Originally posted by: dramebaaz.af
Love this post! I always found Anjali to be a perfect picture of the pretty, sanskari, and perfect yet spoilt rich daughter. A lot of her "mere liye" to each family member, especially Arnav. It stems from everyone doing their best to make sure she's happy, and she recognizes that aspect.
I think one of the defining trait in Anjali is her closing her eyes towards anything that breaks her picture perfect world. She doesn't want to question why Shyam is absent for days even before Shyam was staying at Bua ji's house. He is absent in the beginning of the show and it's insinuated that his unavailability is a very usual thing.
Same thing with her take on Payal and Akash's relationship. She pushes Akash towards expressing his feelings without pushing for a proper answer from him. She does the same when she tries to push Arnav and Lavanya together during their first break up. She doesn't want ugly answers. She wants things to go to a picture perfect state.
to answer your questions;
1, I am guessing you're talking about the elopement instead of the rituals in the second marriage. I think she maintains the assumption that Arnav isn't traditionally romantic because even after seeing them with kheer, and holi, she seems them fighting a lot as well and her little probe to Khushi during swami track about how Arnav shies away from love and sweetness gives us a glimpse into how she is still thinking that much of her Chotte is the same even though he's stopped giving her answers. Her need to believe that a lot of Arnav is the same as it was before marriage definitely makes her use "mere liye" in moments where she asks for him to do things with Khushi just for her sake.
2, spilling in from the first question to the second, I think here 'mere leye' persists with Arnav regarding him and Khushi because she wants to think she has the same place in Arnav's life as she did before elopement. Arnav is a person who doesn't care for anyone outside of his family. He's quite rude and obnoxious. Anjali knows this very well and she cherishes that her arrogant and absurdly blunt brother treats her with the utmost importance. Whenever she meddles into his relationship whether it was with lavanya or with khushi, she tries to play a fairy godmother with the assumption that her word will be the word to sway Arnav. To answer your question, from Anjali's perspective she thinks here "mere leye" has an undue importance. But as viewers we see that its not her words that persuade Arnav. It's his fear that everyone will the cracks in his and Khushi's relationship.
3, I think alongside others, Anjali has an inkling that all was not well between Arnav and Khushi post their elopement. I don't think she witnessed Arnav and Khushi's romantic moments before the marriage, but she did witness a lot of nuanced changes in Arnav's attitude and his attentiveness to Khushi. As someone who adored Khushi, I think Anjali was more excited about having a bigger role in Arnav's love story. She didn't like it when Arnav didn't let her make decisions about him and Lavanya. Anjali thinks that with Khushi, it'll be different because Khushi always chooses families' words and needs over other things. There are a lot of dynamics at play with Khushi being a reason of Arnav's interest.
With the elopement, not only is Anjali kicked out of something she was enjoying being a part of, but she feels like she's pushed to a curb by Arnav. She wasn't told about anything. She wasn't given any heads up and then Arnav refuses to answer any questions about his marriage to Khushi to her until its very very late.
As much as Anjali is self involved, she also does love her brother in her own way. She does want him to be happy, so her seeing their small moments especially at Holi gives her some form of assurance that at least Arnav made a decision he isn't regretting. I think a lot of her sadness and curtness came from the fact that she was forced to recognize that she didn't have the place in Arnav's life she thought she had. She tries to avoid that thought despite knowing it. She doesn't voice it out until after her abortion attempt.
to conclude, I think Anjali's "mere leye" starts from a place of her sweetly trying to get what she wants, and slowly moves into the grey area of manipulating situations, and then towards her trying to find an assurance of occupying the same mother-sister pedestal Arnav has placed her onto.
Loved reading S and Cheers2all's thoughts above! It's so exciting that even after al these years we get to talk about the complexity of the characters!
The thing is, I don't think either Arnav or Anjali ever processed their trauma regarding their parents' marriage and deaths. While Arnav's unresolved trauma is apparent to us, Anjali, due to her being a disabled stranded bride, gets extra coddled by her family. Instead of tarrying her kid brother through the crisis, she becomes dependent on him for her self-worth. Arnav recognises this and overcompensates. Her insecurities stem from her disability wherein she feels that Shyam is doing her a favour by 'loving' her. She can manipulate people with yer sweetness, yes. But she can't fight for herself. She has a picture perfect image of what she wants her life —with all her people— to be, but she doesn't have any self-image apart from feeling unworthy due to her disability
Neither of them have any real world experience outside of their trauma. Arnav was her knight in shining armour, always protecting her. Shyam comes in later and becomes her prince charming. As far as she had both, she had no problem with Arnav's girlfriends or even pushing him in certain directions for what she thought was his own happiness. It is only when she doesn't have Shyam or has to reconsider his love for her even for a second is the time it becomes glaringly obvious that she's not the centre of either Shyam or Arnav's lives. Anjali wasn't written to have those psychosexual mom vs wife issues, but that how they ended up making her at one point of time
It was when her picture perfect image crashes down that she loses her balance between not absolutely dominating her brother's life and not feeling utterly worthless. That's where the issues with Khushi come up
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