Maya, thank you for the chance to speak up.
I raised my concerns, please use whatever you need.
1.Pacing: Is the pacing of the story working for you?
The story is very slow and repetitive, dialogues and monologues are not following up on the previous story. After the fire incident it seems the story between Jhanak Aniruddha and Arshi came back to square one but with a very toxic angle what is disgusting to watch due to character assassination of all three of them. The same dialogue and story again being repeated without any proper reason. The show is plain boring and frustrating. Each episode just involves too much shouting, name calling, humiliation, making fun of rituals and traditions sacred for the family and society.
2. Character changes: How do you feel about the changes in characters?Are the new developments in characters working for you?
The once beautiful characters that were brought up to us as as responsible and kind Aniruddha, innocent and loving Jhanak, independent and self respecting Arshi, righteous and humble Chotton, are now intolerable, elder preserve of traditions Thammi. They lack self-respect, compassion, manners, when they are talking to each other. Ani who was the soul of this show all of sudden became the villain without any proper justification apart from being blindly jealous and possessive about Jhanak. It is not clear to me as a viewer why Anirudh is staying with Arshi while he is so strongly attached to Jhanak since they were married in Kashmir. The portrayal of a once married man towards the love of his life Jhanak is toxic and disrespectful, how a good man like him can shout on a pregnant woman when he was the one taking care of her when she was the most vulnerable. Is not she most vulnerable now?
Arshi is shown dumb, over trusting to Anirudh and then all of sudden she is conveniently shown as smart woman who understood that Ani and Jhanak lie to her about their feelings. Also, what is the reason for Arshi to sometimes call Jhanak as maid and at times her sister. If she had an ounce of sympathy towards Jhanak and self respect she would be a loved character, but she is rather shown to support evil acts like kidnapping, marrying her sister to criminal, poisoning Jhanak, humiliating her as Jhanak does not have parents and no one can defend her.
3. Sensitive issues: How do you think the show handles pregnancy, marriage, and baby tracks?
First of all, sorry but Jhanak should know better than sleeping with Ani knowing he is verbally committed to her cousin (though Jhanak was married to him at the time). In addition, he had high fever and was hallucinating while being awake. How come you guys take such creative liberty while showing this kind of sexual behavior from your female lead? It shows Jhanak not as a victim but a traitor to her cousin sister and to her core moral values that she was holding on to from the beginning of the show.
If Jhanak dared to fulfill her marital duties with Ani, her husband, why she signed annulment papers. Why she is not shown to fight for her wife rights but shown weak and unable to stand up for herself? This is true empowerment of the woman if she could openly say she loves Anirudh and wants to stay married to him.
For me what you are showing with the pregnancy track when Jhanak has audacity to discuss her bedroom behavior details with Aniruddha’s family members is NOT WOMEN EMPOWERMENT. This is such a personal and private matter that only husband and wife should discuss. Or at least show us a normal conversation between Aniruddha and Jhanak about the pregnancy and number of weeks she has been pregnant for. Also, DNA testing can be done during pregnancy. Please research your information before sending us the message that DNA can only be done when a baby is born.
Arshi and Ani are not properly married and if to some extent I am as viewer happy that they are not married as they are incompatible still as a member of society I think it is wrong to label their relationship as marriage. Please give this relationship a proper name like partnership, situationship, living relationship, but do not make mockery of traditional marriage.
Consummation of the marriage should not be taken so lightly and shown as accidental between the leads as it gives young generation that is watching this show with their parents during dinner wrong idea of how a man can manipulate a woman using sickness, flu, emotional distress and how a young woman of college age can surrender to his demands knowing he verbally belongs to another woman to whom he is going to marry soon. It’s disgusting and disturbing to think what ideas are planted into young impressionable minds and some people even think of this consummation between Jhanak and Aniruddha as rape and sexual assault without proper consent when it is clear the male character Aniruddha doesn’t remember what happened that night.
The treatment of special child Appu is just horrible to watch do when her own parents manhandled her, uncle Shubho slapped her, the relatives always say that she eats too much food and humiliate her parents left right and center. Which is the message here to the society, how to treat such children? Seriously gross thinking. Now all of sudden writers muted Anirudh who was always standing strong for his Appu di to uplift Jhanak, who is not even the member of the house.
Butchering male character to uplift female and to give wrong idea to women about the empowerment and feminism is what show is portraying. Yes, I support women as I am a woman myself and I know how tough it can be in the men’s world but if from the beginning makers showed a different version of Anirudh who was not supportive of Jhanak, not protective of his low income family members then I would not say anything, but here you makers completely changed the narrative and showing me that Jhanak became so strong to come to Anirudh’s home and give her orders to his family while he has to stand and accept whatever she is saying and doing?
Showing a 22 year old girl pregnant who doesn’t want to live with the father of her child but just wants the name, then why did she come to his home to ask for the name? She could live on her own and put his name as a father in the official papers, why humiliate the love of her life Anirudh and blame him for the night they spent on her consent, when Anirudh was clearly not comprehending what he was doing? If this is taken so lightly, then your female character is not justified for me. This morally wrong, but what you showed to me Jhanak was always pure and innocent girl, who would never cross the line in physical intimacy.
Chotton is useless character who doesn’t want to do a proper work, he doesn’t talk to his nephew to give him some sense about life, there is no positive strong character apart from Meenu, who should have come as Chotton’s wife to put evil Basus into their places.
Why Ani doesn’t have anyone to confide in, poor guy lost his love, has to live with a screaming woman Arshi whom I don’t understand on which basis he wants to keep with him? There is no love between these two characters, their relationship looks so forced and unnatural. Like makers don’t understand why viewers are watching the story not because we want to know how Anirudh and Arshi will live together, but how Anirudh and Jhanak despite having so many obstacles and problems in between them still choose each other and fight together with the evil of this world as a husband and wife as it was shown in the beginning for 230 episodes. I as many other viewers felt in love with the lead pair portrayed by talented actors Krushal Ahuja and Hiba Nawab. Many of us still watch this show just because of these two actors and this is what makers take for granted, they feed the fans with toxic relationship between Anirudh and Jhanak, like these two are just ready to kill each other on screen, so much hate and gross dialogues are fed into our ears each passing episode, that I literally have to mute the sound not to get affected by this.
I think makers were trying to make some attempts to show psychological trauma of Anirudha, Jhanak and Arshi due to their respective family stories, but as a viewer of the show I couldn’t relate as it was never explored in the details. This could help the story to be different by showing mental health problems of the leads due to childhood trauma of not having a father like Jhanak or having demanding narcissistic parents like Anirudh’s parents. Arshi’s mother is also very demanding and almost put her niece on fire and then her own daughter got hurt by the fire. Is this a normal thing in Indian weddings just to burn people who are your own family. The criminal Shrishti is roaming freely and this as a viewer I cannot understand why makers chose not to at least raise a complaint against this criminal character. Jhanak is stupid to think this family member of hers will not try to harm her again.
4. Mental health impact: Is the show affecting your mental well-being?
My mental health I will not discuss but I would like to say the following. When highly sensitive and emotional people watch your show Jhanak they get adversely affected by the content you are showing them. Headaches, heartbreaking feelings, changes in the mood, hyperactive brain to solve the puzzles of the Jhanak show are happening to the viewers. While some people may find it funny and enjoyable, I actually find it difficult for highly sensitive and emotional people who just want to watch the love story show where lead couple fights together against the world not against each other. If this was not the intent of this show, then makers just changed the concept of love story and journey of Jhanak into family drama to earn money to feed viewers toxicity and negativity for the sake of ratings. This is expected in such a medium like TV, but I thought better of Star Plus than what I got in reality. Iss Pyar ko Kya Naam Doon had even worse problems with the hero of the show, but still he fought the world for his love.
5. Expected changes:Do you hope for a change in the current track? If so, what kind of change and why?
I want makers to give me original Anirudh, uplift him and give Chotton’s support to talk and discuss his life decisions, it is clear to me to poor man Ani is suffering while female characters Jhanak and Arshi are shown as victims of Anirudh which I don’t buy as a viewer as makers cannot convince me. The way Anirudh is trying to love Jhanak is sacrificial for me. And I want Jhanak to accept his love and recognize the man for being the man and saving her so many times from Tejas, convincing her to work for her career, giving her opportunity to give her exams. I want Anirudh to further support Jhanak and Jhanak openly telling Anirudh that she loves him and is ready to give her everything to him. Both characters should stop talking in their mind and assume things about each other but should openly talk and resolve their conflicts.
Make Arshi a proper villain, she is always white washed while she clearly is the worst character that is arrogant and likes to humiliate people based on their status and situation. She doesn’t have any self respect and is clinging to the man who loves another woman. She is not married to him so why is she staying, make her leave and Anirudh should clear to Arshi that he doesn’t love her. She then can become vengeful and do what makers plan to do with her character by trying to destroy Jhanak and Anirudh not being in Anirudh’s bedroom but being a sister of Jhanak.
So, much potential of actors is wasted for the repetition of scenes and dialogue, tracks are left open ended. We need more light hearted episodes like Anirudh’s birthday episode, Kashmir episodes when Anirudh saved Jhanak from Tejas, Jhanak taking care of Anirudh in Kashmir when he is sick. But Anirudh and Jhanak should be properly married in front on the family and in front of Thammi his grandmother, who is mocking traditional marriage and does some strange reversal ritual to undo the marriage that was legally conducted in the temple. The elders of the house are shown laughing at the rituals and traditions by supporting the ideas of living relationship and spending first night by unmarried couple. How low and gross this is. What to say about their grandson who does not want to marry to Arshi properly to avoid this first night experience? In case makers are planning to go ahead with court or proper marriage for Arshi and Anirudh, then I am as a viewer expecting makers to respect that marriage and not show extramarital affair with Jhanak which will only worsen the drama and will disgust the viewers like me even more.
THERE SHOULD BE A BALANCE of good and bad things in the show, light hearted moments with high voltage drama, but nowadays Jhanak show gives unpleasant experience that I want to avoid rather than have in my life.
Please makers #RedeemAni
#JhanakShouldSayILoveAni
#MakeArshiVillain
Edited by DiLaila - 2 months ago
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