episodes 273 - 276 players and lovers

disjointed for some reason and utterly flat episodes. no peaks, no troughs, a bland plain where some supposedly interesting angles were introduced but somehow failed to capture interest. though, yes, that khushi getting ready to play the game her way and engage shyam using his weakness, herself, might have, just might have, been terrifically exciting, but again, something was dull... and really if this is the bid, you either go all the way, or not at all.

my take is that at least. the need to constantly show how concerned khushi was about her having to be near shyam, to establish to the viewer that she is such an achchi ladki, i feel weakened the character. at least in the execution of her worry and revulsion.

if we are to say, she is warrior like now, eye only on her aim... of course, this is focused on in many ways in our epics and somewhere we understand its implications... then khushi ought to be almost ruthless in this pursuit... and if for any reason i want to see khushi trying to grapple with this decision, completely repulsed by the cretin she must befriend and his horrific touch, then it must be her own way... with the requisite sanka.. sorry, that is how i see her character... her switch to jalebi, to talking silly, gives her a break... from this really difficult world... so suddenly to make her mundane and mopey... nahiiin. i protest.

when a perfect stranger whom she had never set eyes on before, incarcerated her, interrogated her, was vicious in his words and completely egregious in action ripping her dori... almost an assault on her sexually at one level, and thanks to which her sister's marriage didn't go through, she got up in the middle of the night and fried jalebi.

we did not think that was weird... we thought this was this girl... khushi started taking shape in our heads. and no, she had no reason to believe he was actually a decent guy, just the opposite. there was a poignancy in her action... funny it may seem but we knew how broken she is, how rotten she felt, and somewhere that man's unbelievable assault was ringing in her. but we saw a fighter too.

i missed that girl in this so called great plot development.

episode 273
khushi ponders whether shyam might be the culprit. lovely scene of her pacing and wondering, hair flying around, given to the moment. she finds out his blood group is o negative, but i wonder can one really give a q-tip soaked in blood and determine blood type. if one can, no problem, but if one can't... why this silliness?

she took care of her sister in law, sounding stern. anjali told us how this reminded her of chhotey. then that comparison between her husband and brother, both being so similar in matters concerning her health.

i always found that mirroring of shyam and asr interesting. both were self made, both individualistic, sharp, men who wanted to lead their lives their own way... yet they were absolute opposites essentially.

she finally accepted it must be shyam... and then did a fairly impetuous thing. i am not sure that was like her. of course, it was the most obvious way to show nk finding out about the kidnap. decently done scene, though a tad obvious.

i like nk's character... his straightforwardness has power in it and speaks again of a personality... this character can evolve in lovely ways i used to think, wonder what he'd be like in love... real heartbreak type love.

he asks if indeed what she says is the truth. i liked the natural dialogues and that energetic nanhe ji thing, the innocence. akshay dogra has said later i think he was a bit upset that karan g was brought in to be khushi's friend in the search for asr. i have to say, i agree with the writers in seeing a better match between kkg and nanhe ji. also that sliiight touch of a man woman thing, given that once nk wanted to go with her on a tareekh adds to this whole thing, plus nk always felt more alive and fun and somehow strong as compared to akash. again my take.

episode 274

at last nk accepts jeeju dear really is the baddie.

"baat arnavji ki hai nanhe ji... hum usse..." it's about arnav ji, khushi lets slip her feelings for her husband before her friend.

nk will of course be like krishna, the friend of draupadi in her hour of trouble. he will protect her when her character is questioned. he will stand by her no matter what... and he will say his piece fearlessly... completely above soap shenanigans of slow motion and extra close ups and stuff... nk is the ultimate normal guy. unheard of in indian soap i think. which is why i have always found him rare. and karan g a pretty neat actor.

of course, he has to say, "filler mat kijiye!"  in stead of "fikar mat kijiye!" nice touch there... this was yet another filler episode and some writer just had to crack a joke.
there raksha puja the next day... for suraksha, safety, and of course it's in asr's name... and of course, if you have to spy around in the enemy's room the only way this can be achieved if you are in ipk is that a havan has to be on at that moment for you to be able to sneak away.

how many times have we seen a havan as a means of establishing something that has nothing to do with the havan? tiring.

and what was that "spying" scene of the detective jodi peering into the room at the door? so no one could see them?

anjali looked so happy and full of hope for her baby, which unethical absolutely useless writer/producer/whoever decided the child had to die? for the longest time i had hoped, ipk would do a soap on me and bring the baby back later. some ridiculous tale of how a nurse took the eight month old child, or even shyam had the child kept alive to use later or whatever. i'd have bought any story. alas.

suddenly an attempt at humour with "hp wahan guzar gaya..." hp has died there instead of "tapak gaya."

the most exaggerated and unreal search for the key to shyam's attache case. a filler in the middle of the week, it was 13 june, wednesday. i must have been irritated that i stayed up till midnight to watch this.

episode 275
a lot of sk travels talk and a boarding pass and passport are found in shyam's 1970s style brief case.

mami was refreshingly weird, and to ward off kidnappers' black magic, suggested wearing nimboo mirchi instead of earrings. i giggled at the senseless nonsense, it was better than things that seemingly made sense.

in order to stop shyam from going to his room and discovering nk, khushi grabs and holds shyam's hand...huh?

the look on shyam's face, ugh.

she comes to get 2 lakh rupees from di, shyam intrigued... the trap shyam game starts. i am giggling at the doh lakh, what a tycoon would casually spend on a bag, one which hasn't even seen. so cute.

episode 276

entrapment is on.

khushi will ensnare shyam and make hi believe she hates asr. there was certain energy to the episode, sanaya was good, shyam overacted.

"sach sunna hai na... toh suniya... kyunki humein sab kuch chahiye, unka paisa, unki ghar, unka business, sab kuch..." she wants everything and that is the truth.

"ek ek tukda!" she wants

"kyun..." why? gobsmacked is our shyam at this new khushi ji.

khushi says she hates both the men.. him and asr. she seeks revenge.

thankfully shyam took a while to swallow this hindi movie story.

suddenly shyam is slapping people in a godown... and the man is there.

i sat up and stared. felt like i was in tune with this alien show again.

someone kicks a box away.. man in white vest, black track pants. it is thursday...

he prowls... uff.

quick hands try to fix a phone... a worry, something sad about him... he needs to be home..

first word... "khushi..."

the phone rings, she picks it up and starts to say hello, but then she stops... she senses it is him.

a wrap of wind around the two lovers. that mehsoos of each other. an endless moment of just knowing you are there.

the hair flies. he stops too, a little intimate pause in a life overlaid with too much reality.

hey hey, hey hey hey, their song is playing. all the signs that say asr khushi love are here and on a day she has decided to trap shyam using herself.

she holds the phone in both hands, as if she holds him, as if she clings to a reality she so badly needs instead of this nightmare they are in.

he is almost sobbing... their is such pain in his expression, as though he is beside himself with an emotion. just a few minutes ago he was dejected, angry, then frantically working to make a phone work... and then his first call, not to anyone else... just khushi.

in the darkness as if he finally saw the purest beam of light and knew once and for all what it was that mattered that he did give a damn about.

i miss the magnificent man in suit and utter command who had found her in the dark one night before rakhi and yelled and screamed and thrown her out of his home. even then he had felt things he couldn't control and worse still, couldn't identify, even now. only now, he doesn't even wish to control it and he has finally identified it.

i love the simplicity of this man once he has given himself to this love.

he starts, "khu..." she too says, "arnav ji!" their words touch and enmesh.

suddenly she is practical... where are you?

she wants to tell him who is behind all this.

but khushi stop stop! please. what he wants to say must be said first.

"nahin pehle mujhe baat karni hai... jo maine kehna hai woh aur bhi zaroori hai..." he apologises for hurting her...

i think, yes, this is the first time they are meeting after the night in the hut... even if on the phone. so that is why he was close to tears, he has hurt her.

it was only barun's heartfelt emotion which made the scene work for me, because i really did not understand the hit on the head bit... the asr i know would never do that. hitting someone on the head can have the most horrendous repercussions...

"you know i will never be able to forgive myself..." he avers. i felt sorry for the man. really.

in the meantime, we realise, this is a trap laid by shyam... the cat and mouse game. he wants to know if khushi will tell him about the call. some truly bad direction and terrible overacting by shyam. i wish they had kept him subtle and nuanced. so wish they had.

there's talk of the sounds asr hears and khushi can too over the phone... train, bells of a temple. why am i thinking of yaadon ki baraat?

she tells her husband everything but he hears nothing. a little predictable this bit, but something quite stunning in the sudden pull out on asr's face in half shadow. that look in his eyes. how barun understands his character in a situation. laudable really. 





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episode 272 a villain and a goddess

it wasn't easy getting here to write my thoughts. despite the rather stirring scenes that opened the episode, the emptiness echoing in me seems to override everything.

this time round i know where all this is headed. which is actually... nowhere. this is extreme timepass while everyone waits for barun to be able to give more time. that was really the pity of the whole thing... if that wild violence and beating up of a man led to a story told well, we might have hit classic drama... i recall seeing the untouchables while in my twenties... blood erupting across the screen, spraying on walls, bodies letting go of life and slumpin, gory, terrible. i remember the godfather and its violence. i must have been 15 or 16 when i saw it... but all of that made perfect sense. stayed logged in the memory cells as, ah that was some movie. so good.
here... it all came to naught. pity is really that. because the actor and the henchman were actually pretty neat. better than many, these henchies, geography teacher like rotund boy included.

then there was the elaborate "reveal" of the boss. ah it is shyam. oh it is shyam. really, it is shyam?

much melodrama to get him out of the dark into light as we are brought into it too. first the hand and bracelet of course... oh, i know that... the felt the first time i'd seeen this i think i'd had a sinking feeling of disappointment. making a villain is no easy task...especially the filmi type villainiya shyam finally was moulded to.

yaadon ki baraat. dharmendra in black. ajit is white. i know and everyone else around that ajit is shakal... the man a boy had seen killing his parents. today the boy is all grown up but he remembers the man wore shoes of different sizes. then at the right moment, the man we all loved to mimic... ajit... his legs go up onto the desk at and the different sizes are instantly noticed by the hero... the truth hits dharmendra hard.

it was quite a scene really... smooth, filmy, unreal yet exciting, and this despite not having several six pack torsos onscreen.  in fact, i think the hero wore a wig, the villain certainly did. while amjad's brother imtiaz khan looked slithery in orange...
if you'd like to see the scene, it's here on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/65162961
that shoe reveal is in my memory for years and i think the concept was perhaps gypped from an angreji phillum. somehow the blue turquoise bracelet, also kept alive from the first day we met shyam, just doesn't do it. nor does the rather apt dhaiya ho, also with us since day one of shyam. and that i think is mainly to do with the writing, also directing from a distance and acting that is losing touch.

so yeah, seven odd unnecessary minutes. all of it could have been done in a couple. and who reads a will standing out on the road then loudly wonders about how to kill off someone. surely this is not the clever dude, man in black kidnapper? and what's that rocking chair doing there? now which movie was that filched from? psycho? was there a little joke there and a deep prayer to the movie greats to save this shyam this sham this show?

also what happened to the clause about accidental death then? thank g not too many lawyers were ipk fans. one profession and idea too often profaned here. i will never forget asr saying khushi is his legally wedded wife and that meaning nothing to no one. also if legally wedded, would have been nice if they established it somewhere before the show ended.

anyway... asr's beautiful arms, wanting to reach, to do damage, to unmask the offender, very touching. noticed the whole episode was shown through a lot of hand and arm shots... then there were the feet of khushi... and a head coming to close to the boss's feet.

there were two things that sort of did make an impression. one was the little drama three women in brown suits put up for a girl who missed her suited booted man. little did these ladies realise that now she yearns for him in his vest... she sees him crossing the boundary and walking toward her with only desire, pretty naked, in his eyes... or she sees herself running to him in a filthy godown, throwing herself on his blue shirt chest... yeah he had left in a suit, but alas...

very loving scene by three good actresses. and this family love, which managed to stay not nauseating despite it being a hindi soap, where for quite a while effort was made to build individual characters, not even very predictable ones, and the vibe the actors shared was so good, often gave ipk a great place to escape to when everything was off.

along with khushi i lost myself in the sweetness of it. sometimes fam does do weird stuff to make a loved one happy. here they were really bizarre in brown, but oh i did think of the hot one, especially on the morning he walked down the gh verandah looking at her. maybe that was the intention back of director's mind.

and did you notice, anjali spoke of rain? last year's rain. oooph. she remembered two scenes, the khushi sneezing one did not look right... and pity, khushi did not have a flashback of a man rushing out of nowhere and catching her and spinning away taking her to safety. holding her... it seemed for an eternity... like he'd never let her go.

but even without the flashback, the heart swelled and sighed. ah rain. really, chhotey shuts all windows and sleeps with ac on at high? why is he so d real... why?

the other scene was the patch up with dm. i am not much for mixing religion with entertainment. and so often is it used to make you buy some idea or manipulate you. but the concept of ishta devata, your personal god, or rather your personal take on the eternal is i think quite prevalent in hindu thought. i know too little to comment. but i have had mine, and i still do... and this is a private and personal matter.

to that extent, the way khushi's relationship with dm was handled, i really enjoyed it. yeah, there was a bit of the unreal chunari floating thing, but that is fine with me, a bit of flight is always okay in creative things... and really i too have looked for signs, so if khushi reads them... who am i to make fun of her.

but mainly it was her relationship with dm that i really enjoyed and thought was central to khushi's personality... helped us see and read her and connect with her too. an orphan girl always chirpy, trying to make things better. that was her strong and revealed side. but surely there was vulnerability inside? a feeling that no one was really her '"own"? a fear even and trepidation? surely she quaked and felt tremors inside, just sometimes?

this is an orphan girl's very deep relationship, made of her own free will, the only the only relationship perhaps, beside with asr, where she has and happily exercises "huq." her right.

right from day one it is there... she is not scared of dm, never fears dm will desert her. she owns and loves and possesess dm. she feeds her what she wants to, chats with her about everything, requests her to show signs, loves her and wants her love. reaches always for her blessings. and then when her whole world crumbles and she has no one to turn to, she goes to her... dm with her unmoving idol, unblinking eyes...

and she fights with dm.

all her anger, all her frustration... all her hurt... every bit of helplessness... and pain sadness confusion fury, with all of it, she goes to the one over whom she has eternal right.

her god.

her dm.

and raves and rants.

and says, go, won't talk to you... katti.

but now, now that such difficulty is upon her... now that the man who tormented her and whose tormenting she d rather live with than the love of another... now that he is in such terrible trouble... and her heart is breaking, her mind ripping at the memory of the state she saw him.. again.. she can go to no one...

but she can go to the one.

the one who is always hers.

whom she can rave and rant at and love and cajole and who will be there no matter what.

her devi maiyya.

khushi's going to see her, straight after the overwhelming moments with her family wearing suits and her heart immersed in missing him, wanting to get him out of the hell he is in, was significant and poignant.

i liked the way the director showed her hesitation with the halting feet. and i did like the way khushi slipped back into her chatty conversing style with dm... and though she did not do too much of drama, she told dm how badly she needed her man. that the same one who had taken her away from dm, brings her back.. don't let him suffer. let me.

for whatever reason... i do think some people actually talk like that and are as desperate to make the one they love feel okay, make them safe.

sanaya was for a few moments again the khushi i knew. i had really liked her raging at devi maiyya the night of suffocating terror and hurt. khushi had to show her feelings on something... someone... and she had not been turned into achhi bahu yet, so she could do the anger so beautifully. so need to sweeten the whole thing. thank dm.
and today too she slipped back into her relationship with the ease only the deepest of relationships allow... that say, no need to explain, i need you too... and yes, i like the thought that the divine needs to be told your thoughts, your mind... omniscient is the divine but i as human have been given the ability to have free will, that can be exercised only if i can state what it is that i want in the first place.

and when the chunari came via the purohit i was happy for khushi. she needed something today.

something.

and that only her divine one could give.

it was like a master within had reach out and given direction.

perhaps there is a master like that within all of us. and i hope we all find that one within.

can i please hit shyam sham shambles on his snout and please what's with the hairstyle. uff such a waste of an opportunity to create a full masala villain. every hero needs one really. asr deserved better. and that down there was a ridiculous scene... even when i realised director wants me to connect it to the blood that had fallen on shyam's shoe, didn't make me feel better... at all.

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