Hello Arpita,
First of all, I want to apologize if this comes off as a spam. I will take up the chance and assume its welcomed here. People don't fill up threads after threads without spamming.
But I did say to you that I want to fill up pages after pages with your characters. I want to make good on that promise.
I want to talk so much about your Khushi since the last chapter. Few lines have refused to leave me. Please indulge my pretentious language. The words may not be as beautiful as yours but they're close to my heart.
When you read Darwish, an idea emerges. Darwish rejects the idea that love is blind. He instead believes that love sees all, flaws and quirks, and it still embraces. For him love lies in relinquishing control. For him baring one's soul and surrendering is the only way one could truly be in love. I am one of those hopeless fools who believe in these words.
Your eyes are a thorn in my heart
Inflicting pain, yet I cherish that thorn
And shield it from the wind.
I sheathe it in my flesh, I sheathe it, protecting it from night and agony,
And its wound lights the lanterns,
Its tomorrow makes my present.
Dearer to me than my soul.
This is a lover in agony, mourning a love that was lost. It's a thorn in the heart, its painful and yet the lover would choose this pain over everything else.
This was the only poem I could think of when Khushi said these lines.
"When I was away from you, the pain of missing you overtook everything else. I didn’t think about Lavanya or how you had behaved with me because I was paralyzed by not having you around me."
Oh, my world what a beautiful line Arpita. This shows me just how deep in love Khushi really was. Pain of not having him around and the realization that he may be lost to her forever was so magnanimous that no other agony, even being cheated on came close to it.
She loves him in a way that Rumi loved his god, the way Sufi saints loved the divine, the way a devotee looks forward to moksha...
That woman did not once question his statements when he said he did not have an affair and met the other woman for the sake of responsibility. She admits that immediately. Tells him that she loved him for this, and yet questions him why did she not receive the same treatment from him? For Arnav, she has the kind of love people write immortal poems about. The ultimate surrender.
The worst part of it all, and the section that I found toughest to navigate was Khushi's realization that her unshakable faith that Arnav loved her has been challenged since last so many months, and her heart had finally accepted an answer. He never loved her. She was always a responsibility. My heart was bleeding for her in that section.
He kept quiet. He was letting her go when it was someone else. Understanding dawned on her as well as the pain. His silence was again enough for her.
“Oh, so it’s the guilt again. Doing the right thing because I am somehow still your responsibility?” This time, her tone was accusatory.
This was tough to read. In plain and simple words this was so tough to read. She is reliving the taruma she has dealt with for last three months. Arnav confirmed it and more. And I would not expect any other reaction from a woman this pure.
Yes Pure. I do not want to use the word naive. Its derogatory to this character. I wrote a poem above and I am a firm believer of it. She saw all that was in Arnav, and she chose to love him with her soul mortgaged to him. She was not Naive and stupid in love. She was pure. And purity is often not appreciated. And that is why her hurt is so big it hurts us.
And Arnav... I want to write so much about him too. But I feel that I lack something.
I believe he does love Khushi. His heart may have been at the right place. But I don't feel he loves Khushi the way Khushi loves him. Not the way she deserves to be loved. But then, can anyone really be expected to do justice to a love like Khushi? I don't think so.
His realization in this chapter has cut me deep. After 10 years, he was sure that Khushi loved him way too much. I remember he was sure that Khushi loved him so much that she would choose him over her happiness, and he did not want that.
That selflessness of him is the only saving grace and the sliver of hope that I have for this character. That he knows he does not love Khushi as much as she loves him, but he can be right to her. He can do right by her. It's just so unbelievably sad that his definition of right has hurt Khushi to the point where she is questioning her devotion.
But he did not know the actual depth of her love and that realization has pulled the ground from under his feet. When Khushi accepted all that he said as gospel, and even tried to find reasons to forgive him, I can see him dying at that thought. That he has wrecked a trust so deep, a love so intense.
She had given up. He had snuff out the light that burnt so bright in those hazel eyes that kept his own world from drowning into darkness. He had dimmed the life in a woman who has once breathed life in everything she touched. Even his cursed self.
It was a good thing human heart was not as fragile as it was made out to be in poems because right at this response, Arnav’s would have stopped.
Heart shattering lines.
I can only equate his condition to this one line
Khud ko tanha paate paate, humne apno ko kho diya...
I want to write more on him, but I feel something is missing. Like there is something lurking right under the surface that will break free now.
Maybe that is why the title is resurgence. Maybe now Arnav would love her to the extent of devotion while Khushi finds herself. That would make this story come full circle and still break my heart.
In absolute awe of your pen my friend. Had to post this here when I read your last note. This is way too special and has too much potential to be left at this junction. I hope you find your inspiration among so many of us that don't want to read a single thing other than what your story and your words portray.
I don't want to read any other analysis, any other facts or figures to tell me what is right and what is wrong. I am selfish and only interested in what you want to tell me. In what your "flawed and humane" characters have done. That is enough for me, and I hope that is enough for you too. That is the whole point of reading someone else's words.
Hi Arpi,
I want you to reject the notion that your words are not as beautiful. You're quite the wordsmith. Somehow you said everything that we all have felt. Everything that we could not put together in words after the last update. For me the sheer power of the last update was that it left me wordless. I felt such intense emotions that I just could not give them any words. But you have done it, my friend. You have written exactly how I see these characters. Exactly what hurts me about these characters and exactly what leaves me in awe.
Khushi's love for Arnav is like faith in God. You cannnot love someone that way or believe in someone that way, without giving yourself up. Everything that sounds to us mere mortals like she didn't have self-respect, to her it was just her way of loving. She had the audacity to put herself out there. To make herself vulnerable.
And that is exactly why Arnav also sees how perfect and how pure she is. And exactly why Arnav's guilt is so profound. Because how could have done what he did? How could he have broken something so pure? How does one ever recover from this guilt?
Arpi, you have given words to every overwhelming emotion I have felt. You've somehow helped me process them, make sense of why I have been feeling so heavy since the last update. Thank you so much. I truly, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
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