Sundara Mana Madhye Bharli - Colours Marathi - Page 102

Every now and then someone is kidnapping someone and hiding somewhere for sign on some papers... then again search operation begins... then police complaints... then court... gets bail... cycle continues

Did anyone else find it disturbing that the arrangement of photographs on Latika's and Abhimanyu's bedroom wall didn't include Indumati at all? There was a photograph of the couple with the three Dhumal family elders, a photograph of the couple with Uttamrav and Ashutosh, a photograph of Abhimanyu and Ashutosh ... Would they have to pay Atisha Naik for including Indumati's photo here more than they already pay her (I hope) for the use of her photo in the living room in the same episode?

How can there be a scene of the family scolding Ashu for drinking? They only discovered him after Vikya reported to Abhya that he saw Kalpya and Mukya loading Ashu into a car. Hasn't Abhya told Uttamrav and Hema that Ashu was forcibly taken to Daulat's farmhouse, where the bottle and cup were found next to him? Obviously, Daulat planned to get Ashu drunk after kidnapping him! And how can Ashu not remember Mukya visiting him for several minutes while he was sober, as the last memory before he woke up with a hangover?

When Daulat offered Kamini Rs. 20 lakh for the property papers, I assumed that she guessed that his intention was to steal the property again. Kamini telling Hema that they could use Rs. 20 lakh made sense because Kamini who couldn't count five zeroes for a lakh before her plastic surgery is surely dumb enough not to know that the land's price is Rs. 15 lakh per acre. Actually, I'm giving her too much credit. Knowing the price per acre is of no use to someone too dumb to know whether to multiply by the number of acres, or divide or add or subtract! But for Kamini not to guess why Daulat wanted the papers - that's beyond suspension of disbelief!

Bayā-ā-ā!

Now that Abhimanyu is behaving like Hema, telling no one in the family as he hands over the title to their house ... should we expect another heart attack for Uttamrav when the bulldozer arrives? Should we blame Abhimanyu, and want him sent to jail?

Abhilasha had not a hair out of place after Daulat tried to strangle her. Maybe after her business goes bankrupt due to her not knowing whether the township is to be built on acres of farmland or in place of a single-family home in a residential area, Kamini can introduce her to modelling for hair care product advertisements. Kamini can pour water on Abhilasha's head - look, her hair is dry! Then Abhilasha can pour water on Kamini's head - look, her surgery-sculpted face doesn't wrinkle!

That's the level of entertainment these days.

I thought the Jahagirdar family had status just below that of the Nimbalkar family in the village. How can children be convinced to harass Ashutosh while Abhimanyu is seen as the farmers' leader? It worries me that viewers who may need a psychiatrist for themselves or their loved ones are receiving a negative message from the show: talk about mental health and someone will bully you. This is an opportunity to present a realistic story that could help real people in the audience. I hope the writers have researched their story and consulted experts. Psychotic depression and paranoia don't deserve mockery, and they can be treated.

I rolled my eyes at the same old pointless contrivances of Daulat managing to grab the diary and send it off with Mukya, who gave it to Sarjerav in jail, who got the income tax department's raid called off ...

And how ridiculous was it that Latika figured out what the income tax investigators didn't think to check? Who is so lazy as to store illegal cash without binding the notes together and putting them in a briefcase? Actually, I thought the point of having illegal income was to launder it into investments. But no, Sarjerav leaves it as cash, earning neither interest nor dividends, but perhaps losing value with every passing rodent and raindrop. All so that when Latika pokes the ceiling like a piñata, the individual notes can come drifting down!

But I laughed out loud at the house's name: "Yamunā-Gaṅgā" - just perfect for a place where kāḷā paisā flows in and pāṇḍharā paisā flows out! Who thought of that clever joke?

Muddā, writers! Daulat killed Abhimanyu's mother. That's irreversible, unlike his earlier villainy that you used to keep the pot boiling. We all knew that Daulat wouldn't face criminal justice for bullying Latika, for ordering Bāpū's life savings burned, or even for trying to break Abhya's legs, and that was all right because we got poetic justice. Lati became a model and agile enough to incapacitate Daulat, Abhya's academy plan enabled him to repay Bāpū, and Daulat lost the race. Murder is on a whole other level. You can't forget about it and return to the old dynamic of athletic rivalry and professional intrigue. Indu's absence from every family scene is a loose end. Your viewers are not entertained by Daulat and Taramati sharing a home; we see the elephant in the room - he set her on fire!

The director must be trying to attract an entirely different audience. I can't remember there ever being an extreme close-up of any character on this show before, but suddenly there are extreme close-ups of Abhilasha's face. Long ago, there was one scene of double-meaning dialogues with Hema misunderstanding why Lati was saying it hurts, don't go so fast, while Abhya was relaxing her injured arm. If anyone found it offensive rather than farcical, it could be ignored because it never happened again. Now, this dialogue: "Uṣṭā āhe." "Koṇa?" "Peḍhā." "Malā kāhī problem nāhī." It's not titillating, it's crass.

Any śuddha caritrāçā māṇūsa - as Abhimanyu confidently told Latika he was - would have a reflexive reaction to his boss massaging his shoulders and ruffling his hair. There should be no dialogue after that! What is wrong with Abhimanyu? Is this the same man who once quit his job because Kamini ordered him to take off his shirt? We watched Abhimanyu trying for months to convince Latika of his love and earn hers, even standing on one foot all night in the rain, so that he could go on to this?

Unfortunately, Indian laws concerning sexual harassment assume that the aggressor cannot be a woman, and the victim cannot be a man. A story like this should be used to raise awareness that laws need to protect everybody. Likewise, Ashutosh's depression story could have advocated for compassion. Instead, that apparently forgotten story only informed viewers that if you seek help for a mental illness, children will make fun of you. Can we expect socially responsible storytelling from Sundarā Manāmadhe Bharalī, or is that limited to putting "Ḍholī" in every vamp's dialogue?

I don't know why Jayashri (Latika's mother) and Latika's Ājī haven't been included in recent scenes with Bāpū and Appā, but Poonam Chaudhary-Patil who plays Jayashri posted a video on Instagram a day ago in which she and Umesh Damle (Bāpū) tell a joke in Hindi. So, she is apparently still on the show.

I wish the positive supporting cast would be given more to do. Not just Ashu being depressed off-screen or Appā having a heart attack instead of Bāpū. The scenes that Ājī used to have with Sajjan were perhaps all that could have been written for her character, but why does Jayashri just stand silently while the men talk? Or pass through the yard with a bucket of laundry? Jayashri and her opinion of Latika were important in the earliest episodes! Where did that woman go?

Recently, Latika told Taramati about an exam. I didn't recognize the name, but please, let Latika have career ambitions! The choice for the next MLA shouldn't be between Taramati and Daulat, it should be Latika. Abhimanyu's academy should have been built by now, and we should be seeing him in stories about training athletes. Then the parents could get involved in any number of stories about local quality of life and sports events.

Instead, the new character of Urmila popped up suddenly. We're supposed to believe that the whole time Latika was unemployed, Urmila was working with Sajjan. And she's perfect for Sajjan who is now 36 years old - why?

Kamini was written out, Hema was written out, and Daulat was on his way to prison - so, why did the creatives come up with plastic surgery, an unbelievable pregnancy, and crime upon crime to keep these three around? Why not move on to new antagonists for the protagonists to face new challenges? Abhilasha doesn't count; she's just pathetic now, talking about how Abhimanyu doesn't even look at her, so she's going to seduce him. How is that possible, even with quantum physics?

In the café scene, one of the extras sitting at the table behind Sajjan and Himmat was the same actress who played the leader of the protesters who blackened Abhimanyu's face in the 5th August 2021 episode. Am I right?

Those were the good old days when Latika defended Abhimanyu as her Guru, when Indu was furious because Bāpū was unforgiving, when Daulat wasn't a murderer/rapist/matricide, when nobody knew about dozens of farmers suffering in silence while their lands were stolen ... Hema was stealing the property papers in that episode, but nothing would come of it for months yet.

I have to admit, I laughed throughout the farce of Abhimanyu and Latika misrepresenting their foreplay as domestic violence to fool Abhilasha, and having to endure Appā's shame and Hema's fake sympathy. Taken out of context, it was entertaining, and it looked like Akshaya Naik and Sameer Paranjape had fun playing lines that a romantic pair would never get to say. While Pramitee Narke brought out Hema's quirks as usual, Prakash Dhotre in solo scenes and monologues was a treat to watch.

In context, of course, this is a nonsensical plot. Domestic violence was not needed to convince Abhilasha that Abhya and Lati hit a rough patch. Since when is a quarrel a prerequisite to infidelity, anyway? If Abhya is pretending to be a cheap man, behaving normally with his wife while sniffing around the other woman would be more typical. And the whole situation of Abhya on a quest for papers and exposing himself to sexual harassment - where have we seen this before? Oh, yes, Bhanupriya with Ābā and Mukya!

When Abhilasha called Hema "cheap" for correctly returning Abhilasha's "Shut up!" to the uddhāra of her khānadāna, I thought, at least Hema is faking (I hope) a pregnancy by her own husband. That's not so cheap, compared to someone who salivates over a married man like an uṣṭā peḍhā, and applauds him for being a wife-beater.

It was hilarious as long as they were fighting in random things but that whole fake beating was terrible. Verbal fight would've been enough.

As soon as Hema asked if the fight is an act, Abhya and Lati switched from "Let me talk to my wife" and "We'll talk later" to bickering on cue. Naturally, Hema instantly became more suspicious. Instead of maintaining a tense, resentful dynamic, the already privacy-deprived couple decided to escalate now and explain later.

Lati bringing up "sābhāra parata" and Abhya saying that he kept her because he owed money is so hurtful to their families, I don't know if "we were only acting" can be an excuse.

Making use of the show's history shouldn't mean going in circles!