REBLAST 1 Episode 1 - 5 - Page 40

I've missed seeing you around a lot and reading your takes. This was profound. Almost felt as if I was been introduced to them. She in a sense took the reins of their relationship/ connection, borne as it were out of their first meeting, the violence of it, and the impact it had on her.

Originally posted by: kizh72

I've missed seeing you around a lot and reading your takes. This was profound. Almost felt as if I was been introduced to them. She in a sense took the reins of their relationship/ connection, borne as it were out of their first meeting, the violence of it, and the impact it had on her.

hi kizh,

great to see you. i have been here, but keyed up. because i wanted to write 3 and not mess it up... imagine that ha ha. writing ipk has become important. no idea why. but since it has, i'll just do it.

this is a stunning episode really, a grace in it that gets me every time. i am fairly jaded and cynical i find these days, nothing much touches me, and really can one expect to see depth or anything much in a tv show? and yet, when i see certain things in ipk i feel the touch of serious creative people. people who think beyond just making money. they may use the mass "language" to communicate but they do it with intensity and their own style, does something to the whole thing then. these episodes are so film like and nissar parvez and maan singh seem so very caring of little things, a pleasure really to watch. and precisely because this attitude is evinced in a genre where no one really bothers much, it is so so refreshing. cuts through. reaches a jaded pair of eyes and a slightly cynical dil.

she did take the reins as you put so well, didn't she? he was not allowed to walk away. no more... now you stay.

khushi pata nahin kahan chali gayi... wonder where khushi's gone, said her mother.


cut to a pair of feet in dark shoes firmly planted on the ground.
behind that moved in an edging of red and blue... khushi's ghagra.
her face came into view; miserable, troubled, but more than that... vulnerable. hands clutched the border of a dupatta; her hands always spoke, they said things she couldn't say.



and a face in frame, not as neatly arrayed as usual, eyes lost in another world. a dark chaos approaching.


3:18

has an episode in a mass entertainment medium ever been this elevating. a grandeur held the frame, there was the sense of high drama, as if we were watching a greek tragedy perhaps, and yet there was a touch so light and minute and modern in tandem, one felt a sense of euphoria.

i should have been able to hate arnav singh raizada, i know i have despised characters for doing far less egregious things than what he did when he coerced and blackmailed an innocent young woman into doing as he bid and forced her to marry him... on terms most bizarre, each of which he lay down, while she watched helpless, caught in a terrible situation, unable to even ask what she had done for which he did this horrific thing to her.

but i couldn't hate him.

i should have felt like crying for khushi kumari gupta. that charming beautiful girl who had just started to sense that a man who intrigued her, enthralled her, was trying to flirt with her, tell her something... something that made her heartbeat pelt and her hopes run amok, and now he had dragged her away and look what he had done. she was clearly blown away by all that had happened, and in a position so powerless one had to feel pity.

yet, how could i... not when she exuded that pristine dignity even amidst all this... as if she was the one with the power, though she was being vanquished.

the terrific game of life, with all its knots... hadn't the episode started on talk of games and knots and how they must be untied with one hand only, the other as if tied behind one's back. how one had to have enough and more knots. how a couple must untie these knots and that would mean they'd all their lives help each other solve problems, even the most entangled ones...

the knots had been tied by life. intricate, elaborate and most recalcitrant. and two people had to find a way to open them, before they choked and suffocated them to... what?... love?

what makes us love what makes us live what makes us die.

anjali wondered about chhotey... music changed note.


a sense of preparation, she closed her eyes... he seemed to shut all out.
again he turned and looked at her...

arre ranisahiba, saaley sahib toh kahin nazar hi nahin aa rahe... ranisahiba, can't see saaley sahib anywhere, said the man who had vitiated two lives. arnav and khushi, a man and a woman and a primeval beautiful feeling, an archetypal moment... an archetypal enemy of beauty and innocence. here he was called shyam.

your hands will be tied... he holds her hand... why? if she is as fallen and as filthy as he believes, or tries to believe; if he hates her so much, why does he bother... why must his instinct be to hold her hand, and not let go? did he even ask himself.


startled, she looks up...

he looks away.

and to the beat of ominous percussion, he steps forward... she stumbles behind, reaches and grips his hands with both hers.

a complete story in itself...


yes, there will be problems, untold knots, their hands will be tied behind their backs... yet all knots will be opened, must be... for their is mohabbat, there is nafrat: the surest sign perhaps of mohabbat that.

in the godfather, tom hagen had said to michael corleone as he took crucial steps that would change his life forever and take him all the way to becoming the don, "there are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. you don't try to justify them. they can't be justified. you just do them. then you forget it."

michael could never forget... nor could asr. some part of him knew what he did was wrong. and he also could never forget why he had to tell khushi "faraq kyon padta hai" even as he tried to crush and control her... contain her almost as if she were a disease, it became his "chot". but how did an actor portray that tremendous complexity? as we went into the fabulous story telling of the wedding, with its tense tight cataclysmic flashbacks, i thought the directors had felt their work splendidly and their entire design was breath taking, audacious.

not easy to show the hero of your story blindly judge the love of his life and then force her into marrying him, so so brutally. how would they save such a hero from the wrath of the viewer, how would he be redeemed? oh they must have spent a lot of time pondering that.

however, i believe they barely had any time, the channel having insisted a marriage take place. no, not payal and akash's. asr and khushi's. i also must absolutely laud the writers... payal and akash were not supposed to be a couple, it just worked out that way, what skill writers showed in using this jodi's marriage as a perfect device to present the rapidly evolving story of asr khushi and a marriage not planned. against the thick suffocating dark contour of the khushi asr scenes, the happy light bright and colour filled akash payal wedding scenes. gives the viewer a break, and accentuates the darker scenes, making them seem even more potent... gorgeous.

i have no idea who came up with the solution of the temple marriage, but whoever did was imagining at a heightened level, the sort that makes you go slightly crazy... i keep thinking of beethoven's fifth symphony and its storm and thunder and sweet melody intertwined. the dha dha dha dhaan always blasts into me, here asr and khushi did it with two firmly placed feet and a swirl of a ghagra's edge... almost silent sound track, but what a crazy making moment. the sense of a symphony with all its build ups and climaxes and crashes and breath and soul and emotion, all of it here.

everything was well put together, but ultimately, it was two actors who pulled it off. and the music. raju singh understood it seemed every nuance, every desire of his serial.

i stare at barun sobti's face in these episodes (okay i stare in other episodes too) but here i really am struck by the way he seems to change his features, their set, their slant, their very arrangement almost.. and his body, like a fine instrument expressing his state of being.

aside: for almost two years now this actor has not been cast in a meaningful production. shame. had the original directors and producers who made hindi films into a phenomenon called bollywood been around, this would be never have happened. and that seismic jodi, barun and sanaya, would our great film makers, who had tremendous gut feel, who went about discovering superstars and matinee idols in the strangest of places, have wasted that power, that promise? the opportunity to do good work, to make hits, to make money... seems nowadays our film makers are not really hot on talent. i wonder what it is they seek.

akash opens the knot, nk is elated, di smiles and looks up and is the first to see them. just as nk says, you will solve each other's problem at the same time. union. a sense of it in his words

a whispered, "chhotey" from anjali... and the music at last rose... it was time.

incomprehension. shock on faces... a note of music as if stuck and breathless inhaling... and they walked... raju singh made sure there was no let up, no lack. barun sobti and sanaya irani became two people alone, just by themselves, in the midst of commotion.


barun and sanaya seemed to create another plane within the frame, like they were right there and yet in a separate place... i make no sense. it was the kind of episode that makes you lose it.

shyam looked up.

as a whole room stood up, before them stood a man and a woman, together, in garlands of wedding, hands firmly held. the couple, the dampatti, hamesha.

a curiously stunning moment. an exhilaration in it. despite the look on the couple's face... despite everything.


camera rose higher. conch shell blew. auspicious chants of invocations filled the air. bewildered, worried, dumbstruck faces seemed like a counterpoint to that feeling of splendour. this might have been melodramatic.

again the acting of the lead pair kept us riveted, not bothering with whether this is melodramatic or not.

khushi's parting had sindoor. our first sight of it. no explanations, no story of the wedding. we just know it's done. and it can never be undone.


a man in a garland with averted face, again so many things that said. he has done what he believed had to be done. one can't fathom him, one can't perhaps forgive him, and yet why is it that his action seems like that of love?

terrifying, upsetting yet what's that beauty of hands held... dampatti. neither he nor she is alone any more.

"ee sab kah hai, nand kissore!" bua ji had to be the one to speak first.

"jawab wahi hai jo dikh raha hai," a brilliant pithy comeback from the man in garland.

"humne shadi kar li hai..." we have gotten married.

"shadi? aise chhupke? bina kissiko bataye? par kyon?" di is lost... married? without telling a soul, so quietly? why?

cut to a suffocating scene.


poolside, a man drags a woman there... "aap humey yahan kyon lekar aaye?" why have you brought me here asks a bewildered young woman, dressed in blood red.

still, dead voice from a man whose face has goine so motionless, his eys are blank, yet there is smoulder somewhere. main batata hoon. i'll tell you.


tum apne behen se kitna pyaar karti ho... how much do you love your sister.

cut to the view from the other side... beautiful story creating.

usske liye kuchh bhi kar sakti ho... right? you can do anything for her, right?

why is the strong one, the perpetrator looking so vulnerable...

toh aaj tumhe apni behen ke liye kuh karna hai... so today you have to do something for your sister.

minimum words yet a terrifying note to it all. again i think of godfather. brilliant dialogues here.

kya? what? sanaya has not yet lost her voice i think.

shadi karni hogi, mujhse... abhi. got to get married, to me.. now. i'll never forget that delivery or the look on the face.

kya?!! the same word, now in a completely different vein... sanaya's voice was slipping away but she never let khushi go far from her.

stern silence on a face, complete bewilderment on the other.

sahi suna tumne... you heard right. you have to marry me... for six months. wonder why that was added later.

the threat came, won't let your sis marry my brother.

shadi? chay mahine ke liye? marry? for six months? again the six month line added later (by another voice?)... aap kya bakwas kar rahe hain, arnav ji... what nonsense are you talking, arnav ji.

main bakwas nahin kar raha hoon... aisa kaise ke sakte hain. i'm not talking nonsense... how can you say that?


haan ya na? yes or no... asks the man, jerking her close to him, twisting her arm, holding her close, gritting his teeth. months ago, when she first came to ar, the same question had been asked of her... by la. that time too her hands were tied. why should it be any different now.

he asked her three times.

she said na, kabhi nahin...aur humne socha tha... and i had thought. she had so thought he'd tell her he loved her, he'd flirt again, he'd...

ekbaar phir soch lo... think once more.

he shows her what will happen if she refuses... jab tak main wahan pahuch nahin jata aksash shadi ke phere nahin lega... till i reach there, akash won't marry. and she knows how akash listens to everything he says.. and mami ji is just looking for one excuse to break teh wedding. that excuse he will give her.

asr has come prepared to win this deal.

funny how, and this is what adds depth and poignancy to the tale of asr and khushi, the smart intelligent deal maker was completely credulous and believed what he saw mainly because he loved khushi so much.
he couldn't think straight. he made the biggest mistake of judgement. he somehow couldn't examine the moment with his mind. his heart shattered.

but now he has come fully prepared. he has tried to shut his heart and he's devised his strategy. to make the biggest strike against the same one... this time he will not err... how sharp his judgement. he knows exactly what will make her agree. he doesn't make a single error.

we are back at rm and he tells his sister he has nothing more to say. di steps away... he is silent..

an aunt berates, a grandmother is horrified, cousins are dumbfounded.

a mother screams, humri taraf dekho, khushi, ka ee baat sach hai...loo at me, khsuhi, is this true!

haan... yes, whispers the one who wouldn't back down in a battle, she must protect her loved ones, even if she must annihilate herself.

a slap.

and he steps forward and grasps his wife, holding her, being there... glaring at her mother.

you have no idea why you have married her, she has no idea why she has agreed... you think what you think... but you are man and wife... hands held... hamesha.

khushi begins to look up... a question in her eyes. she senses a partition in the stone wall, a streak of emotion escaping... he turns away perhaps realising what he has done, what it said, maybe he didn't mean to even, but how could he not protect her.

nani ji shouts...

a pathetically silent khushi.

a memory again. it's getting desperate at the poolside. you can't do this... kar sakta hoon aur main aur karoonga... i can and i will. if you don't marry me i will not let this marriage take place.

tum meri shart manogi... mujhse shadi karogi... and a whsipered almst.. aaj.

you will accept my conditions. you will marry me... today.

again from the back chay mahine ke liye is added.

she held off. he began to walk away. but jiji's wedding... the night that a wedding broke and a dori was snapped, the night it all began haunts her.

rukiye!

stop!

and he stopped. he turned... and he walked back to her. on the night of diwali too he had started to walk away, but he had had to stop. perhaps what made him turn both times was the same thing... that uncontrollable, extra rational attraction... made him completely irrational both times.

a brave young warrior, who only knew how to love with all of herself, beyond herself, with whom you could solve all the problems of life said,
hum taiyaar hain.

i am ready.

a ruthless deal maker who had without ever meaning to fall in love had done just that, knew that the deal was his... though his heart broke and he for a second let a feeling show. only that she was in tears, face covered, she didn't see.

sometimes the rajkumar doesn't come on a horse, he comes on a rage and he yanks you to himself and and he hurts you beyond belief for he loves you beyond faith.



the ethereal lightness of love didn't even last a day before the darkest night came. two people both utterly helpless... he had no way out he believed, she didn't even know if there would ever be a way. from here starts a journey that will show us what human beings can be made of; if they didn't come here, maybe we'd have never known them for all that they are. i will never forget khushi in the next episode crying sitting on the floor, then getting up and slowly making her way to her room... her new home. getting up to face the life that had been forced upon her and no one to hear her heart shatter, see her world go awry. incredible strength. that slow getting up and walking... doing life, no matter what. this was a very special woman. and he? what a terrible error of judgment. yet i couldn't blame him. just hope he'd find his way back to her and himself one day. he loved too much, that perhaps was his folly.

just as asr never gave khushi a chance to think, ask, react, the creators of ipk too gave us none. they stopped us in our track, we were smiling and in fuzzy romantic mood, bemused by the man and woman falling in love, totally unprepared for what came next. suddenly we were being dragged shocked into a wild violent wedding while the night wailed and bells tolled and the wind screamed. and our hearts quaked, pounded, slammed against its beat.

i absolutely love the execution of this terrifying wedding they had devised. no preamble, no ponder, no shots of asr planning his move and talking about things in his head as serials are prone to show. straight into it... peechhe se shuru karte hain, they seemed to say, let's start from the back. so we saw the wedded couple first. then the proposal... well the coercion and blackmail. and now in two flashbacks the two essential acts that conjures marriage in the mind instantly... the putting of mangalsutra around the bride's neck by her bridegroom... and then the sindoor that only a husband is allowed to put on parting of his wife's hair.


but what perhaps always signals terror and excitement and the feeling of so it begins in me, is the holding of the hand of a woman staring silently at a man yet asking so many questions with her eyes, he pulls her out of a car, and without bothering to give single explanation, drags her behind him... up the wide shallow steps of a temple... it's night, nothing is too clearly visible and the music has an ominous ring. an inevitability spells the scene and leaves me shaken. whoever designed these scenes was working at a level of extreme concentration, story paramount, artistic flair at peak. in a low budget serial, which will be watched on not too big screens with resolutions of various levels, to create this power and pull... astounding.


up up up they go. the cuts are sharp, top shot, he pulls her, her lehenga and dupatta fly. cut to a shot from the side... up they climb.


cut to a shot from the back and fire rages before us at the top of the stairs. now we are behind the fire and the man and woman walk up. he keeps walking.



at rm, he looked at his weeping sister and tried to say something... you always wanted me to get married...

toh kar li.
baat khatam.

so i did it. end of story.

while everyone... perturbed, upset, even angry... asked again and again why they had done what they had, a silent man and a woman with no words stood there. what a situation. everything blowing to bits.

he really hadn't factored all this in, had he. so much of a knee jerk reaction that was, that pulling khushi to him. he thought he was doing it all for his sister's safety, that's how he saw it. did he ever ask himself why he had to marry khushi for that? or this contract so called marriage for that matter. and why he actually bothered to get a mangalsutra and sindoor organised? he had no idea really what he was doing... and he also was so terribly wrenched by the sight of his beloved in shyam's arms, he was not quite himself all through. had he been, he'd have known that appearing like that before all suddenly marred would create chaos and akash's wedding night would get badly affected., had he been thinking cogently, he'd never let that happen.

the way he looked at shyam, wasn't this more a man's staking of his claim, taking what he considers to be his and letting the other guy know, hands off. she's mine.

bit a of a man's game there... she the unfortunate victim. and yet she the adored. the indispensable. he couldn't just threaten her and banish her as he had the day of the guest house. he had to adhere her to him and plunge into the abyss with her.

that struggle to somehow placate di not being able to look at her... too much too many things are there in these moments, his love for two women terrifyingly intertwined. "tumhe vajah bata ne hi hogi, chhotey," you have to tell me why, says anjali.

a face turned away, clenching of jaw.

"kaha na di, aapne kaha tha kar lo.. so kar li..." told you, you said marry, so i did. he was not in control of emotions, breaking down yet he's the karta, the man in charge... as he decided way back.

and yet today, he ran way. literally ran into his room to avoid his sister. and cried. i am sorry, di, par koi aur rasta nahin tha. i am sorry but there was no other way.
yes, if you loved khushi and thought she was a wh**e and yet felt you couldn't be without her, perhaps there was no other way. it will never be possible to fully comprehend or justify his action. which is why such depth and power in all of this maybe. and months later, she will perhaps give him the same bludgeoning pain when she'll call this whole thing not a marriage but a sauda, a transaction... something that can be ended.

he spoke to no one... neither khushi... nor di. a 27 year old man who had decided to do everything to set a crashed world right, took a decision all by himself, without realising the lie that brought it about nor the flaw in his choice.

he escaped, but khushi would not be spared... nani ji held her and demanded an answer. everyone badgered the girl. she who had no idea that the man she loved had been standing at the terrace door, had seen her with shyam. one day she had stood there and seen shyam for what he was, tonight asr had seen her for what she wasn't. life.


it was awful to see khushi cry like that, losing all she knows to be right and real shaken, helpless. the question kept coming. you know the significance of this mangalsutra, don't you?

and the first flashback.

a silent night, an suv glides into frame. screech of tyres as it brakes.
inside sit two people. one incandescent, the other darkly ablaze.

creatives used to speak of how sanaya and barun seemed to be pieces of a puzzle, fitting perfectly. that quality, that vibe, set the night alight. great story telling techniques were employed, but that yin and yang thing in them, the almost flowing into each other, tonight they were such a gorgeous contrast, finely balanced. it just made the wedding scenes explosive.


no one plans to have a wedding like this. yet there was a terrifying grandeur in it, like that of a volcano erupting or a mighty waterfall, or high rushing waves, something elemental, that seemed to sweep all resistance aside and my heart said, yes, they are man and wife.

he kept walking with her till they reached the deity. then a waiting. maybe something could be changed.. her look screamed don't do this.. his face was set and his eyes burned with an emotion, a determination in him, there will be no change... her gaze kept asking him to stop the nightmare.

then he turned and walked toward the deity... om swasti na... mantras began their chant. we cut to a long shot and saw him walk back to her. she waited tense but ramrod straight, not wilting... vis a vis.

with the goddess behind them, fire before them... agni and narayan as sakhsi, as witness, a mangalsutra was lifted, held and put around a neck, a job done... ommm.

a melody escaped a flute and picked the pathos and tears and perhaps ecstasy and annihilation of the moment.

the flames leaped and grew thick... a shattered man looked at a woman he wanted to hurt badly. visual rhetoric of fire continued, it wrapped around their shots in slow dissolves. it would ravage all and purify at the same time. the chanting faded, a conch shell blew, music crescendoed... they stood before each other... changing, no longer who they were before this moment. changed forever.

the second flashback:


they stood there staring at each other... both helpless though one seemed not to be. the mantras chanted. camera circled them, as though that had to be done, like pheras, auspicious.. he held up his hand, a pinch of red... blood, i thought.

yeh sab cheezein tumhare liye bahut maine rakhti hai.. yeh mangal sutra, yeh sindoor... toh yeh raha mangal sutra (loved barun's pronunciation, that sutr-).

in one harsh movement he pushed aside her teeka, bared her parting and streaked it with his vermilion. ownership.

aur yeh raha sindoor.


these things mean something to you, so here's the mangalsutra and here's the sindoor. he doesn't believe in them, yet he includes them in the night... why? why not simply coerce her into living with him and just put on the signs of marriage herself.

there was something cat like in his glance. an alertness, a pounce.

her eyes lifted slowly, she knew what these two things had done to her life... and that their mark was indelible.

ab tum meri patni ho. now you are my wife.

he said again as if to convince himself as much as her that this is only for six months, that she was his wife in the eyes of the world, that he would never give her the place of a wife.


the music lifted, she turned once to look at dm. then she wept while he gazed at her not raving any more, an unguarded moment. angry, betrayed, said his eyes.

the wedding was done. we'll never see the complete wedding, and i'll always wonder about the moments unseen. in offscreen segments we saw how small the actual sets were, how ramshackle everything around it. yet their was a magnificence in every frame. those swaying bells, the curtains, the sounds, the colours, a ravaging everywhere.

by the end of the episode, khushi is all by herself, pushed aside by her family, and that old pain, the unbearable one of not belonging, not being "sagi", their own had returned.


though we think it only happens in serials, things just as challenging happen in life too. yet we overcome. yet we love. we have such a need to. makes us human, makes us us. why should khushi and asr love each other after this night? yet they do. somewhere shyam deserves a tight hug for being the cretin he is, he showed them how much they really loved each other in a way. when the going gets bizarre the heart really speaks.

even as a kid, i never forgave ram for doubting sita. to me the most powerful phrase of the story of ram sita is, "dharani dwidha hao," i am getting goose bumps. she called to her mother, the earth, and said, part, take me back in your arms, and she went away forever. here asr and khushi both could find a way to look into each other's beings and "see" the truth... it needed no proof. i can't stop reveling in that. and the fact that the night before the so called remarriage she said yes to him. to me, this is their marriage. good bad indifferent this is it... because love was always there.

"there is peace even in the storm"
~~~ vincent van gogh, letters of vincent van gogh~~~

i was struck by the quietness, the physical one that is of the episode. after all the thunder and chaos of the last few days, a sudden lowering of decibel... and perhaps the most sombre, keening episode of ipk till now.

the sense of an aftermath. the deed is done. nothing will change the fact... nothing, khushi says as much to payal. now what.

however even in the midst of this bated waiting, the storm continued below the surface. a family had to find its equilibrium. and two people had to find their tether, their shaken inner selves.

there were at least four places where i felt my heart rise and feel the beauty and triumph of these agony filled moments. for no matter how terrifying the whole thing, how egregious, there was beauty in it always. as there is in all momentous events in life i guess. what could easily become melodrama, the creators of ipk and its actors often turned into a moment with the throb of life in it. i felt, i connected, i went to places within. something always edifying in its core, even in the most difficult times of the show which will be on us soon.

i have two favourite moments in this episode.



actually the first one is my most favourite. it's when khushi, despite everything... despite being bludgeoned into marrying a man she actually loved, despite being disowned by her family who loved her like their own but now said she had acted like this because she was not their blood, despite being doubted even by payal her greatest friend and support whose wedding night is in disarray... and despite collapsing in a heap on the floor, weeping helplessly, finally decided to get up.


she held her mangalsutra and remembered the wedding again.

her whole life possibly flashed in her mind... she had lost early in life, she had been found, loved, she had weathered the storm... and tonight with the tying of this necklace forced on her, everything seemed to be torn asunder again... even jiji had walked away.

she looked up. there was the room of the man who had been so brutal. her lips trembled, the tears poured, yet she stood up, and looked around, many thoughts in her eyes... she seemed to brace herself... and as rabba vey dimmed she took her first step... going unerringly to where she had to go... how helpless and how triumphant in a moment darker than chaos.

the music sensed her.

it didn't holler and shout. it went soft and melodious, a beautiful bride was coming home after all.. so what if the whole world had deserted her, life wouldn't, music wouldn't. raju singh/arshad khan/lalit mohan, super touch.

khushi was magnificent to me at that moment.

this gutsy toughness, almost a ruggedness which she cloaks herself with consciously, is one of my heroine's most endearing and admirable traits. she is essentially strong and she has what's called "sanskar", her values. when everything goes haywire, she turns to them and does what she believes is the right thing. in this she is exactly like the man who has wronged her. she is so important in my world where girls are encouraged to be less, be demure, accede to the man's wishes no matter what. not many serials have a character like khushi and sanaya made her so much more than just a jhalli funky girl with charming notes and a goodness... she was a powerful character. this wedding showed us that.


as for asr, the protagonist who'd erred... yes, no doubt about it, even if not meaning to, even if deeply in love with her, even if because he was torn asunder, his action toward her was not right... yet that man too, without being into "sanskar" as such had a basis in conscience, a fundamental and an abiding sense of duty and doing the right thing.

the writing was beautiful for this reason, for it took his very character, his strength, and turned it into the cause of his most hurtful act. irony. we humans and the game that life plays with us, pulling the carpet from under our feet when we are least prepared. had he had even a shred of wiliness or the not straight in him, he might have reacted differently. but here he saw what he thought he saw and everything fell apart in him... his sense of duty floated to the top... he held onto that and took a decision which he thought was right... yet, i have feeling he knew it was not... which is why he paced, he ached, he sat almost numbed by his own act. and he remembered not just his sister, but khushi.

khushi being slapped by her mother. it felt like a body blow almost, for him.

the second scene came right at the end of the episode. a man was reflected alone in a rear view mirror as he fixed his opponent with a lethal stare. a warning in it, a sense of life and death in it. just before that he'd found the man whose very being had become abhorrent but whom he would tolerate again because of that sense of right... for his di, her child.. give shyam a chance. but before leaving, he'd turned back. and given lie to his own assertion to khushi that she would be his wife in name only. yeh sindoor, yeh mangalsutra sirf ek samjhauta hai.


then why did he feel the need to warn shyam off khushi not with the threat of physical harm but with a claiming through gritted teeth? meri patttni.

he'd turned away after giving his ultimatum to shyam. but then he stopped and his eyes moved toward the evil.

"aur haan... jija ji, tum mujhse ek aur baat kahi thi... ki tum khushi se kabhi alag nahin hogey..." and yes, jija ji, you'd told me one other thing, that you'd never part with khushi.


he took a step forward, "well ab, khushi meri pattni hai..."

well, now khushi is my wife. that fabulous stress on the "t". patni... he doesn't opt for the english, wife, a language that slips into his language all the time. instead, patni... an old word from his roots. a sanctity in the very utterance, meri patni.

with the same tongue that he denied his adherence his belonging to this relationship, he proclaimed the very relationship. i fell flat in a bit of seetee bajao mode. barun was too good, asr was fabulous.

usske aas paas bhatakne ki koshish bhi mat karna... don't even dare.
don't even try to lurk anywhere near her. don't even dare.

a terrible confrontation with evil... and reflections again... now a man alone in a mirror... he had been with another in a mirror just a while back but for such a short while. ephemeral this thing we call happiness.

there was something hindi movieish about that waylaying of shyam and the threat, but barun took it to a high... again i thought of michael corleone.

khushi went to the room which would be hers from now on. no coyness, no waiting to be taken to her new bedroom... a quiet walk, with each step a girl took step toward womanhood perhaps.
she came to her room. and at the door a strange sight... he sat dark and immersed in pain on his chaise longue. for a moment it felt to me as though they had been married for years and this was a difficult day in their lives... there was always so much connection, it's hard to think of them as people who have just married,

she walked in and closed the door confidently. i liked that taking over of her space.


and she went to arnav ji to tell him what she had to. no one was hers tonight... no one... not even him, he had said. but she went anyway, maybe because some part of her knew she could. no matter what.

and she collapsed on the floor before him... beautiful reading of a moment... of its place in one's life. he sat... they were so together in that moment. a couple. in a mess...

when she opened her mouth next, i realised it was a voice over... sanaya had lost her voice. i wonder if the strain of the days leading up to these episodes, the constant plumbing of deep emotions of many kinds, now happy now sad now terrified now in love, had taken its toll.

hum aat saal ke the... i was only eight when i was orphaned... tonight i became an orphan again, arnav ji. aaj hum pir se anath ho gaye, arnav ji.

the utter sadness and helplessness of it all. the unfairness.

he looked at her sitting there... feeling her pain perhaps knowing his role in it...


sad sad moment. he had never ever meant to do this to her. and yet... here they were.

i can't change things, lekin humare liye yeh janna bahut zaroori hai ki yeh aapne kyon kiya... but it is very important for me to know why you did it.

he will not tell her. of course, story needs him to not say anything. but also heart soul emotion psychology. he could never ever say to her she was in another man's arms. he couldn't bring himself to. it made him go crazy... and maybe it felt just so terrible to utter especially to her as if her innocence her unmarked untouched purity, the one he believed in, the one that touched him so much, would go.

music picked tempo, inner rage, asr's eyes started to gather anger.

slightest change of lines on barun's face and such a vast change in emotion.

he tried to walk away, but ek minute, mister arnav singh raizada!

she staked her claim as his wife... in office maybe you can walk away, but not here... here you must answer... you can't leave till you tell me why you've done this.

a couple that has been married for years... i got the feeling again. the tone and array of the fight had a sense of familiarity. married people have such wild run ins.

nostrils flaring with rage... seething, he turned. she raged and shot forward grasping his arms...batate kyon nahin aapne yeh sab kyon kiya! why aren't you saying why you did this! you answer me, you can't ruin my life like this and keep quiet.

and she pushed him as she had done before... anger spiraling, why why have you done this... she screamed about the significance of mangalsutra sindoor...

he is silent..

isska ek matlab bhi hota hai. it means something... aur yeh sindoor...

his eyes moved imperceptibly almost to see the streak of red...

i miss sanaya's take, i know she'd have done goosebump giving stuff with the words that flew around, all about wife, husband, right, wrong, jawab, answer...love was never mentioned but always there... i was reminded of the feast of esther when it is said god's name is never mentioned but god is always there. it's a time of disguise when you must dress in away no one can recognise you and drink much so you almost can't tell good from evil.

had love dressed up in such a suit of anger and hate we couldn't see it.

yet we could feel it all the time, couldn't we.

she shoves him again on kyon kiya aapne aiasa.

he is still silent.

at last he held her arms, stopped her and swung her around.

itna gussa kyon aa raha hai? why are you getting so angry? he asked scathingly.

dikha rahi ho, you're pretending... tumhe jo kuch chahiye tha wo toh tumhe mil gaya, you got what you wanted... ek amir admi, a rich man... am i right? khushi kumari gupta?

he turned to leave, she caught him again, a hand on his shoulder a manic anger in her eyes. i won't let you go till you answer, she said. main tumhare kisi bhi sawal ka jawab dena zaroori nahin samajhta. i don't think it's necessary to answer any of your questions, he retorted.

they have often fought and scrapped but tonight it reaches another level of engagement, a deep thick bitterness, something adult and deathly in it... how will this resolve... the fire is blazing annihilating...
in its heart though one can feel a sukoon, a peace... she is in his room, his life, she... his pattni.




ps: barun's voice when he said to shyam... jaanta hoon, issi liye kar raha hoon. grey, sleek, grainy, low and poised to strike, to kill. got me.

Amazing thread, amazing pictures, amazing gifs.❤️ Seriously, well done.👏

^^^

thank so much, pari... glad you enjoyed the thread.

a woman alone and a man who had a story that seethed in his eyes, and never quite got told.

it is the morning after. the hangover is heavy and thick and tearing through every member of the family. it's expression strange and scraping and grating on the nerves as such things tend to be. a girl will be excluded, perhaps only mami ji's usual barbed comments will give phatti sari a sense of normalcy. that hasn't changed. even if di looks at her with a vacant unsmiling stare, jiji doesn't make eye contact, looks away, refuses to give her prashad.

she is badi bahu as mami archly points out, the elder daughter in law. to her this is a role that must be fulfilled with a sense of responsibility, duty. she had not asked for this role, it was thrust upon her... it had to be accepted, played. khushi is no deserter. she enters the game and plays the best she can.

this morning she seeks to find some calm if possible, within and in the home. but she will be denied by all. even nani ji, her staunchest ally will turn away, then viciously berate her. i thought of the nani ji of the early episodes, tougher, harsher when crossed. shades of asr.

it was a painful episode to view but if one had an upheaval at home, possibly people would react in bizarre ways, just trying to cope with it.

even shyam is in disarray, in the middle of the hall, he speaks to khushi of his pyaar. that stopping of sanaya when called by shyam was beautiful; all her angst, her tension in that sudden halting, the rigid back. a girl alone.


shyam was plaintive, how wronged he was, how could she treat him thus he moaned. the man has truly lost it. he spoke of the "kissi aur", the other she has married.

there was the sound of a door off frame. and kissi aur entered.

how did barun get that majestic dark air as if on call.

i noticed he was in the clothes he wore the night before. so was she. a telling note there, everyone has changed and woken up to anew day, but them. tired, frazzled, emotionally drained, the two of them are still the bride and the bridegroom, one mad moment having completely changed both their lives.

he saw khushi running up and shyam below. he would have clobbered him... but then someone screamed "nani... ma" and he had to instantly focus on that.

he was always real... good bad nasty raging whatever, but real. he ran up the stairs two at a time and reached nani's room. nani had locked herself in, everyone was panicking, in that state anajali immediatekly spoke to him...

he solved the problem... his way. with force.

nani was there, forlorn and wretched on her bed. and with high fever. he offered to call the doctor and suddenly he was given the cold shoulder by the same di. he had erred. yes, he was the one everyone needed when things collapsed, and when things seemed better... he could be ignored.

i found his and his sister's relationship always interesting.funny power play in it. he always let her win... ultimately. and she knew how badly he needed her so she played her games, maybe not consciously, it just happened that way.

"yeh sab tumhari vajah se hua hai, chhotey!" all this has happened because of you, chhotey. anjali had something believable about her.

perhaps her anger really was rooted in the fact that she felt totally excluded from his life at that moment. he had married khushi without even bothering to tell her. and afterward too, not a word. "tumne toh hume ek pal mein paraya kar diya, chhotey." you've disowned me in just a moment, my bad translation of a line loaded with sentimentality.

even as he tried to handle this attitude from di and the tension grew all around, came the accusation that had a man's story in it, a story that never really got well told. pity, because it was essential to the evolution of arnav singh raizada, the man who descended from a helicopter and looked up at an old mansion with a dark relentless storm in his eyes.

"kal raat toh unhone sabit kar diya ki woh apan baap ke hi bete hain!" last night he proved he is his father's son truly, said nani.

instant cut to chhotey and his reaction. crack! went something in me. the doleful melody signalling a mother never forgotten, always missed and longed for, played. he was not in a good place and no one could feel him, sense him... this was not just anger, something else there. that anger, attributed to the father, which has been mentioned by nani ji before and riled him for he believes there's nothing in him like his father, that anger and these statements were a window to a key story that made him him. perhaps a deeper exploration of his relationship with pita ji, the specifics; and the inability of arnav singh to walk away unscathed from it all, his character took a hit, he inherited his father's gussa... or pethaps, what seemed like an inherited thing was not that at all,.. his gussa was his own, and its colour and shape came from the innate nature of the man, with its power and yet its cleanness. there are many things you can do with that gussa that gets noticed and mentioned again and gain.

but that did not happen.

i do understand that when writing a daily soap with the demands of indian tv, which often means changes at the last minute and fairly unsympathetic channel directions, all a writer can do is leave little gaps and openings in the narrative through which one can walk into a tale or if the chance presents itself... somewhere along the way, the opportunity to walk in through the door left ajar tagged, asr gussa pitaji, was lost.

a silence.

he walked out of the room.

anjali sat weeping over her mother's letter, caressing the kangans. again a story half told. interestingly the writer could not leave asr's parents out of the wedding... they seemed to come and attend via these mentions and emotions.

he strode into his sister's room. you could feel him bristling. a sense of enough said in a short sharp exclamation.

"di, yeh drama aur kitne din chalega..." how long will this drama go on. he does what he does... he will not be questioned... and all this moping and blaming, just getting to him.

di is incensed. drama?

too bad, he retorts, the sooner you all accept this, the better.

the sister for whom he as done all this is of course completely unaware and is the most angry with him.

very endearing the next stern words from the angry young man: di, main apni galati maant hoon, i accept i've done wrong but still you have to accept that khsuhi and i are already married. aapke gussa hone se ya na manne se yeh baat badal nahin jaaygi... your being angry or not won't alter that.

when he can't take it any more, he hollers... enough di!
he is not going to talk about it any more.. if they don't accept...

anjali shoots back, then what, what would he do.

and that old threat of his, made when he is driven beyond a point.
toh main (gritted teeth) aur khushi yeh ghar chhorkar chale jaayenge. then khushi and i will leave this house.

absolutely hot, on the point, smashing delivery.

i am again missing this drama... i know what happens, i know the story as it got told and with incalculable damage.

yet.

it feels almost like the first time. and the many possibilities of what might have happened in ipk call again. thrilling. the aftershock of that threat still in me.

and he leaves. anjali's eyes show the threat has hit home. he knows what works and yet at one level he means it.

anjali can't handle this tension, she cracks under the fear of break ups.. she was such a well drawn character up to a point. and soon she is in nani's room to get to the next point in this difficult situation.

nani was shaken and said this time chhotey had crossed the line of maryada, a family's self respect and regard...

anjali agreed but said a rather lovely thing, he has done wrong, lekin nani woh humare chhotey hain, ye parivar ka hissa.

but he is our chhotey, a part of our family.

the whole sense of family, of the dynamics, of the give and take that transpires to keep families together, the ability to weather situations big and small, and many signs of getting family dynamics, its complexities, made ipk a more valuable and endearing love story somehow. i cannot imagine asr and kkg romancing without mami's hello hi bye bye or di's slow gentle talk and stroking of cheek, or akash's goofiness, or nani's tough love and innate grace... even lavanya became part of this family.

most tv stories harp about parivar parampara and have heroines railing about how they will or won't do this that or the other for the sake of humara parivar, usually with self righteous stern face, rousing melodramatic music and elongated vowels. devis out to slay evil.

didn't ever happen in ipk. only maybe when kkg brought back shyam there was a hint of it, otherwise, nothing. yet, ipk's fam is the most fam like to me. i have aunts and cousins and uncles who have notes of these characters. yes, bua ji lives and so does mami ji, perhaps with exactly those holes cut into her blouse sleeves.

khushi remained shunned till the end. there was no contact or confrontation with asr even. anjali swore she too will not forgive chhotey, obviously we were meant to get tense as hell. we did... but then that "enough!" rang out in the mind and one had to smile.

a note:
found nani's bedroom decor, that charpai like cot, the matka with water, the ubiquitous pickle jar, that rattan and basic wood furniture interesting. a rural look and feel. as if no matter how much wealth had been made, and how metro their lives, nani ji could never quite disconnect with her upbringing, her earth. not just her language, her personal space remains rooted there. nice. people are at times like that indeed, especially as they age

Such gorgeous pictures Indi di.. will be back for the words..