so like many I have been rather bored with the whole flip flop by arjun in regards to rajjo. however, seeing the episodes with kalindi and chirag deal with the aftermath of the cheating coming out in the open has made me change my mind.
first, a big clap to the creatives for creating a complex picture of a cheating woman. we usually have the vamp or the angel but hardly someone in between. kal is neither and is driven by complex motivations. when she explains how and why she cheated -- it was really moving especially as these emotions are hardly addressed in our serials. however, they are true and happen in many homes. it is a silent pain and not something talked about openly -- loneliness.
what I found most interesting is how kal told rajjo, "listen to me as a woman and not as his sister":
-- kal felt incredibly lonely despite being married to the love of her life. here she is supposed to be happy that she is pregnant and instead the opposite happens. her husband withdraws from her emotionally and she feels alone with no one to talk to. why does that seem like any oxymoron? because she is living in a joint family. but if you talk to women in real life, many will tell you privately that they have felt alone in marriage, in the family. they felt unseen, unheard and overwhelmed with emotions. they felt alone even though they are married and have a family.
-- if arjun had not been pushing her away and driving her up the wall, rajjo would not be able to understand the loneliness that kal was referring to. the loneliness of being in a marriage but having the husband shut you out. the loneliness of being in a house full of people but still not feeling comfortable to share your feelings. she got what kal was sharing because she is going through something similar. so when kal said that it was chirag who failed as a husband first, rajjo gets that anger because she feels arjun has let her down by not trusting her and doubting her integrity.
-- kal struggled to be a mother. she was brought up pampered and she wanted more out of her marriage except with our society, women are often expected to priortize their children and this means their other needs don't matter. so what if your husband is not interested in you or cares? you have your children is the attitude. here, kal felt it wasn't enough. she was neither prepared for the challenges of being a parent and she felt unable to do it alone. she needed chirag to be part of that journey especially as she struggled with postpartum depression.
-- likewise, rajjo really wants arjun to help her with the struggles of taking care of her mom. she is not prepared to be a caregiver and needs support but arjun is not being there for her even when she is asking him for help. she is able to get why kal felt abandoned by chirag.
-- when kal says how society puts women into boxes and expects them to act like robots, rajjo gets that because she really wants to be an athelete. however, arjun won't even let her run properly even though he won't acknowledge her as a wife. instead, he has boxed her in as a servant because of her status and she is stifling in that role.
-- kal fell for rocky because he made her feel alive, beautiful and seen after 6 years. he gave her attention which she was craving. so rather than a physical need, it was purely emotional. in many of the crime serials such as crime patrol, they often show loneliness as a key factor for women getting into affairs. so how many women are silently lonely and longing for the marriage to be more than in name? rajjo feels too the lack of warmth and the lonelines even though it has only been a short while.
-- when kal begs rajjo to take care of chirag, she tells her that she does not hate chirag and still cares: rajjo gets the duality. she is mad and frustrated with arjun but she can't walk away from him destroying himself. so she is stuck in this house listening to his nonsense.
intially rajjo is far away from kal but as she listens to kal, tears start falling. she even moves in to hug kal and comfort her. rather than exposing her, she protects her because she does not want anyone especially urvashi seeing kal in such an emotionally vulnerable state. that was so sweet. she even listened when kal admitted that she tampered with the bank document because urvashi knows. but rajjo didn't lash out or label kal as a bad woman or shut her down. instead, she truly listened and she was able to listen as a woman. why? rajjo was really able to do that because of arjun.
so friends, much as we get irritated and bored with arjun's stupidity, we can also see that rajjo has grown as an individual and as a woman where she is able to see things are not quite as black and white in something as complicated as marriage and relationships. due to arjun, she has been taught some tough lessons on what it means to be woman in our society and how that plays out in the role of wife. if it wasn't for arjun's stupidity, she would have never been able to relate and get what kal is saying -- there are layers. will the two become close as sisters? perhaps, creatives do have a plan to what they are writing!
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