a chat with a good friend

issk,

it was fun catching up on our first catch up. and this me being a good writer thing, only makes me go all embarrassed and feeling stupid... i am not really that good with words, but i guess the fact that i don't really bother about that and say what i feel i need to, gives a certain energy to my constant keyboard banging... crooner was a wonderful hangout, and priya really gave ipk so much love and thought, she almost made me feel like it was okay to ponder a soap the way i found myself doing without really meaning to.

ipk will remain at one level a mystery to me, which will no doubt make it even more dear and worth storing in those fast filling up memory cells. a sense of the unknown, without that life feels somewhat boring and pointless. almost not quite lived.

just a couple of minutes back i saw a little fuzzy shot of asr's face on a facebook video, my eyes had just caught sight of it as i scrolled down and the next instant i felt a funny feeling touching my blood and flesh, a tear sting the back of my eyes and disappear. even before i could see the face properly or know what was happening on the screen, it was all done.

what is this thing?

i will perhaps never know.

which is why it will be something my daughter should want to inherit.

i am a little tired of the pat answer from my friends, all of us so revelling in our being supposedly modern liberal educated not to be fooled easily and quite smugly know all, that this whole watching a show, getting interested deeply, coming to forums, holding onto a fantasy and nurturing it, is really encapsulated in one word... slightly derisively thrown, "escape".

i try to make them understand there is more to life than this so called hard and single dimensional reality... heck even physics and whatever else they may respect says so... that to be able to glean something outside this material measurable world (and i do love this one madly too), is in itself a marvellous thing, that we humans are capable of much more than merely earning money and looking serious and being "rational". and justifying our existence with wise nods about how we've done our duty.

that it textures and layers our adventure called life. that it allows us to experience our own selves our inner things more... we humans are so not bound, so full of potential are we...

but then i am lazy. i say one sentence or two... then agree with a grin, "yeah, maybe it's an escape."

promptly comes the next exclamation on this whole world i have discovered here... people from all over on an online forum, meeting, knowing each other, conversing in a way... via a medium... and in spaces never known before.

it's the classic question i get, "who has so much time?"

i don't really bother to answer. no point.

you and i may pass on from yeh duniya yeh mehfil, without ever "meeting", isskiya... or knowing each other's "asli naam", yet you will be part of my adventure and i yours... may not be everest, but the air got pretty rare around here too. how to make anyone understand the excitement of that.

enough weird thoughts.

yeh loh, our first to and fro.

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n i s h a n a   e p i s o d e s
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episode rambles

fan fiction

randomly from 106 dhakdhak dhakdhak

1.

now funny, now intense, dhakdhak to a clenching of abdominal muscles, 106 screamed love while two people not quite ready to hear the call decided this was a strange situation... that could be tackled. the what rubbish route was adopted by one and talking to dm, saying i'll go mad was the choice of the other. in the middle of that nimbu mirchi and talk of evil eye while a villain planed on. maybe that evil eye cutter of di's did end up saving them both.



2.

intensely had the senses longed, awareness had cut through and settled in the heart the inner cavities, thoughts kept straying to one, just one person. a connection in another space, a touch of each other always. matter of time before everything overflowed and the dam burst and there was actual physical contact. touch, sound, smell, taste... that table had to wobble with the impact of exploding attraction.





3.



the wind rose and carried messages. she knew he was here. he felt her knowing, beautiful editing and play with speed of motion, a little soft focus, magic storytelling of ipk. like in bersarai, now in shantivan, whispering winds carried tales.


 

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diwali and koi matlab nahin episodes

episode rambles 
fan fiction

the night khushi...

21 september was a special day... from crooner 1.42, jab tak hai jaan, page 3, my first thoughts on her saying yes, and him opening a dori finally.

i loved this episode... the dance added to the feeling of immersion in each other.


i knew she'd do it, and indeed she did.
to the towel dancer and his one true lover.

you are right, priya, that needs some recovering from and no amount of replay is enough.

edit
priya, just read your beautiful update. rich with quotes and thoughts, real and in love. my thoughts still floating. sorry, will update monday morning.

will leave a quote here, that struck a chord:
"do you want me to tell you something really subversive? love is everything it's cracked up to be. that's why people are so cynical about it. it really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. and the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
~~~ erica jong ~~~


update
it all came together finally. under the stars and revolving planets, floating upon an inky blue ocean in the night, nestling on a bed of glimmering mother of pearl, two lovers; each the other one's pearl, the ocean crashed on the shore, the shore undulated and raced to merge with the water. take me.

what sound was that?
i turn away into the shaking room.
what was that sound that came in on the dark?
what is this maze of light it leaves us in?
what is this stance we take,
to turn away and then turn back?
what did we hear?


it was the breath we took when we first met.
listen. it is here.

~~~ harold pinter ~~~

yes, it was there, their very first crashing upon each other; a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time losing her balance, falling into arms that were not wanting to be there, shock and surprise and something else in that breath of first collision. what was that something else? today it found its answer.

she had found her balance, and the arms now (as then too) did want her. and only her. nothing else but her. i understand, take me.

priya, i am still dizzy really. delirious and yet in a funny kind of calm. guess this is the effect of coming upon real beauty. how not to think about something that brings us to that. true, the hindi serial "elements" are too pronounced at times, even unbearable. but every now and then along comes magic, that restores our senses, resets our sensitivity, makes us feel the things that matter. makes us believe, "fairytales can come true, it can happen to me, it can happen to you..."
 
"dance is a vibration of the spirit that stirs the body to move when music is being played. by that definition, it is not unreasonable to conclude that if the quantum universe is made of music, then we are all dancing right now." ~~~~ lar lubovitch

there was so much dance last week. a love story was told, a proposal made, a lover was punished. as we laughed and hooted and swayed and tapped our feet, as we dropped our inhibitions, opened up and relaxed, the real and last dance started on a quiet note in a secret place, under the stars, above the earth, in a space beyond the grasp. every move was natural as though they'd practiced for years. when he arrested the motion of her arm reaching for a remote, held her hand and brought it to his lips, why did my heart thud. what did i know and how? somehow, one knew this time the dance would reach its climax, there would be no rude interruptions.

but before that started, she finally took as hers what he'd been practically thrusting upon her since the night of a terrible fight. huq. it was his way of saying take me. claim me as yours and yours alone. tonight when he asked: why did you come here? she looked into his eyes and said: because only i have huq over you, no one else. what would you have done if you'd found another woman, sorry chudail, here? i'd have killed her, but before that i'd have pulled her hair.
at last at last khushi was feeling, all her feelings. her love, her lust, and lo and behold, her hate. it was time to feel the truth. (kalpana's storyboard "kiss me" had the most interesting tying up of these words and it just stayed in me. thanks, kalpana, hope you don't mind the borrowing.)

he wanted to show her something. their own galaxy, neatly contained in a room, or was it just limited to that.
there he laid her down and held her in his arms to tell her she was everything to him. what, she wondered, their parents must be talking about, looking up at the stars he'd fetched for her, just as she'd said to her mother he would all those months ago. oh they'd be happy to see their children had found true love.

true love.

but how do you know it's true? he asked. she knew. a convulsive move toward him, arm reaching out and wrapping around, as she recalled his being away. they remembered a conversation outside the barrier of time and space. "hum done... kitne ajeeb hain." ajeeb. his word for her, now his word for both of them. is he relieved to rediscover his ability to be "ajeeb"? strange are the ways of love.

somewhere along all this talk and play, their breath grew thicker, warmer, a wanting to be one in them. he broached the subject, ever so gently, holding himself back. i'm sorry i know, you don't want to... not before the wedding. she stopped him with a kiss, with a arching of her body, with a few words. i understand, i trust you. the winds sang, make love to me.

khushi let go of the hold of the outer world and acknowledged an inner truth. she loved this man, this man loved her, without limit, without barriers, with all of him, she trusted that. that's what made union with him right, correct. he had taken her as his wife on the basis of their wedding, she accepted him as her true husband tonight. brilliant bend in the story. nayi soch finds place at last.

the most lyrical yet completely natural movements of body mind heart and soul followed. who had thought of this? how could anything be so beautiful? take off the bangles, remove the earrings, untie a string, let the woman in black lose herself completely on this inky blue ocean of love. let her lover merge himself again and again in her. for this is love, real, ethereal, surreal. this is true love.

ek.

truth is one. aaj se hum ek hain. hamari dhakane ek ho jati hai.

three memories (there are many, but these i wanted to share):

1. in crooner 98, priya, on the day of their fight, you'd chosen two insightful storm quotes.

"and once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. you won't even be sure, whether the storm s really over. but one thing is certain. when you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. that's what this storm's all about." ~~~~  murakami

"there's always another storm." ~~~~ maria v snyder

in my post i'd referred to that: murakami's storm leaves you changed every time. snyder's storm is always there. as one ends the other comes. sometimes there's a little respite, happiness, giggles, koochie coo, rain dance. but the storm does return. yet through it all love asserts, ascends, attains. you give each other sukh but also dukkha. khushi will too, i am sure, if this love is to go where it can. one day your feelings transcend the petty limits of earthly hurt and pain, crosses boundaries you never thought you could, and reaches for hamesha. you no longer need to say it. you become part of each other. not getting carried away. promise.

2. in crooner 1.2, the night khushi didn't accept asr's birthday wish, your quote:
"it reminds me of that old joke - you know, a guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! he thinks he's a chicken. then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? then the guy says, i would but i need the eggs. i guess that's how i feel about relationships. they're totally crazy, irrational, and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs." ~~~~ woody allen

i wrote in my post: how come wise, deep beauty is sleeping, not letting her shaitan feel a bit better. he's been trying desperately since that fight and forcing her to remember the contract. disturbed me. but no matter. priya, thanks for that woody allen quote, we're all in it for the eggs really. i want it, mr raizada wants it, and something tells me sleeping beauty will wake up soon and ask for an omelette.

3. after the thursday episode where the towel dancer floored us, i'd written: "i do have a crib i confess. i am not connecting to khushi as well as i want to. is it the writing that's making her tad too strident and sp bahu? or is it performance? or both? no idea. gut again. khushi kumari gupta is far more than this. i hope the problem corrects soon. asr and kkgsr need the other to be completely themselves." and the next day, khushi just got it all back, i was lost in her. had been so wanting to see her looking gorgeous with minimum fuss. and there she emerged in her lbd. has a black blouse ever been this sexy and sat on such an innocent bare back. the straight long hair minus bouffant, the silver touch on arms and ears, the bindi, absolutely alluring. both times asr chose her clothes, he did a pretty neat job. fire her designer, employ her husband instead. her huq.

right from that moment on june 6, 2011 when they first set eyes on each other, we've been coming toward last friday. one long, unbroken dori gathering pearls, one by one, ah so many many memories. now that a string is untied, a string is done, and the next one begins. an extraordinary tale of love, be prepared for giddiness, dizziness, giggling, laughter, heart thudding, pillow clutching, and tears.

hamari dhakane ek ho jati hai. 

it was the breath we took when we first met. 

listen. it is here.

 

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that i love you dammit episodes

episode rambles 

fanfiction

about a show and that name

"to thine ownself be true, and it must follow, as the night the day..." polonius to laertes, act 1 scene 3, hamlet. read that in grade 7 it was i think, quoted above a short story. got stuck in my head. it's really about that when it comes to a television show i fell in love with a while ago and which changed my life, took me all the way to writing. i can tell you that is no mean destination.

iss pyaar ko is many things to many people, and each relationship is valid, unique, true. for me, there is only one ipk, only one asr, one kkg, one raanisahiba, one nani ji, one mami ji (sigh, my hello hi bye bye), one lakshmi ji... and one jodi that makes me sit up and watch television in the middle of the night. this will not change. you can name anything anything... names can be repeated, reused, recycled, emotions really can't, those given are given, those felt are felt. those owned are forever yours, yes i am talking of hamesha.

i wish the new show well, mainly because i will always wish barun well. it's quite clear the show could have been named something else, but it wasn't. maybe people have issues to work out, maybe it's the right thing to do. i wouldn't know.

i will most likely not be watching the show. gul khan's shows are anyway not targeted at me. i found tanhaiyan tiring and flat. but i can understand why it's loved by many. it was funny, a journalist friend of mine who had told me barun was a terrible actor and so wooden in iss pyaar ko, said, oh barun was so good in tanhaiyan, seems like he's at last found himself. i thought i'd argue at length, then, just winked to myself and resigned the duel. barun after all, he'll get you at some point. teehee.

i hope all of you who are watching have a great time. and i'll be loopily staring at my one and only khadoos and jhalli and gang, just being true to my pagal self.

ps: a tv show that makes you remember shakespeare, iss pyaar ko...

my facebook post on 23 may 2017, as the controversy around ipkknd 3 raged. fans upset with the name and sanaya not being part of the show. gul khan abusing fans on instagram, star plus of course, impervious to it all. what else can be expected of a channel anyway. interesting to see how social media and this idea of interactive is affecting things; you may not wish to hear what fans have to say, you may just wish to manipulate people via this digital space as you have before in non-interactive scenarios, but it may not be quite as simple as you think. it was thanks to this space and our sustained resistance to asr being killed off or replaced, back in 2012, that star plus was forced to close the show. give fans the happy ending they kept calling and asking for. will be watching keenly to see what happens this time. i am intrigued by the involvement with a show from all over the world, there are indonesian and turkish and american fans protesting. five years after a show is over, it's still clearly not over.

n i s h a n a   e p i s o d e s
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episode rambles

fan fiction

episode 383 jaa rahi ho... the first take

"jaa rahi ho?"  are you leaving?

did you hear the magnet in that quiet voice? how it pulled her over.

"hume jana hoga... arav ke liye." i have to go... for arav.

on that second part of the sentence, i felt my heart break a bit as her heart began to splinter.

two actors who have pulled out all the stops, no limits whatsoever, when it comes to bringing asr and khushi alive. i am fortunate to be with them every day.

"tumhe kya laga, tum chup chap chali jaogi aur sab theek ho jaayga?"

what dd you think, you'll go away without saying a word and all will be well?

what an understanding of khushi's character there by her creators, the writers, the dialogue guys.

"khushi, let's say yeh sab sach hota... toh chhorke chali jaati mujhe?"

khushi, let's say all if this were true... would you have left me?

rabba vey...

that's a question love asks, all love asks at some point or the other. because the difficult, the unbearable, even the impossible to bear happens. and if it is indeed love, that word "too often profaned", then it grows, it expands, it takes a long deep breath of pure oxygen and feels its feelings, its truth. and it stays.

khushi's arms going around him convulsively said that, though her words were: "hume nahin pata... hume kuch nahin pata." i don't know, i don't know anything.

the conflict in her heart about fairness to asr's other tie, as important as hers, in those words.

"mujhe pata hai. agar tum koshish bhi karogi, khushi, tab bhi hum alag nahin ho sakte. arnav aur khushi humesha saath rahenge." 

i know. even if you try, khushi, you can't leave me. arnav and khushi will always be together. 

in the quiet of an embrace and the lilting rabba vey strains, my arms tingled, my heart melted, i breathed easy. that was a man who had truly and utterly submitted to love and knew what it was. his lover is yet to make the journey all the way, but she is nearly there. that's why at the end...

"tum aise kaisi ho sakti ho?" how can you be like this?
"aap ki wajah se." because of you.

last night in a letter he'd told her how she had made him more, better, fuller. her short four word reply seemed to say the same.

i fell in love with this love story a while back. never have i ever followed a serial before as my friends on the forum know. there was an understanding of this indescribable emotion, compulsion, called love here i'd not seen elsewhere in a while. it was classic and contemporary at once. it believed and was unafraid. it sang, it danced, it took extraordinary leaps and turns, it struck deep with the lightest touch. asr and khushi kumari gupta were so lovely, i could barely breathe when they got going. barun sobti and sanaya irani showed pyaar for their profession in a way that made you want to hug and hi five them every time they got it just right. which was practically every time.

i fell deeper and deeper in love. should have guessed it would be challenged. all pyaar has its dushman, its dukh dard dastaan. why should my love be an exception. it wasn't, starting mid feb all sorts of things started to happen, yet there were always huge bits of great writing and unforgettable acting. whoever wrote asr and khushi managed to remain true, with minor hiccups, right through. of course, barun and sanaya became asr, khushi without holding anything back. this level of commitment to and oneness with character is found only among the greatest thespians portraying famous characters. i found both in a telly show. unbelievable. wonder if fifty years hence asr will bring to mind an image, the way captain kirk or spock does. i think it will.

and now the dard/dushman factor just got raised a few notches.

but i, with a "hume nahin pata... hume kuch nahin pata," am still here. this episode, ipk seemed to hold me and say: i promise, main sab theek kar doonga.

oh that slightest hint of a sly smile on sheetal's lips when he said : stay! and strode out. poor sheetal, she actually thinks she's got him where she wants him.

i just adored asr's confrontation with sheetal. her same old, it was a dark and stormy drunken night story, his what the and frown abs rejecting the whole thing, khushi's beautiful growing up into acceptance of a feeling and not judging him for having a child, his buying time to sort things out now that he has her assurance that she will be with him always (he needs her and never denies it from the moment he has acknowledged his love, in life too love asks just for that, okay i do sound mushy), the beautiful music over asr hugging arav (i felt he made a silent promise to the child to set things right), his words to arav: you are not alone (asr identifies with this boy's sense of being alone, it was his akelapan too that engulfed him till khushi came into his life and we heard him say as much to her the previous evening), enjoyed all of that and more yesterday. the family scenes, the structure and design, just about everything touched me and worked for me.

i don't know how things will evolve. funny, now it seems gul is out to destroy the man she imagined and made. creator, destroyer, the one and the same, something almost spiritual there. barun sobti, whatever may be happening out there, has never let me down in my deal with him. not a single instance, in more than 380 episodes where i've felt, he didn't give it his all. and the same with sanaya irani. in fact, most of the cast. there's a lot of beauty in that itself, for me.

so i watch. till asr is barun and khushi is sanaya and they are together. jab hum door hotey hain tab bhi paas hote hain. yehi hai pyaar. when we are far from each other, even then we are close to each other, this is called love. yes, i know i am being prepared. i am.

that's why i can still love.

"khushi, meri zindagi mein jo bhi hoga, sab tumhare saamne hoga... mujhe har kadam pe tumhari madad ki zaroorat padegi... are you gonna be with me?" 
 
"hamesha."

khushi, whatever happens in my life, will happen before you... i need your help at every step... are you gonna be with me?

always.
 
was someone talking to me? or am i being ott and filmi like someone we know.

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the meant nothing episodes

episode rambles 

fanfiction

an extraordinary beginning

"it was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." began a tale of two cities, holding tightly within the first lines a sense of moment, of bated thrill, and a feeling something huge was about to happen. when i see episode one, there is that extraordinary intensity, like a dam about to burst, and a stunning grandeur, nothing about it feels ordinary, especially once you hear the helicopter's sound, then long legs unfold and a man climbs out and stands with his feet planted slightly apart looking up at an old mansion. a feeling that terrible things have happened assails you... you want that inert gaze to come out of whichever hell it is in. he begins to walk toward the mansion... dark and dangerous. pink and green and talkative and happy, she races toward him on her blue scooter with milk cans clanging on either side. this could have been a sweet and predictable love story... but something in the look on that man's face, his stillness, his walk... tells you that can never be... there's never been a story quite like this.

n i s h a n a   e p i s o d e s
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episode rambles

fan fiction

a few random barun edits

flipping through my imgur pages.

n i s h a n a   e p i s o d e s
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episode rambles

fan fiction

do you believe in kismet?

there was a bit of kismet in it.


i don't follow serials, hindi or english or in any other language. television is not my thing. catch some friends or csi or ncis once in a way. don't mind a little monk, 30 rock, frasier, or jon stewart now and then. won't lie, did watch the bold and the beautiful and santa barbara over a glass of bad bosca wine every evening for many months when cable first came to india in the mid nineties. and of course, loved star trek, hawaii 5-0, and family ties as a kid. i have never been hooked though, not on the serials i mentioned, not even jon hamm in mad men can get me to check schedules and be there, hah, i am that tv proof.


but after many years away from india, surrounded by cool calm green and peace and quiet, i started to miss colour, both in the literal and metaphorical sense. so the tv would be switched on the moment i got back home and i would carry on with my life while red, orange, blue, mithai pink, chutney green, big bindis, long mangal sutras, hideous saris, parivars and paramparas, bahus and saases, vamps who had a yen for english, characters that died and returned, all carried on merrily. always, but always, in the background. i rarely paid them any attention.

once in a while i watched, then admonished myself for being so idiotic and stopped. till one day, i heard "nafrat paas aaney na de, mohabbat door jaane na de." i turned around, saw a well dressed man and a very thin girl. it was a promo, seemed interesting. then i thought, forget it, they're going to ruin it anyway.

therefore, i was not there on the sixth of june last year.


one afternoon, sometime in oct/nov 2011, no idea which episode, i happened to look at the television. and just couldn't look away. a gorgeous young man... but hold it, i've seen him before, in shraddha, in baat hamari, yeah looked kind of nice, there was something about him, but like this? never. oh what's happening to me? so drop dead gorgeous, who is he? and is that delhi. delhi!

i was born in new delhi, spent lots of childhood there, with a fabulous nani, nana, mamas and mamis. in fact, class 7 to 11 went to school there and stayed with my grandparents three of those years. then ran away for college to calcutta. why? because i feared none of those good looking delhi boys would ever look at me.

honest. that was the reason. no intellectual bong here, sorry.
and now one of those guys was looking straight at me from that stupid screen. full circle, i was 50 and a bit, yet could feel the familiar urge to bolt. but this time i decided to stay.
my extreme knowledge of mills and b gathered from age 12 to 17, told me i was looking at an arms akimbo man. but it was the tadka of dilli that had me still, unmoving. english with a delhi accent, i mean please may i die. "d'you understand?!!" ohhh.

(i also found that he and his wife married around the same age as my husband and i did; his intensity of feelings for her, well i have been there too and am still there; struggled to be financially ok, us too; seven years in the same not too inspiring job because it was important to earn, like that. insists his name be spelt right. walking away became more and more impossible.)


barun sobti was not the first choice for arnav singh raizada. yet there he is. could anyone else have ever been asr, or arnav, even chhotey? and yet, he wasn't the first choice. a bit of a compromise, i get the feeling. remember hearing lalit mohan say that mr sobti had the eyes for the role. what would lm know about the jaw line, the widow's peak, the flowing limbs, the long neck, the crazy lips, the pop out irresistible ears, the down on the back of the wrist that shimmers in the light, the collar bones. but thank everything, someone sensed the potential of this man's hitherto untried acting ability. someone saw arnav singh raizada in him.


sanaya irani had often heard that she would never be able to do a typical indian girl's role. she said, getting gunjan gave her a sense of real achievement. but just imagine the genius of the person who decided that our small town, lower middle class, hindi speaking desi girl with the tedha choti should be portrayed by this big city, upper middle class, english educated, sophisticated young woman of rather videshi complexion. the contrast works like a dream. it makes khushi yours, mine, ours; whether you're from small or big city, desh or videsh, young or old. sanaya was told by nissar parvez (i think) that everyone knows her as gunjan, but after this, people should only remember her as khushi. what a fantastic one line brief. and how utterly successful ms irani has been in meeting it. a girl who'd never get a role as a typical indian girl.


iss pyaar ko kya naam doon? was pitched for star one. but kismet would have none of that. and so it was that number crunching, trp and target audience oriented channel went with a gut feel (i'm sure they backed all decisions with many so called facts and computations, and tender parts of anatomy were duly covered) and decided ipkknd ought to go to star plus. (mwah mwah to whoever was the executive.)


i used to be (just corrected the "am" i'd instinctively written) the last person to want to talk endlessly about a serial, and that too on some social networking (gak what a word) site. deleted my facebook account some time ago. i heard about india forums on the noreen khan interview, as by now i had got the bug badly enough to look for the actors and the show everywhere. sbs, sbb, what were these things! a whole new world out there. anyway went and signed up at india f.

soon after that i realised that my favourite niece (tennismaniac19, i think she calls herself, writes lovely stories) was as lovestruck as i. and while we gushed together and i mentioned the forum, she said i should check out crooner.

led to you girls, i was. by a nineteen year old. that's cool, since i'm about 15.

and here we are, priya. in your wonderful thread. talking, chatting, giggling, singing, getting closer, becoming important in each other's day. i read many of all your posts. there were bits of me in there too.


many instances of  this play of fate i will never know. like how did they decide upon lakshmi ji, a pet goat! or the posse of prakashes that keeps rm going. or how did such a perfect team of actors who not only act well but gel with each other come together. or that unbelievably beautiful strain of "rabba vey", how could a little known music director come up with it. and what wonderful improvisations and extensions on the theme. old rabba vey, sad rabba vey, new rabba vey, why am i smiling.


here's thanking each one at iss pyaar ko kya naam doon? and all of you in the crooner. and a very very happy anniversary to all.


my sleeping patterns are ruined (episode airs at 12 mn), my friends are worried about my mind, but the man i've been married to for 26 years patiently asks me every day, so what happened last night? then gives me my fifteen minutes on my favourite topic.

more than anything, even more than my crush on a 27 year old boy, or maybe through that feeling precisely, iss pyaar ko has led me right back to a most important thing in life: love and the expression of it through romance.

i flirt with my husband for no reason again. despite my age and weight. and there's a certain lightness to love that i haven't felt in years.


this morning he said over the phone: mami ji is a bit like aunty s. i said: no, a mix of aunty s and aunty h.


iss pyaar ko kya naam doon? was indeed a gift from kismet.

wrote this for crooner's anniversary in 2012... many memories of that chatty, funny, intelligent, insightful, snarky thread. 

n i s h a n a   e p i s o d e s
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missing asr, missing barun.

feeling nostalgic. remembering things. feelings, scenes, losing oneself. being happy with a simple serial. just found this bit i wrote on rima's thread "why are they doing this to barun" on 21/22 april 2012.

wanted to share it. no real reason, just like that, with everyone who loved barun, sanaya, rabba vey, all that's ipk. please feel free to leave your memories and nostalgia here, if you're up to it.

it's been harrowing days for most of us.

and barun, sanaya, cast.

here's to fine actors and the magic they weave.

my post of 21/22 april

i abs agree.

this guy doesn't need to strip. or show muscle. or even work at looking good to be breathtaking. he is rare. hope he knows this.

an extract from a letter i just wrote to my niece, also a big fan:
"today i particularly liked that sleeping on the same bed sequence. again hints of an actor with the potential to be great. sanaya very good too. both without a single word.
yes, he looked a dish, but i prefer him always when not much effort is made to make him look gorgeous, in fact when the hair does not flop, when the naughty boy look is just under the surface, when his eyes draw you in so you forget to notice how badly matched his clothes are, when he is so into being asr that he forgets to look good, that's when i say uff and clutch pillows to my heart."

from india-forums, written november 2012, in just three weeks iss pyaar ko would end. we were still hoping it wouldn't, that all would be well.

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from crooner breathless

who could be expected to write cogently today after seeing what we have seen.

i am all over the place. a voice is blowing through me. a trembling lip caresses my eyes. what's that rush of wind and that distant song that plays? long distance, extreme close up, utterly scraggly and worn out "i love you."

is there any other way to say those words.

again and again and again barun shows his mettle as an actor. does even he know how good he is?

method acting from a lad who was minding phone calls till just a couple of years ago. who said the book he'd perused as a youngster was mainly his dad's cheque book. a 28 year old whose interviews never go right, right but not "right right". a serial actor who is handed the script piece meal, day upon day with no real plan as to where it's all headed. no ready film script here, no complete, edited, perfected play. a daily soap.

bless you, barun sobti.

and yes, sanaya irani. for close to 10 days now you've carried this show. she is a spunky one, isn't she? she knows who everyone is really devoted to, that the main audience of a daily tv romance isn't made up of men waiting to fall in love with love. yet, she's never phased. in fact. she gives her work and her co-star her utter best, straight from the heart, from the purest place of instinct and she shines. inviting all around her to shine as well. marvelous.

gosh that silent entreaty through inanimate phones and airwaves. one hand presses the receiver close to the ear, "khushi!" and an expression flits, a tear forms, the other hand comes up and cradles the phone closer. the tear rolls (the order of events is a mental recall, may be a bit off. sorry). she never says a word, yet she's saying so much to him. and he can hear every word.

god who wrote this scene. who directed it. who set the music. who edited. who counted the seconds. who said let the wind blow.

may i fall at your feet.

anjali returned in full force today. the milk crashed to the floor, and it was as though she reached right in and found the di that is viscerally attached to her chotte. children of the same mother.

yeah, looks like a kidnap (i never saw the precap as i caught the second telecast) and looks like snakewa is the creep. alas even all that lifebuoy couldn't wash the filth off him. oh oh oh. out, damned spot, out!

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wrote this on crooner soon after watching the episode. one of my earliest posts on the forum. i still recall my state when i first saw this scene. there was a lot of hope about the story and characters at that point... things didn't go the way we thought they might. but the feelings about the performance remain just that, in fact, every day i get hit by it some more.

 

a sense of asr

while the end sequence with asr in black dazzled and turned my brain to mush, this sequence, this moment, the quiet ponder in the dark, in the seclusion of his room, a room feeling curiously bereft, asr realising, connecting, feeling, assessing, planning and particularly this shot, was beautiful, played in me.


this is asr as he is. no mask, no public face. just who he is.


sort of reminded me of the man standing in the rain talking to himself in episode 24. sahi and galat he had pondered vis a vis this girl and sworn arnav singh raizada ko kissi ladki se koi faraq nahin padta. then he'd encountered faraq and done several things vis a vis that... some sahi, some galat... and today he faces that squarely... but this time he knows he is bidding for much more than right and wrong, he is prizing hamesha out of the grip of twelve days and an end.

 


episode 306 no shayad about it

episode 24 rain talk 

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to that aane doh... episode 323

aane doh.
come 

and see me 

adorn my lover 

with the rampant

beat in my heart

with the flagrant

gift of desire

with triumphant

exulting love


he had put a ring made of gauze on her finger long ago, and now a ring of gold he'd made her wear. surely, this needed to be sealed with a kiss. he took her to the poolside, that's the rasam, after all.

aane do.

no matter 
what comes

or goes

or passes by 
without even a look at us

i'll be yours

here in this moment still

and always forever


her lips said what if, but, someone may come. her eyes said, won't you... won't you please... kiss me. how could he say no

aane do.


let it come...


and come what may


i'll be there



he held her hand and dragged her to the poolside, and today it took them no time to reach the wall where, no need to fight the feelings, no need to draw away. she trembled, he fell in love all over again.

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