flashback 34

this business of he's thinking of her, she of him, with those carefully selected and edited flashbacks, not a unique device... most hindi soaps use it... but these guys just got it so right. on a rewatch too they're beautiful. there was some sort of a vibe between the two actors, it rides every frame i feel, making them say many things, things below the surface, things a khushi and an asr tell each other, feel, share, get thrust into, can't run away from, want desperately... there are so many emotions in there. what say. just with a key and a couple of beads, again nothing new, such a hauntingly crafted moment. each memory carefully chosen, and their expressions as if tied to each other, in a taut dance move or something. she remembers call him and him turning, cold eyes. she remembers too he was nasty as hell but she wants to meet him one more time, he keeps thinking of that moment when he'd behaved terribly, lost control, and the eyes of a girl turning slowly around.

episode 34 i am not ok

g.u.e.s.t.h.o.u.s.e.  e.p.i.s.o.d.e.s

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to catch a tale

sometimes, i just have to make these edits. they may not fit perfectly into some story, but that's no problem, just looking at the caps, all sorts of stories and tales, many involving dragons and beasts of all kinds, come to mind... especially on rewatches.

episode 34 i am not ok

g.u.e.s.t.h.o.u.s.e.  e.p.i.s.o.d.e.s

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episode 34 i am not ok

"hum theek nahin hain."
finally, she answered his question. i am not ok.
for me, this poignant moment connecting last episode and this, was the story of the day. the next step in their exploration of each other.

episode 34

"the face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. it is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment." 
~~~ james arthur baldwin~~~

a pensive mood permeated the frame right from the first moment. he's leaning close into his plant and pruning. a lost look in his eyes. suddenly flashes of light and a cascade of memories. her voice. scathing, sharp, indicting him, rising passionately in her anger in answer to his  "tum... theek ho?" now her diatribe reverberated within him. i wish to have nothing to do with a person like you. bhad mein gaye aap aur bhad mein gaye aap ki naukri. my name on that paper has more meaning than any penalty amount... her insults found their mark. a spark of return anger in his eyes. he picked up the pot he was tending with such care and dashed it on the ground. it shattered.

di walked in and said, ah so there is something in common between you and khushi. gussa. he remained silent. today even his plants failed to bring him comfort, peace, stability. storm in his eyes. as di carried on asking things he didn't want to probe into, his ire rose. perhaps a safer emotion than that inexplicable disquiet. di said she understood he was very upset about the guest house incident. for the second time she mentioned, khushi could have lost her life. writers used asr's elder sister well to allow us a peak into him. but the matter that really bothered him, no one, not asr, not di, not perhaps even writers had any inkling of. yet.

when she said he actually wanted to explain and apologise to khushi, asr couldn't take it any more. like the pearl string, he snapped.

"enough, di!maine kabhi kissi ko safai dena zaroori nahin samjha. mujhe uss khushi se kuch nahi kehna. mere liye koi maine nahin rakhti." enough, di! i've never thought it necessary to give explanations to anyone. i have nothing to say to that khushi. she means nothing to me.

uss khushi. that khushi. oh he was really mad at her.

but di persisted and asked what we've been itching to.
"achha? toh phir hum jabhi khushi ki baat kartein hain tum aise bhadak kyon jaatey ho." really? then why is it that whenever we speak of khushi you get so angry...

and there was khushi, confused, looking for the key to this utterly perplexing puzzle. "yeh humey kya ho raha hai?" what's this happening to me?  why was she not leaping with joy at having given asr a piece of her mind? she had had her say, gone to his house and told him all she wanted to, thrown his job, his contract... on his face, and walked off hugging her anger close. then why, why this unhappiness? "toh hume achha lagna chahiye na? phir humey kharab kyon lag raha hai?" so i should feel good, right? then why am i feeling bad? even food, her favourite chaat at that, couldn't bring her khushi smile back. bua ji, payal, and shyam (who was positively swooning in affection) tried their level best to cheer her up.

they knew it would be a rough day, this resignation thing, and like a caring family, had prepared distraction and lightness to get her up and about. alas, golgappa also couldn't make her forget this confused sad theek nahin hai feeling.

then two things happened at once. jiji asked khushi for a phone, and rahim chacha walked in carrying arnav baba's clothes from the laundry. almost like objects with minds of their own, a few pearls from a broken string and a key, mannat ki chabi, found their way to asr and khushi. and as if on cue rabba vey trilled in wrapping around the whole segment, as a man and a woman stood lost in thoughts of a person they didn't want to think about.  they stood quiet and scanning memories in the mind in their own separate spaces, but never really apart.

an intimate, almost set aside sequence with a curious intimacy all its own. camera close, touching skin, lingering, wondering, tying stories together. she held the key and stared at it long. his fingers closed over the pearls.

"khushi..."
"arnav singh raizada."

nani worried about chhotey, lest he should destroy his life like his father had before him. no amount of coaxing by anjali eased her mind. what was this mystery that shrouded the past of asr? an ominous sense in the air.

shyam was in love. he so wanted to make khushi happy. she could see that yet, nothing about him ever touched her. if anything, she was perplexed, a bit turned off every time he tried to get close. the writers though decided to have a bit of fun and so gave shyam two wonderful dialogues about love. "baat hafto ki ho, ya saalon ki, pyaar toh pyaar hota hai." whether it's a matter of in weeks or years, love is love always.  and what if it was about eternity? hamesha? but shyam's pyaar did not know that span of time. like shyam, it was limited.

his "dhai akshar ka ehsaas" two and a half letters and one feeling... was playing games with khushi. she was in such a tizzy that she'd do the very thing she had felt she really never wanted to. "uss aranv singh raizada ka khayal baar baar mere man mein aa raha hai... man kar raha hai ki dubara usse miloon." that arnav singh raizada's thoughts are coming to my mind again and again... i feel like meeting him once more.
 
what, khushi?

tuhi bata mere maula, tu hi bata mere rabba.

g.u.e.s.t.h.o.u.s.e.  e.p.i.s.o.d.e.s

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episode 29 falling in love

a feeling he had never known before. that he had said had no place in his life. how much anguish in it, for a man who had to be in control, never lose himself in anything. certainly not love. and yet that scratch on his hand, that blood, the memories. unbearable.

episode 29

lyrical portrayal of a man falling in love. that's what those unspeakably beautiful 3 odd minutes seemed to me. entrancing music, not a single word, graceful camera movement. a room in blues, greys, beiges, and a deep wound in red. a man feeling the touch of one he craves in it; immersed, hypnotised, lost in an emotion he'd never thought he'd meet.

when he came home after leaving her, there was nani with many questions, and di trying to make everything calm again. but he was in no mood to answer. please, i want to be left alone. alone? will you ever be alone again?
 
di fussed over his cut, he was disengaged, walked away, his fist balled.
 
in his room he paused looking almost trapped, restless.

and then like a little boy who'd found the first marvelous "treasure" in a pile of mud or sand, he opened his palm, to look at his wound. jo tum mehsoos karti ho woh main mehsoos karta hoon... if you've been cut, so have i, yes so have i. he lifted his hand and gently touched his cut. almost cradling it the way he'd cradled her before.

arnav's namesake, the ocean, swirled in him. crashing, ebbing, peaks, troughs, anger, hate, love. what. he knew not. all he could do was let it pull him in. for what is asr to know of love? there was no place for it in his life. he said so, he believed it even more. yet, she was there. left her mark and it throbbed in more than physical pain.

never seemed out of place this soulful asr and his tanhaai. because by now, we'd come to understand this brash young man had a sensitive core. that felt, often more than others. that acted with conscience and empathy, when those that mattered to him were involved. most striking till now for me, his pampering of mami ji with that gaudy necklace, just because he got her and her feelings.

just like barun got asr. like no one else did. and so in that interview, a treasure really for all those who love asr, he said what he really liked about his character.

sensitivity.

that's why i could never think of harsh things like retribution, even when he dragged her to the temple that fateful night. i knew that too was love, just like the one he felt at this moment. a kind of love rarely seen, and if you can take its fury, its beauty would drown you even more. she knew it as she went along too.

but at this moment, he had no idea it was that feeling. her thoughts just plagued him. he wanted to forget. frustrated, he slammed his wardrobe door, and awaited composure.

di walked in. again questions. she could sense he was very upset, his elder sibling who perhaps understood him better than most others. what's bothering you, i know who you're thinking of. "di, main khushi ke baare mein nahin soch raha hoon." di, i'm not thinking of khushi. khushi?

just before that in the sitting room, there had been a most emotionally difficult exchange with nani. her love, versus his need to lead his own life. nani was not pleased with his choice of girl, lavanya. she wanted to have a say in his decision for she cared. "main jaanta hoon, nani, par kuch faisle, achhe ya burey, insaan ko khud lene chahie... aur jaldbaazi mein kiye gaye faisle, kabhi theek nahin hote..." i know, nani, but some decisions, good or bad, one should take oneself... and any decision made in a rush is never correct.

di tried to say something. and he spat out, "di, please, mujhe abi khushi ke baare mein koi baat nahin karni." di, please, idon't want to talk about khushi.

twice she came to him unbidden, slip of the tongue. or yearning of the heart?

how would he know? for he'd said, "mere liye pyaar koi maine nahin rakhta." love has no significance for me. for him and nani, pyaar only seemed to suggest terrible tings. he didn't say so explicitly, but nani did, "pyaar naam ka shabd hai na, oo ka ek hi matlab hai... barbadi." that word love, it means only one thing, destruction. it was clear this had a lot to do with asr's parents and their life, their hasty decisions, their story.

but in our story, pyaar had made a strike and escape seemed impossible. what troubles you, di persisted, and finally she offered to feed him. the boy who lost his mother at 14, who became father, brother, man of the house, protector overnight, who never ever asked anything for himself, today he was feeling the need for someone. for this unfamiliar feeling troubled him no end. how sweetly he turned and handed her the plate. yes, i need a little cuddling tonight, a lullaby maybe?

but he kept quiet. what's the matter, don't you trust me, she asked. trust? the word broken to smithereens by his father. yes a part of him couldn't trust anyone perhaps. but di? oh he so desperately wanted to trust.

trust. love. elemental issues of life faced him tonight.

i wanted to play a song for asr here.

"wise men say only fools rush in
but i can't help falling in love with you
shall i stay
would it be a sin
if i can't help falling in love with you

like a river flows surely to the sea
darling so it goes
some things are meant to be
take my hand, take my whole life too
for i can't help falling in love with you

like a river flows surely to the sea
darling so it goes
some things are meant to be
take my hand, take my whole life too
for i can't help falling in love with you
for i can't help falling in love with you"

~~~ geroge weiss, hugo peretti, luigi creatore ~~~
 
it indeed was meant to be.

she was as wrapped up in him too. feeling his hands, his touch, stroking her cheek. touch indeed has memory. and her subconscious didn't reject it. his fingers lingered as she slept.

perhaps its call was so urgent, it woke her up. and in the transition to reality, the clearly felt and the understood came into focus. "nahiiin," nooooo! he was rakshas. she remembered nothing. till her trusted elder sister said,"woh laya tha," he brought you back. then came recollection, she saw the scar, and her expression grew more and more troubled at what she remembered.

she could feel him jerk her around, his hand on her wrist letting go but the churi had already done damage, she was confused, still trying to focus. in the middle of that everyone's anger at the man. was there anything galat that happened? in a middle class home, especially with girls, this is a big concern. no no, she said, not that. leave him, leave his job, she was advised. she had no answer, just the facts of the day. and a strange feeling.

 

a brilliant episode, adroitly stitched together. barun tremendous in his search for asr in this state. sanaya lovely in her confusion laced with anger. nani, di, just perfectly delivered, and mami's and bua ji's spike plus shyam's sliminess, what a mix.

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g.u.e.s.t.h.o.u.s.e.  e.p.i.s.o.d.e.s

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