Folks,
This is not to sound pessimistic, but rather to try and be realists. With this 11th episode, as we enter the second half of Yudh, there are many issues that apparently get solved last night, and solved happily for our main protagonists. But are they really, finally resolved? I doubt it. Let us look at these issues one by one.
-The son also rises: Rishi, landing up unexpectedly in their mining company guesthouse after giving the slip to his anxious mother, who is doing her best to retain him in Delhi, gives resounding proof that he is his father's son and then some more.
As Yudh listens almost incredulously, Rishi argues, lucidly and with total conviction, that he has to stay put there if only to set an example of courage and resilience to their workers, so that they too will be able to stand up to the pressures they face without caving in. He wants to run this company correctly, he stresses, the way his father wants it to be run.
Yeh mera kaam hai..Dad, main ek aur koshish karna chahta hoon..Is business ko theek tarah se chalana chahta hoon, jaisa aap chahte hain..Gandagi ke roots tak pahunchna chahta hoon...Ek example set karna chahta hoon...Agar main courage dikhaoonga, so logon me bhi himmat aayegi..Hum darke compromise nahin karenge...aur iske liye in politicians ko batana bahut zaroori hai ki hum log weak nahin hain..Datke khade rahenge unke saamne Dad!
I was ready to stand up and cheer him. And but for the fact that the Shikarwars do not seem to be a touchy feely family (the first time Yudh hugs his daughter was when she comes back from the police station; I suspect this deviation from the Shikarwar mores was a reflex due to the sudden, intense, relief!), I am sure Yudh would have given his miraculously rebooted son a big bear hug!
As it is, Yudh says nothing after Rishi has arrived at the end of his peroration. Probably he was shocked into silence, just like me!
You would remember that Rishi arrives just when Yudh and Anand are arguing about which approach to take in handling the malign Minister. This of course concerns the best way to use the IB memo to the State government (about the AILF having been behind the bombing in the adivasi village, using explosives stolen from the Shanti Mining Co. warehouse).
Should they release it to the press and thus get back at the Home Minister for his relentless persecution of Yudh and his firm, which is what Yudh, and now Rishi as well, want to do? Or just warn the Minister about the memo being with Yudh, and thus get him to back off from Taruni and Dabra, without humiliating him publicly, which is what Anand, always wary about the future and the likely need for assistance from the Minister, would strongly recommend?
Rishi's stand tilts the scale in favour of the first option, and it is activated at once thru Mona. Though the Minister, very likely getting wind of this potentially embarrassing development, lets Taruni go, and even Yudh now does not want the memo publicized, it is too late, and the matter has already reached the press. Anand, who is invariably on the side of compromise and caution, probably because he is always left to pick up the pieces when things go wrong, is deeply dismayed by this slip up, which is bound to put up the backs of the Minister, who will neither forget it or forgive it.
Yudh takes Anand's warning lightly, but it is Anand who is right. Rishi will now forge ahead vigorously on several fronts - the upgrading of the condition of the workers, investigating the saazish behind the blast in the mine, and getting to the root of the gandagi that is the cause of all their operational troubles there. As he does so, he will be under a double threat- from the Naxalites and from the Minister and his cohorts. And either of them can strike, and very soon, probably with another engineered disaster in the mine.
It is in this sense that I feel this currently happy ending for Yudh's most recent travails is but a false dawn.
But for now, the scene of Taruni teasing Rishi playfully as an indulgent, delighted Yudh looks on, was as warm and appealing as a camp fire on a cold night. As was the bit where Yudh reassures his son, who is asserting that this time he will give his father no cause for complaint, Bhaagne ke bajai, insaan jab apni mushkilon ka saamna karta hai, to kaamyabi ke raaste khud ba khud khul jaate hain! His pride in his newly strong, clear-headed and responsible son shines brightly thru the words, and I am sure Rishi, even at 6 feet away, felt as if he was being hugged tightly by his dad!
The daughter holds her ground: Though in this sense, the episode really belonged to Rishi, Taruni too stood out as usual- calm, self-possessed, decisive and strong. The way she handles the police, right from the time they come to take her away for questioning, was a delight to behold. Especially when she snaps at the inspector, when there is a call on her mobile Phone utha sakti hoon? Thank you! , with aggressive impatience, and then later, her call over, almost barks at him:Boliye, aap kya kehna chahte the? Boliye! There was not the slightest hint of concern, not to speak of fear. She too in Yudh's daughter thru and thru.
I am sure that if Taruni had got any inklingof her mother Gauri's desire to get her away from her present involvement in Yudh's activities, and thus from what she sees as a dangerous world (the conversation between Gauri and Jeet was revealing, of this and much more), she would turn her mother down as bluntly as Rishi turns down his mother's schemes to hold him back at home.
One gathered from the Yudh promos that there is going to be a major falling out between Taruni and Yudh, resulting in her severing all ties with him. But as of now, this seems almost unbelievable, seeing the degree of closeness and trust between them. It would have to be a massive misunderstanding, and the resulting estrangement would hurt Taruni even more than it would hurt Yudh, for he would know that the truth would soon come out and bring her back to him again, as in case of Yudh's medical report that was with Dr.Mehra.
So this near idyllic relationship between father and daughter, which is like a beautiful, sunny morning, seems sure to fall victim, at least for a while, to a false dawn.
-The Curious Case of Creep No.1: Kapil is arrested at last. But the rejoicing has to be a muted one.
For one thing, this happens only after he has handed Mona's laptop and mobile over to Malik & Nikhil. So, from Yudh's and Anand's point of view, the damage has been done. It remains to be seen how bad and how extensive the damage to Yudh's interest is.
Anand is just waking up this Kapil-Malik link when he spots Malik's lawyer handling Kapil's case. Here too, the nabbing of one villain will prove to be a false dawn, for there are two others working hard to destroy Yudh by hook or by crook.
Plus, the arrest is made only after the hapless Smriti, who seems to have been heavily sedated, is handed over to Kapil, who then hides her somewhere before he is nabbed. I felt queasy watching the chap licking his lips in glee over having got what he wanted after all. I would have liked to have killed him then and there; it would have been no more than he deserves.
Again, the arrest is not thanks to Mona who - when the detective employed by Anand to try and track the missing Smriti down has failed - takes refuge, when questioned by the police, in a shameful denial. She apparently plans to wash her hands of the poor girl, whose present misery and horrendous future prospects are solely courtesy Mona Shekhar.
I could not believe my ears when I heard Mona try to deny any connection with Smriti the previous night, in effect trying to crawl into a hole and then pull it in after her. It was despicable behaviour, which I did not expect in a modern professional woman. Mona comes clean only when the police cornered her after finding Smriti's mobile in her car. Later, she sobs her regret out to Smriti's father and seeks his forgiveness. In his place I would have slapped her good and hard.
Mona's sister, as I had noted in my last post, now accuses her of cooking up all this out of jealousy (clinging as she does to Creep No.1, she apparently assumes that Mona too must have fallen for him) , and her father, trying hard to get bail for his pervert son in law, suggests that Smriti must have consented to whatever Kapil did to her. And he is supposed to be a mature, responsible elder!
I felt as if still more and worse creepy crawlies were coming out from under that stone. No wonder Mona moves out of her home and goes to stay with Kavita. (Incidentally, I wonder what Mukesh Chhabra is up to these days; he has been missing in action ever since the momentous press conference where Yudh revealed his illness).
But Kapil's arrest does not mean that the matter has been cleared up. Mona will not, I am sure, take back her statement against him, but Malik's lawyer will try his best to get him bail, if only because Malik and Nikhil would not want him to spill the beans about their part in the kidnapping. He will not succeed if Mona stands firm and he might well be charged formally and sent to jail in police custody, just as Anuj Malik was.
Dharmendra Malik & Nikhil would then, since they cannot possibly trust such a coward to stand firm under police grilling, get him bumped off in prison, and Mona will be cursed anew by her family as the one solely responsible for the death of a "falsely accused martyr"!.
So here too, the dawn is a false one, even more so that in the earlier instances.
In fact, as far as Yudh and his family are concerned, there are storms brewing all over, and any one of them might break, soon and violently.
Picks of the day: 1) Rishi regarding his uncle Ranjan, who has just finished making a vigorous plea for the two of them to start a security agency, with tolerant contempt, and asking him Aapko to actor ban na chahiye.. Mama ne aapko yeh sab lik khe diya kya?
2) Rishi being shocked and deeply disillusioned by his close friend dismissing his kidnapping as a publicity stunt for the firm. While one cannot really blame the friend, seeing the number of such frauds being perpetrated these days by so many, it is a depressing reflection on their friendship, and must have been a reason for Rishi deciding to go back to the mines and try to make his father proud of him.
3) At the hospital, after Taruni has finished telling the father of the burnt girl that the operation had been successful and the child would recover completely, the man apologises profusely to her and to Yudh. Unexpectedly, Yudh then exerts himself to put the repentant man at ease, stressing that when something happens to their children, the parents cannot behave normally.
Gussa aur dukh, ye donon aisi cheezein hain jisme hum bahut kuch ais kar jaate hain jo humein nahin karna chahiye. What a lovely, philosophical, comforting response to a man Yudh does not know and will very likely never meet again! The sheer humanism of it is remarkable.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
comment:
p_commentcount