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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moonshine... a vm

a vm on karwa chauth

 

 the karwa chauth episode

the song for the vm was suggested by a friend. ipkknd and the song belong

to their original copyright holders.

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episode 379 don't go away

suddenly karwa chauth was upon us. as if brought out of nowhere, quickly pushing aside the issue of aarav's escapade and moving onto the next. i felt the abruptness of it, and i wondered why this change.

it was a mahaepisode. a lot of time was spent on establishing how khushi can't do without food. along with the ever colourful mami ji, who always manages to exaggerate things to a point of hysteria... she and khushi, the two raizada bahus who can't fast but will, because they think they ought to. 

one's husband has disappeared from the scene. the other's swami is not at all keen that his biwi do karwa chauth. he doesn't believe in such things, he says. 

again i wonder why he is so adamant. he has no problems with others doing what they believe they should, just that he has his own way of looking at things. his di is forever fasting. if his wife wants to observe karwa chauth, why is he so against it? is it because he is genuinely worried about her not eating and then passing out? or is he not keen on it because the fast is for him and he doesn't like to see her suffer on his account? or is it something else?
 

then he challenged her. i was surprised.

in the meantime, khushi is horribly worried about sheetal ji observing the fast.

of course, she is also eating like a maniac, at 8pm she says there's hardly any time left before she has to stop eating at 12 midnight. but she really doesn't, not that i know of 12 midnight being a cut off in a hindu fast.
 

it was only after asr had finished getting after his wife pretending to eat all sorts of delicious things, that i finally realised why karwa chauth at all.

okay, i can't say i realised. just that i felt a chill in my heart. 

"sabki apni zindagi hai. kitna jeena hai... kab marna hai... yeh vrat rakhke thodi change kar sakte hain?" 

when di asked him after the charade was over, why exactly they were pulling khushi's leg so much, he said after a bit... everyone has their own life. how much one will live... when one will die... can one change this by observing fasts? 

i can still feel the shock i felt the first time i heard these words.

why is he talking about death?
are they planning to kill him? is he going to die? 

my thoughts raced crazily around. these were extremely turbulent days at ipk. every day we'd here something new. show they were saying would end soon. the rumours regarding asr's death i don't think had started floating yet.

but now when i look at it. yes, last minute, sheetal track was changed. perhaps they understood how much everyone disliked sheetal and making aarav asr's son would not work at all.

even if asr lived. portrayed by another actor once barun left.

i get the feeling that's why the decision was taken that he had to die.

 

and in extreme ipk style, the thought of asr's impending demise was seeded in the episode where his wife would pray and fast for only one thing.

his long life.  

after hearing that sentence, i really couldn't concentrate on the episode. though i laughed at the mami khushi antics. and went to heaven along with khushi on the pakode scene. love making in the kitchen, something sensuous about it always. and something ipk... at so many points in their story, we have seen him here... the first time i think in 64, when he found her their and lost it. di! di! get ooouuut. and that quiet walk away of hers from him. who can forget.

and then when i least expected it, he stood there at the poolside, wearing a shalwar? was it like a pathan suit? whatever it was, he looked a little different but terrific anyway... an intensity in him.

and she appeared in red.

there was a lightness in the air, mirth... just for a few moments. as the food appeared and disappeared and the extreme eater went a little more nuts. then he said something about making her feel better.  

she said something which made him realise why she was doing this at all.. even if it was hard.

"hum mantey hain ki yeh vrat rakhne se woh hamesha aur lamba ho jaayga..." i believe if i keep this fast, our forever will get even longer.

a simple khushi like sentiment, said in her sort of words. he had to relent. he had to understand. even if he didn't believe. i though that is so essential if two people are to live together even if they have different thoughts on key issues... it's always hard work.. but one can get there... slowly... you need a longer hamesha perhaps. 



hamesha.

another ipk essential had been evoked. and when she demanded a moon from him... he gave it to her.

albeit it was borrowed from a film, that scene, but barun sobti and sanaya irani wove it flawlessly into the tale of arnav singh raizada and khushi kumari gupta.

a melody came in just like that as it had on another evening... and another. a man and a girl in red.
memories came to the poolside and a melancholy with it. but so did magic. of a different kind, its language and spell new. a frown took your breath away, a smile took you on a voyage.

this time the song didn't say rabba vey, it didn't whisper jadoo hai nasha hai... it implored instead,

ab na jaa.

don't go away... 

beautiful song, but who was going away? was someone going away?

and barun sobti and sanaya irani took the poolside to such a staggeringly intimate place, i couldn't breathe. the nature of attraction had undergone change, deepened, grown older. a terribly adult man and his lover who knows how essential she is to him. who sees his need, his arousal, and returns it with her own... her expressions say so many things.
i stare at them wondering where they get that range of expressions from. how mature and sensual today the two, a place where love and its physical play intertwine, become inseparable. i remember a girl in red in an office and a man in a suit who couldn't stop himself... he had to walk to her.

was that the beginning? the seed of an attraction sown, an attraction that would become what no one knew? not understood, not rationalised. just there. elemental. you have to walk toward her. she has to stand transfixed.
 

then that night of diwali. again she in red.. by this poolside here... and the attraction raging. still not understood but utterly compelling... you forget you're a man with a girl friend, she forgets it too...  your eyes lose focus as you go nearer, her lips tremble... a hand clutches a saree. the lights glimmer.

the next level of an unnamed feeling overtaking all. 

and now here. feelings acknowledged, emotions named, attraction embedded and growing mature, sure. experience heightening the murmur within, the exploration without.

his longing no longer needing to be kept in check. her desire neither.
 

as the song moved, so did the two of them, in a dance of lovers. who felt the red in its deepest hue... i noticed how from a simple red saree, and the nubile, innocent look, diwali got a little more complex, older somehow, more out of control, and now the darker rich red, but the jewellery white like that very first time, only more grown up... a girl who is now a woman... pleased to allure her man. no longer apprehensive... though still a little shy, perhaps of her own reaction, her own need. who knows.

but there they swayed, hands reached, held, drew against the body, faces came closer, played, things were said though not uttered, bodies flowed toward each other, ab na jaa... don't go now.

a fabulous adultness to the language, the movement. a feeling so intimate, i actually wondered if i should put a signature on it and interfere. the space somehow sacred. only for asr and khushi.

ab na jaa.

flt as if the directors wanted to craft perfection. take us to a high like perhaps never before. i must thank all those who were involved with this scene. even the spot boys. there is a pure high here that is entrancing.

and it's in the middle of episodes that are really the downhill episodes of ipk.

a magnificent togetherness. 



yet when he said, "khushi, yeh vrat se itna kuchh ho sakta hai kya?" khushi, can a fast make all this happen?... he the man of dimaag, of reason, while i had to smile at his question, i felt the chill again.

he averred he would always be there as she tripped and he caught her. as he had that first time she had come to see him in his house, just before he banished her to the guest house. where she might have died.

bookends. my mind said, bookends. a culmination here of all that is most viscerally asr khushi. a man walking toward a girl, a girl in red, a trip and a catch, hamesha... and vishwas. here at the poolside, where else. there was even that sindoor falling like that day in bersarai... red again.

don't go, i couldn't help thinking, ab na jaa.

but a mahaepisode all of a sudden, a change of tale, and those words, i couldn't tell myself i was imagining things.

maybe that's why sanaya and barun took the karwa chauth poolside where they did. perhaps they knew... this would be the last dance. an end of hamesha.

i loved the switch to lightness and kidding around between them. beautiful direction. like real lovers. and when he said earlier, so should i keep a vrat, i had to guffaw. tricky issue, asr. don't go anywhere, stay right there, will you.

moonshine... a vm on karwa chauth.

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together

i am a fangurl of one thin, north indian fellow and i know he is dynamite on his own. but together they are dynamite dipped in chilli padi, laced with laphroaig and cream. they bring roil they bring peace they let me fly they obliterate compromise and the tyrannical hold of three dimensional reality.

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ncofl... never on a new year: chapter 11  
episode 379 don't go away

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episodes 384/385 lost and found

while story lost its way in the shenanigans of trp, channel and ph politics, and the tussle over will asr live or die, etc., something, or rather someone was found, even if not heard or seen.

mama ji.

now we know he is in the us of a. and there he has been all along leaving his english speaking teeptaap bootiphool wife, mother in law of khoon bhari taang right here in shantivan to fend for herself alone, armed only with her makeuppiya, banarsis sarees, jewelllery, and fine english. my poor only hello hij, no bye byej.

she will stay put here, while her akas bitwa will go off to amreeka with his wife to take care of this mysterious new project which has come through, inception to contract done in exactly or less than two episodes.

i am aware ar is a powerful conglomerate with the most gorgeous tycoon on the planet as its chief. but to get work done at this speed!!! impressed.

sigh... what nonsense we have to put up with just because supposedly responsible and thinking adults, sorry professionals, decide to play passing the parcel with their product.

passing the dud track, rather.

ever since dadi, this game has been played in earnest. when post shyam there was a gap, quickly an asr's illegitimate son track was introduced via sheetal.

no one thought nothing through.

everyone decided, audience will take whatever is dished out to them. and no need to bother with pakoda, jalebi, karela, aloo ke parathe, achaar, chaat, lassi, black coffee, adrak wali chai... some half baked ideas will do.

 

and so it is that in 384, the boy who had no idea even in 378 who his father was and had run off to a restaurant to find him, that same boy says he knew all along asr is his father.

bizarre.

i can understand they had to change the story... but did they have to be this lazy? and disrespect the viewer this much?

while the scene between asr and aarav had something touching about it, it really failed to connect because it just didn't make any sense. plus it was clearly put their to build the foundation (a very weak one) for the impending adoption. also to tell asr that there's something very black in the daal... orphanage? aha!

and so it was with both the episodes. more and more strange stuff.

suddenly akash and payal must leave for the us. thirteen more episodes left for the show to end... i wonder, what was the rush. yes, both deepali and akshay were fed up and wanted to leave, but surely they could have found a better way to let them go. why these implausible plonking in of things?

thankfully, it was time to let sheetal go. gave me great joy to know i won't see this shifty character again. yet from set up to denouement scene nothing felt natural.

first the little boy brought up an orphanage, then asr planned this elaborate hercule poirot style revelation scene. is that even his way? and even if it is, why would he do it at the entrance to his home? and during a send off party that he has proposed for akash and payal?

and just in case four lions and its writers and the channel didn't know, you can't suddenly adopt a child in india... it takes a long time, sometimes years. if you're a single parent, it's even more complicated.

you can't teach a kid of 5 (who is now magically 6, an old ipk malaise this flexi-age) basketball in less than two months, nor can you manipulate their sugar levels to induce diabetes.

you can't just keep back a child from an orphanage at your place with a temporary permit or whatever the lady from the orphanage promised.

if you switched asr's hair with aarav's, the dna report will say they were identical and therefore belonged to the same person. beside how did sheetal know of khushi's plan. she didn't. this match was supposed to be for real when the track said asr is indeed aarav's father. then track changed.

and most of all, devi maiyya's wish or not, you can't decide to adopt a kid just like that, standing in the hallway, post melodrama and very bad acting by chief baddie.

also, anjali may look more teary eyed than ever before, she may switch to english, she may speak of being proud of you... but this entire let's just adopt aarav, post knowing him for all of maybe two weeks or less thanks to a ridiculous situation... is just not okay. not endearing either. even if asr sounds totally cool saying they'll adopt.

but then since the idea was half baked to begin with, it had to end up soggy and not at all palatable, i guess.

nothing in the sheetal and aarav track adds up. plus it reeks of the shallow nonsensical minor tracks that other soaps come up with. both dadi and sheetal must have got lost in kumbh ka mela and meandered into ipk by mistake. i wish they'd never been found.

thoughts

~ what's this instant tears at the mere mention of going to america. a totally improbable scenario and scene, just because in two episodes everything had to be wrapped up...



~ during the poolside conversation, aarav said several things that asr has said earlier. i hate you. important. etc. this was the scene that had to quickly make asr want to take aarav's responsibility. poor guy, had to say, "tumhe kahin jaane ki zaroorat nahin hai," you don't have to go anywhere to aarav. and we know once asr makes a promise he is even more adamant than salman khan in making sure it's kept. how much more obvious must ipk get. the serial which showed an entire romance take root and grow, without ever saying anything about love.~ noticed a sad sad piece of music never heard over those "emotional" scenes.

~ overnight, sheetal became total baddie, rushing to corners taking calls, snarling, being uncaring... maybe she was channeling her inner shyam. the change of demeanour was funny. such a rush to get to the end in just two episodes.



~ "hey devi maiyya, laad governor muskura rahein hain... aaj kaunsa bhukamp aane wala hai." hey dm, laad gov is smiling, wonder what earthquake will be upon us today. khushi had to be comical suddenly... so called sanka this... but really it wasn't.

~ main hoon na... did asr have to say that srk dialogue.

~ ek purane amir ex-boyfriend... ooo that sounded good. may i have one too... an old rich ex bf?



ps: sometimes a strange thought floats by. was aarav supposed to be that elusive dhruv's son? the cousin never seen only heard of just once, back in episode 10 or 11. were they moving toward killing off asr and then letting dhruv stride in, the bad 'un, the black sheep or whatever? so the show could go on with this new plot taking over after asr's demise? that would, among other things, somehow make sense of that trepidation on sheetal's face when she sees khushi about to open the dna test results before she tears it up. 

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episode 383 let's say

i can never tell which of these two moments makes my heart stop quicker. both seize something in me.. make me pause, make me feel the power of that thing we call love.

the first was of course, "jaa rahi ho." when khushi tiptoed out of their bedroom, i was shocked. she had just told him a couple of scenes before that, she'd be with him "hamesha." he'd asked her for that assurance, quite unlike him, but he had. hamesha was obviously being played up, because soon there would be a demise unthinkable.

but in story telling this strange jump to khushi walking out on asr for aarav's sake, after the hamesha promise that too, because she has decided aarav needs him... what sense does this make? would khushi behave in such a way... is it even a solution? i was thinking all this and more as the scene progressed. sanaya was intense and shaken, but something just didn't gel. it was absurd. you don't walk out like that... and yet, i did think of that first scene of kramer vs kramer when meryl streep sits talking to her son who sleeps, before leaving him. 

tears flowed freely down helpless cheeks, she walked back as if unable to leave, she stroked a beloved cheek and kissed the man she loved. he slept deeply through it all... his lips set in a straight line, his breathing easy. she turned to go, because she had decided she must. 

 

a sudden something, a widening of her eyes. her hand went to her neck, her dupatta... 

she turned around and there was his hand holding her dupatta, not letting her go. the dupatta i guess had to be there in this moment. he was wide awake and looking at her. 

barun sobti's acting at this point was just beautiful. not a word was said, not a muscle moved. just the look, that sliding of the eyes all the way to the suitcase at the door, then the moment before he spoke. everything was in that. especially that fraction of time just before he decided to open his mouth...

and say three little words. a world in them.

jaa rahi ho? are you leaving?

it's not easy to choose words for asr, that economy of expression native to him, that preference for direct, unfussy words, his innate cool... in the midst of a wife abandoning one in the middle of the night, secretly, what would a man say? what would asr say?

the dialogue was deadly... it's delivery even more lethal.

no wonder khushi collapsed. i did too.

an almost hypnotic scene of connecting, of melding, of becoming one followed. quiet, elegant, deep.

and he said the other dialogue that makes me go a little crazy.
"khushi! let's say yeh sab sach hota, toh chhorke chali jaati thi mujhe?"

i want to yell and weep for this man... khushi, let's say all this were true, would you leave me and go away? that "mujhe," always, the "aur main?" the tough guy who so needs to be loved, never abandoned... not again.

 

the love and need in his voice... the sheer surrender to his love. and even more than that, a very very very pertinent question of a life mate. if things get tough, if mess happens... will you just leave me?

what does loving really mean? being there when all is fine? or being there no matter what? especially when nothing is fine.

a magnificent question and dialogue i thought that was. worth a true ponder. let's say, aarav were his son; let's say, he did indeed have an intimate relationship with sheetal and a child was born that he wasn't aware of; then what... should khushi leave him?

and what if the roles were reversed... what if, khushi were in the same place as he is, would he leave her?

i loved that question... it asked one to examine what is really meant by love.

then he held her close and said, "mujhe pata hai... agar tum koshish bhi karogi, khushi, tab bhi hum alag nahin ho sakte... arnav aur khushi hamesha saath rahenge..."

that breathy voice. sigh.

i know... even if you tried, khushi, we can't be separated... arnav and khushi will always stay together.

again that hamesha... and despite the gorgeous delivery, the voice, i know asr doesn't talk like that. this scene was shot as part of the asr death track. i won't grumble... i won't leave.

thoughts

~ i so liked the way he tackled the aarav is his son issue. direct and straight to the point, first he told his wife what he had to, then he charged into sheetal's room and asked for an explanation, demanded answers. very asr-ish. he will always face a thing straight on, no prevarication and unnecessary waffling. and please no coyness, if i went to bed with you, i'd remember. 

"lekin mujhe safai chahiye, khushi!"
but i want an explanation, khushi!

dna report or not, he needs to know.

"agar kuchh hua hoita toh mujhe pata hota.."
if something had happened i would have remembered.

hahaha exactly... nicely said, so unhindi soap.

"yaad hota... aur agar nahin tha toh tumne mujhe kyun nahin bataya?"
i'd have remembered... and if i didn't, why didn't you tell me?

a simple question to sheetal.

"stay!"

i had to faint at the coolly flung monosyllable.
 

~ sheetal's dialogue had a blanked out portion... was this another sign that story was changed suddenly? i get the feeling part of this episode belongs to the earlier track. the scenes had a lack of continuity in them... why would asr have to go twice to sheetal seeking the same answers? and that obvious bad fit... one moment khushi is promising to stay forever, the next she is leaving.

"kaise batati tumhe, arnav?  agle din tumne itni asani se phone karke kah diya... it's over... mujhe realise hua... shayad tum" blanked out bit and jump to, "nahin tha!"

"how could i tell you, arnav? the next day you said so easily on the phone that it's over... i realised... perhaps you..." and a jump to, "wasn't there!" 

~ i also liked the way asr empathised with a kid being tossed around in the storm of life. while the overly sweetened, posited on sacrifice (that much misunderstood and abused achhi bahu trait) feelings of khushi for aarav feel tv-ish, even bizarre. his assertion on the other hand, "wahi karenge jo sahi hai" we'll do what's right... nice.

 

"i promise, main sab theek kar doonga!" as always, he promised everyone, he'll set things right... the need to be on top of things... to make his loved ones comfortable, as though always in some way compensating for all the damage brought upon life by the one who should have made everything all right.

but now, touchingly... there's "as long as tum mere saath ho"... as long as you're with me. her support, her saath he needs. a big change in the i can do it all mr raizada."tumhe kya laga.. tum chup chap chali jaaogi... sab theek ho jaayga?" what did you think, you'll leave and all would be well? a most sensible question, yet said without anger... understanding the pagal ladki he loves perhaps? 

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