his cells... he was still the man he knew himself to be. rough tough arrogant tycoon who has no time for such frivolous ideas as love, new year and that sort of nonsense.

she opens her eyes... and it's... not the face she expected to see. her smile slips. in shock... but was there any dismay?

a curtain wipes in a transition to his face... he looks a little helplessly back... he so didn't want to be here... or did he?

hey hey... while they both react without joy... something else within is having a blissful moment. you are here, yes i am, i knew you would be, oh, did you? lovers have conversations without words... all the time. rarely do they do it so eloquently.

direction, lighting, camera, music, acting... check.

she blinks... his hair flies a bit in the breeze. two people stock still... tiny movements without, so much going on within... wish i could see it all but perhaps it is too private a thing.

the jalebi falls.

she breathes a little heavily... an almost tearful look on her face... what is she to do with this gust of emotion, this pause that she wants to stay in.

two people caught in an undeniable moment.

before all the denials begin again.

this subtext rich nature of ipk thrills me. there seems to be an understanding of us humans way beyond the scope of this genre. we, who fight so hard to be rational yet are in the end, in essence, extra rational. just like love... faith... every emotion. we, who have tried so hard to express everything in words, find words for each and every phenomenon... yet the most important things in our world cannot be expressed in utterances... that's in looks, in pauses. in auras and energies. in the language of the body when it's driven by our spirit.

"aap?" squeaky and shrill.

"shaat up..." so the first words of the new year that he said to her were, shut up. niiice. so much right over a girl you couldn't care less for...

she raves, he tries to stop her...

"khushi, tum..."

"aap yahan aaye kyun," why have you come here... she's unstoppable. she has not appeared before him as he'd said and she'd sworn not to.

"kyunki mera phone yahan par rah gaya," because my phone was here... through clenched teeth (must say the setting up of that was pretty neat)...

"aapka phone akele chal ke toh nahin aaya hoga..." your phone couldn't have walked in here all by itself... poor man, his inquisitor has no idea about the glue shenanigans of the evening.

"hey bhagwan..." holding her head... "sabse pehle humne kisska chehra dekh liya..." oh lord, whose face did i see first thing in the year. it's kind of rude...

he can't believe it... as though she is the only one in a place she doesn't want to be in...and maybe a bit angry too... the way she speaks of "kisska chehra..." the chehra many women would kill to see and this disdain from a chit of a small town crazy girl in pompoms. i feel his pain.

 
"excuse me..." oh spiritual sexiness... "maine bhi tumhara chehra dekha hai, ok..." i have also seen your face, ok... a come back... rough, angry, and just  a wee bit childish... oh holy g, save me from this child man... if she is child woman he is no less child man when with her in situations like this... kills me.

she thinks she is more at a loss because she's seen him... him... he, who had challenged her and said she would appear before him...

"ab kaun aya kisske saamne," now who's come before whom.

he's speechless... he is here. but... what the... he never meant to...

you've reached the wrong place at the wrong time just to ruin my new year... alleges kkg.

he still can't counter.

she's yelling, he's wondering how to get her to lower her voice and give her a smashing answer when her tirade hits a new pitch upon seeing the open window.

he walks forward with that incredible lithe grace... he has to shut her mouth physically with his palm (did lips suggest themselves as a better means, my unguarded mind wonders) and push her back.

"shut up... shut up, khushi kumari gupta."

she had just suggested he'd jumped in through the window. sanaya is at hyper khushi best. comical, yet interesting, and totally adorable. he wanted to touch her in some part of him. the force with which he walks up to her, like the ocean rushing to the shore i felt. this metaphor of arnav the ocean and khushi his happiness his shore never is too far away. there is an amazing undulating pull of attraction between the two reflected in what they say, how they look at each other, how they move. especially him... all the time walking to her then moving away only to come back again... the sea in motion, the line along the shore ever changing. dynamic, moving, energetic.

"chillana mujhe bhi aata hai, ok?" i can also shout, ok? yes... we had noticed.

he tells her what's going on... her eyes do dramatic replies and responses... but the moment his hand is removed...

"jiji!!"
 
cute, the way his body jerks instinctively and his hand comes up to somehow get her to keep quiet, "khushi main tumhe akhri baar bol raha hoon, ok?" khushi, telling you for the last time, ok? like he is fed up with this girl he just can't have enough of.

she immediately shuts up, then whispers... "jiji"... can't stop talking this madam.

he is now standing arms folded across chest... assured... maybe he thinks he's come up with a logical explanation for his presence here... and she will not yell... so maybe he can linger.


outside akash is promising undying love over lucknowi chat...

they're standing next to each other by the window... she is all gooey about love... akash ji's faith in it... he's not impressed, looks for his faithful phone.

at "isse kehte hain pyaar," this is called love... he looks up...

"... yakin hi nahi hota ki woh aapke bhai hain." difficult to believe, he's your brother, she says. he was walking away... he turns around... "excuse me?" she realises her folly, yeah you are talking about the great akash who believes in love, so why did you bring laad gov into it exactly? "lekin hume kya pata tha... ghoom phirke aap hi humare saamne aa jayenge?" you'd said, how would i know that in some way or the other you'll come and stand right before me (weak translation, sorry). but kkg, have you asked yourself why all your conversations, all your thoughts, ghoom phirke come and stop in front of this rakshas man?

"excuse me?" he's back by her side... "what?" to and fro moves the ocean... now some surf glinting in the moonlight.

"matlab"... as she expounds on the lovely akash and his yakeen in love which is why he has devised a way to see her jiji's face... the man cuts in...

"filmi aur stoopid bakwas hai." it's all melodramatic rubbish.

you think so, because you don't believe in love, says she.

doesn't he? isn't the breaking of that very vishwaas in love which he's carried in his heart so long. so much love for his father... his mother...  does anyone wonder what arnav singh raizada might have felt for his father? the only son, possibly much pampered in that patriarchal set up... the whole and good son... no limp, no problems? his father might have doted on him... what would anyone feel if their father, the greatest place of trust and the protector was found to be flawed, wanting, a traitor to a whole idea... how would his son feel? this was never delved into... but stayed in my head somewhere always. he adored his mother... maybe his father too? and now that love is shattered but can it just go away? in such a state what is one to do?

"right... nahin karta..." right, i don't believe in love, he retorts and turns away, there are places within he keeps hidden always... in fact even tells himself they don't exist.

"waise arnav ji..." and khushi brings him too close to thoughts he doesn't wish to ponder. it hurts too damn much.

she speaks of the yearnings of this first day of the year, the love people feel for their near ones... how they must be wishing for something for those they cared for...

she was looking away, she didn't see his eyes look a little lost, and that swallow, the adam's apple move up and down... every time he is near an emotion that overwhelms him, that swallow...

"lekin aap... aap mein itni karwahat hai ki, aap ko pyaar bhi bekaar aur bakwas lagta hai?" but you... in you there's so much bitterness, even love feels useless and rubbish to you?

right in the heart of his fort, a strike.

another swallow... a hurt feeling that could span the globe and still have more to go around... again she doesn't sense it...

"aap aise kyun hain?" why are you like this?

main bas aisa hi hoon, says my mind... he knows he acts strangely, he doesn't really mean it, but that's how he is, he has told you long ago, only you don't know. lavanya knows he was trying to tell you many things all along.

our perfect worlds, our perfect raaj kumars who must be a certain way... but what if they are not?

what if they don't say love is everything to them... what if they don't swear eternity in soft caring voice...

what if this is how they say they are capable of more love and passion than you'll ever imagine, that they live and breathe only for that... what if...

again the ocean flows close to his shore, again he says i want you with his body his aura... so urgent his need, his desire for her, she feels it coming at her, she turns away...

"poori duniya kuch mang rahi hai, kyunki poori duniya paagal hai... maangne se kuch milta nahin hai... bakwas hai yeh sab... nakli phool aur taarey lagane se yeh duniya khoobsoorat nahin ho jaati..."

the whole world wants something, the whole world is mad... just by wanting you can't get anything... this is all nonsense... plastic flowers and stars don't make the world beautiful...

i want my mother back... i want my father to be a good man... i want my home to be mine.. i want everything to be the way it used to be... if only just by wanting we could get our world back. poor nasty brutish arnav singh raizada.

his voice is low, intense, his body thrusts forward, his eyes are dark wretched dead but a searing flame within... "yeh duniya utni hi bedard aur pathar dil hai jitni hamesha thi..."... this world is exactly as stone hearted and cruel as it always was. i feel so terrible for this betrayed young man... never can he ever trust...

"par tum nahin samjhogi..." but you won't understand.

and he takes it back to confrontation... from almost a confession of his helplessness before the cruelty of the world. he never explains himself to anybody... but to this woman... he perhaps feels a need to. she thinks he is heartless... perhaps matters to him... so he does the only thing he can... show power... try and hurt.

you don't have the thing that's needed for you to understand this.

what thing... kaunsi cheez? she asks.

he turns around, his confidence back, teasing, baiting... "mujhe laga tha ki tum poochho gi hi nahin..." thought you'd never ask.

"dimaag, kkg," says the dil man.

and nk has arrived with the flowers.

a sense of comedy of errors takes over this point onward. ipk changing flavour. must get the viewer happy sad tearful giddy and once in a way dead after all.

she runs back into the room when she sees bua ji and pushes him back into the room... he starts to protest and she shuts his mouth with her hand now. bua ji is up... please keep quiet.

what was that look in his eyes as he gazed at her so close to him. how splendid this exploration by barun of a man searching for his feelings for a woman.

trying to give it a name.

"kaun hai nand kissore... nand kissore..." who is it nand kissore, comes bua ji hurtling out of her sleep and her room. she will greet nk at the door. there will be all sorts of funny moments. several times will we hear nand kissore... bua ji will say in so many words that the lord had sent nand kissore, his name sake.

nand kissore... cheeks will be pinched... humre nand kissore.

nk will pass out at the thought of spending his whole life with her... her face being the one he saw first at 12 sharp. consequently the vision of the wedding, and the "huma hoon do, nand kissore" a classic moment.

in all of this fun, a little naughty look at a common human thing... an older woman and a young fresh faced boy... against the backdrop of a slightly heightened atmosphere: a wedding in the family. the most unlikely couple they may be, and it's all in jest... but underlying it, what gives it validity and brings on more laughter is perhaps our sensing that a fascination can be there in someone old and lonely for someone so cute and bursting with youth... an innocent sort of thing, a slightly sad sort of thing too. of course, here it's nothing like that... it's bua ji at her batty best and some clever writing to put krishna into the moment. someone was certainly vaishnav in the creative team.

bua ji sees nk as nand kissore's vishesh doot, special representative... he perhaps is... the one sent to completely water that seed of love in the gardener's heart, the one the cosmic gardener has sown... now as fertiliser, a little jealousy, just the right amount, then watch how that love grows, gains colour, brightness, a fleck of immortality.

khushi somehow manages the devil in her room, of course, moving to ott in her desperation. the drama of nk continues... bua ji looks at him mesmerised, nk is worried sick, garima ji puzzled... oh so he wants to wish khushi too? bua ji yells out to khoosie and payaliya, see who's come... nand kissore.

and asr hears of it, nk is here. the face goes into what the mode... yes, cosmic gardener, this fertilizer called nk that is laughter and jealousy in equal parts works good.

"whaat!"

khushi rushes out to handle the chaos there. all she wants to do is get rid of nk and bua ji back in bed somehow. now amma is also here. a deftly handled comedy scene, all players at peak performance.

the man in the room can't take it any more... "what the hell," pace, "yeh nk iss time yahan kya kar raha hai..." what's this nk doing here now... mutterings about his jet lag.

he has to see what's up... he peers out.

bua ji in the meantime waylays the bouquet of red roses as nk tries to pass it to khushi. garima ji is looking pathetically funny, something tells her those were not meant for her sis in law. but too bad, no one but asr can give her roses, you see...

she comes back into the room.

"what the..." another expletive, "nk yahan kya kar raha tha..."


both pace... "aur yeh phool, woh tumhe..." and these flowers, he was giving you... asr doesn't bother to hide the jealousy, does he?

she is pacing. he cuts in in front of her and stops her nervous pace. both flustered, he can't take her looking like this... again crossing all that denial...

"kya hua tumhe, tum theek toh ho?" what's happened to you? are you ok?

i just knew by the way my stomach dropped to my toe and my heart missed a beat that it was the perfect delivery.

"bara baje humne aapka chehra dekha hum theek kaise ho sakte hain..." i've seen your face at 12 midnight how can i be ok? comes the sanaka queen's reply.

please go from here for heaven's sake, she urges

nostrils flare... "aur main kya kar raha tha..." what else was i doing?

her constant pushing away of him seems to have cut deep, he's ready to go out and face buaji too if need be... she drags him away... bua ji wants the darwajja to be opened.
hai re nk, she is coming apart. she tells him to lie down on the bed. he says she's mad. he falls on the bed thanks to her flailing arms and is soon lying on it, covered from head to to toe, being payal.

episode started on dhak dhak, ended with both on the same bed. this was going to be a year to remember.

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

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