this was bound to happen.
dadi had been brought in to set up a strange remarriage aimed at trp and to break it up using the whole woh aurat thing and have viewers in a mess.
somehow having viewers completely nerve wracked is seen as a clever means of keeping us pasted and glued to a show. and the more bizarre the ploy to wrack those nerves, the more the fiendish joy of channel at transfixing and bludgeoning viewers to submission.
it is always a terrifying sign when a character like dadi is devised to "fix" things.
it essentially depends on unfixing me, the one on the other side of the screen.
how did serial writing get to this dismal state? or maybe, when the new dynamics of cable came to india, along with it came this diabolic vision of augmenting viewership. which is of course all important to the framework of cable... you get advertisers based on the number of viewers you show, not on the quality of the programme. there is no pride in quality here, only numbers...
but even then.
i know, ekta k's balaji seemed to have set the trend of bizarre story telling... but when any medium starts out, there are all sorts of different routes to success (of the monetary kind) sought by players in it. how come the hindi soap on the most viewed channels never developed variety, diversity, genres? everything ultimately genuflects before a high pitched nonsensical idea, often referred to as "twist" or even "mahatwist" which leaves you shaken and your iq and eq ejected to outer space?
of course, this is accompanied with dizzying camera swings and twirl, sound echoes and blasts, and flat exaggerated acting at a level perhaps never seen anywhere.
the hindi masala film is much laughed at and its "formula" not exactly considered high art. the running around the tree thing is now internationally known (if i am to go by the prompt mention of that by people i meet who aren't indian the moment hindi films or bollywood is mentioned). yeah, the films were often corny... very silly. there were all sorts of defiance of science and reality there, but somehow they were never this egregious. when you left the hall, you usually felt happy... upbeat. even though you were junking the whole movie. and in that running around the tree some inner chord in us was touched i bet, otherwise why would it get such attention... trp :). plus along the way, some really great stories got told (far more progressive and interesting than the saas bahu serial), unbelievably good songs got written and composed, and yes, we saw wonderful acting. again and again.
so why this horrid lack of art in our soaps?
here i feel practically brutalised by the nonsense. as i watched the dadi "revealing" the "sach" about garima to asr, i wanted to scream: why why why are you doing this to a serial that escaped ordinariness so wondrously, despite being a regular commercial hindi soap?
was it necessary for dadi to be written so terribly unintelligently? even the most paltry villains of the sixties and seventies got written better. asr's nani was such a delight, what happened when they thought up his dadi?
"bataiye arnav, kya yeh sach janne ke baad bhi..." she harangued, tell me, arnav, after knowing this truth will you be able to live with khushi.
he had told her i won't be able to live without you. so i guess this loop closer had to come... will you be able to live with her.
she went on and on and so did camera. finally when she said, "ab aapko kya karna hai yeh aapka faisla hai..." now you have to decide what you're going to do... he looked up.
the eyes had so much in them.
i had to make a cap.
and again i wondered why it was never realised that ipk had some of the best actors on television and they were capable of telling a great story.
anyway, asr faced a situation many may have experienced. the classic conflict between two loves. as his mind swirled with thoughts of sheesh mahal, of maa, of that night, the mention of the other woman... i wondered where it would go.
and here a lovely note of story. ultimately his thoughts took him to khushi... on another night in his life he'd never forget. if that night years ago was all about darkness, this night just gone by, was only light.
he finally left the room. of course, viewer to be left worried sick. but even the first time, i somehow couldn't see asr not turning up.
i was also reminded of the other time two loves came into conflict in his life. that time he chose to protect his sister. for he felt that was his duty. and he had no idea at a conscious level how vital khushi was to him. his very breath.
but now he knows. and i was sure, this complex man would not act like an idiot just so "mahatwist" could be created. ah so many stories on the forum. he won't come... he will leave and hide somewhere, punish himself, just like nani had told khushi once... she will be pregnant and they will meet years later...
i can almost see him scanning through possible scenarios and saying, "sab bakwas hai."
i have no idea what saved us from these situations. there was also the option of him having an accident and forgetting all. or him being thought dead and returning after years when khushi is married to nk and has a five year old daughter, who is of course, asr's (mahamahatwist).
halfway through the episode we moved to the bride's home. and there, not damad ji but dadi arrived. intense melodrama ensued but of course.
"tumhe sach mein yeh galat faimi thi ki woh yahan mandap tak aayga, garima?" did you really have this misunderstanding that he would come to this wedding mandap, garima... asked the strident grandmother in unmodulated loud voice.
garima never was convinced, i liked the fact that she and asr, both were taken aback by dadi's magnanimous kangan giving to khushi. and garima was uncomfortable all the way through. i also liked the fact that the reason she couldn't tell everyone about her being "woh aurat." not some crazy story, a simple human one... she was scared, scared for her girls, scared because she is their mother. went with the character of garima we have seen all along.
the other thing that felt right was the fact that both daughters sprang to their mother's defence. she who had taken care of them and loved them as if she had given birth to them
nani ji had a heart breaking expression as she processed the information that dadi hollered and she felt the pain of loss again. i liked the fact that she tried to get a handle on the conflict within her... her love for her daughter and that for her grandson, also her love for khushi...but other than things like this, there was such a complete lack of beauty in this night of galat faimi. our sweetest songs are often those that tell of saddest thoughts as shelley has told us long ago. so yes, if the idea was to show how a vengeful vindictive "galat" woman would devise a bride not married at her mandap for another bride not married at hers revenge, it might have been crafted with a lot of loveliness, even if of the heartbreaking kind.
look at how poignant and unforgettable the other night of galat faimi was. when he said shadi karni hogi.
i guess the creatives were letting go of their show gradually, as channel demanded trp; and ph bosses lost interest unable to handle this thing they had created.the mahamahatwist was that a simple tv soap had become a classic, when all that everyone had sought was money. more scary than dr frankenstein's creature.
oh i feel for the poor channel and ph. teehee.
a little gana on the glorious thing called twist.
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