Great post, Asmi. Well analysed and beautifully written. I do not agree with everything, but I agree with a lot. I posted somewhere else about whether Sunny is the one that defined it as love and whether Virat is actually in love with Sai. My view is that, despite everything and his disgusting actions, what he feels for her is love. That does not mean he deserves to be with her though. I thought I would share the view here also.
I am unsure about the idea of being in love with Sai was given to Virat by Sunny. Sunny pushed Virat to confess his feelings after watching him, but it was Virat himself that was trying to confess and specifically said he loved Sai during the Holi track.
Sunny, in my view, at that time only implanted the idea to Virat that he should confess his feelings, he did not tell Virat what they were. Much later on after the pool incident, Sunny says that Sai has beginning falling in love with Virat and that Virat loves Sai. Even during some of his earlier monologues he cannot fully bring himself to say I am in love with Sai, as he stops just short of saying the word love. I'm not sure Virat has rushed straight into believing he is in love. As he has said in a lot of his monologues from the 200th episode to the episode after the college fest, he was/has begun falling in love with her. As he also said to PK during the cafe scene, what he has with Sai is what he calls love because the feeling he has towards Sai has just continued to increase and increase. I think that cystalises in his mind by the time the anniversary track comes around, as in his dream sequence he actually confesses he loves her and when she is asleep, he confesses that he loves her, rather than is falling or starting to fall in love with her.
Love does come in different forms and emanates in different ways depending who you talk to. There will be some who have the love and passion at first sight and that is it and they will tell you that is their love. You also have people who come together (e.g. through arranged marriages) where love is not there at the start, but it grows as they get to know each other and build a life. That is what Virat's and Sai's love is for each other. They were not in love (maybe there was an attraction), but those feelings have developed as they have spent more time together and seen each other's true self. I have also seen this first hand where couples who have been together for 20-30 years who are very much in love, but did not start their marriage/relationship with love, it grew.
A consensus view emerging from the recent track is that Virat does not love Sai because of his behaviour. That may be correct, it may be not. I am not sure where I fall exactly on this topic, or if I am married to a particular view. I am leaning on, and at the moment I am of the view, that Virat does love Sai. That is likely to be a controversial opinion. I think he has previously felt what he thought to be love for PK and he knows what his feelings are for Sai. He has the information himself to know why his feelings for Sai are different to feelings he has ever felt before and why this is love. As I said above, he has felt that love increase for Sai as time has moved on. That being said, I despise his actions and conduct through the last few weeks (or one night in Ghum!) and I agree that it would be better for them to separate and for Virat to find someone with whom all this baggage does not exist and for Sai to become independent and decide how she wants to spend her life. Notwithstanding that point, I still think Virat loves Sai. This includes putting to one side that he himself and the story is that he does love her. There has been a lot of problematic conduct and toxicity from Virat's side and mistakes from Sai's side (I do not consider her to be toxic in the same way as Virat, but I do not consider her to be without flaws and not too have contributed to the misunderstandings between them), but Virat's vile conduct, unfortunately, reflects real world and the hurt that a lot of people suffer and how this leads to this type of conduct, which only comes from being hurt by someone you love. I do not think he would have treated someone he did not love the way he has been treating Sai, because he would not feel that hurt in the same way and want to push that person away. You tend to lash out the worst at the people you love and trust the most. I tentatively use PK as an example. Leaving to one side his siding with PK, which is another topic and issue in itself, he has never been so vile with PK because he never loved her so what she did never affected him in the same way. He did softly rebuke her for the Shivani track and when she made fun of Sai when UM was feeding her, but at that time he was not fully sure what he felt for her and what he was beginning to feel for Sai. The time when he was in love with Sai and he did something was on Sai's birthday, when he grabbed her. This was because she hurt Sai, who he does love so that did affect him (not defending him man handling PK, which he should not have done). The other time was post Sai's accident when he was again very rude and harsh to her (deservedly so) and told her she had such ghatia thoughts, can continue to stoop as low as she wanted, to stop her drama and that she should blame only herself for her misery. This was him lashing out in a way he had not done before with PK when she did something that deeply affected him, i.e. deliberately tried to sabotage Sai and come between them.
He is lashing out at Sai and trying to hurt her and make himself hate her because she has rejected him and his love in a way he never thought she would and he does not know how to get away from the pain he is feeling. It was one thing for her to keep saying this was a deal marriage and she would leave, but what she said to him during the anniversary track was the realisation from his side that she will never move from this position, to understand him and his love for her (again, he is to share most of the blame for this), and for her to love him. This is why when they got back, he was indifferent and trying to set the clear boundaries of not wanting her to interfere, be involved in his life, assert any right. He was trying to show her a different side to him as he had said he would and distance himself. That was as much as him building up his walls and trying to protect himself from further falling in love with her, as much as it was to show her the difference between a true deal marriage, as she keeps telling him they have, and a marriage during which he has shown and showered her with his love that he hoped she would see and understand.
Where he changed and became truly vile was post Sai cancelling his transfer. As I said, his conduct cannot be defended, but I think why his behaviour became do despicable is because of the further hurt he is going through at that stage. He needs to be away from her to recover and move on from the rejection of the only woman he has actually loved (not PK, as he knows this was attraction/infatuation/friendship) because she made it plain to him that he was never going to be her future, but she is not letting him get away. He is trying to suppress his feelings, his love and his hurt as he says to her, in his monologue and to Sunny/Samrat (Cannot remember which).This is leading to more confusion from his part again that she would do this, but then he crashes back down hard when he hears her say that she did this for the family and not because she loves him. She is asserting rights and interfering with his life where she keeps telling him she has no rights and there is no future. This immediately puts them at loggerheads, not least because of their continued misunderstandings.
As a man in love, who is deeply hurt and scorned, he can't be away from her so the only thing he can do to shield himself from the further hurt is to persuade himself that she is a problem for him and that he hates her. I think it's common place that when you fall out or are deeply hurt by the person you love the most, you start to lash out the most and everything turns into an argument and you say things that you shouldn't that you know will hurt the other person, which at the time you don't think about but you later (sometimes much late) realise that it would and that is why you said it. I'm not sure why people do or the psychology around it, but it does happen. Each time again Sai does something to remind him there is no future, she rejects his love and does not need him, it is a further bullet shot to a man that is already on life support. That is why each shot makes him angrier and lashing out more. I think this is why he goes from also at least reacting with the right expression (even if he is not saying anything, but should) and even calling her out on the one night by telling her Sai puts her down because she puts herself in that situation, but has now moved to non-expressions or even agreeing with the vile things PK is saying. He is too emotional and caught up in his own self-pity of hurt and rejection that he is not seeing the hurt his actions and lack thereof is causing Sai.
All that being said, and I am not sure I have expressed myself clearly or as eloquently as others do, but I think notwithstanding everything, including that Virat is a deeply flawed individual for a lot of reasons, I do believe he does love Sai. As I have said above thought, love in itself is not everything and does not mean they should be together. Love is not enough in itself, there needs to be respect and trust. This is something Virat knows himself. The trust part is debateable, but there is definitely no respect at this time coming from him, so that is why I do not think they should be together, but that does mean I don't think he loves her, I think he does.
O Humnava Tum Dena Saath Mera
Haven For Her
Anupamaa
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
