Rabba Ve on milestone #300, masala sahelis 🤗
Nope, it was not the hospital hug or the temple lift... in some ways it was even better ...it was hatke, just as the IPK morance has always been. So I'll start there. Hat tip to the writing team for devising a very clever little tribute. 👍🏼 👍🏼 A trip down memory lane that let us relive where we started and how we too fell in love --- with this show and these characters. Not only that, there was that wink-wink, nudge-nudge too, I think from the writers to the audience. 😃
How else do we explain NK's dialogs? NK who has seemed to be very much the stand-in for the audience - our eyes and ears and now our mouthpiece? "Pyaar kiya nahin jaata, Kho jaata hai (we've been screaming for the rooftops about the missing pyaar in the show's title). Tum gussa ho saktey ho, you can get really mad, lekin yeh "lau" hai na, iska tum kuch nahin kar saktey. Aur yeh mat kehna ki tum "lau" nahin kartey ho... kyon ki agar tum usey pyaar nahin kartey toh uski yeh saari baatein tumhein affect nahin kar sakti.
That seemed like the love-hate relationship between the audience and the show (including perhaps one hotheaded tweeting CV? 😛) . Then again, maybe I'm reading too much into this but how does one explain the "lau"? Now if NK raises any "kostins" --- that'll seal the deal. 😉 Fanciful thinking? Perhaps... but this is one instance I'm happy to stay in my SKD (otherwise popular in the hangout as sapnon ki duniya - Thanks J for the nifty short form!) 😃
The reminiscences of the "horror-thriller" also seemed to be a time to take stock and a time to let go of the sting from that painful past. Clearly Khushi with her monologue about love in the shadow of hate has already done that. This time it's
Arnav's turn and perhaps ours too as the audience. His recounting of the pagalpan and madness was rueful, amused, affectionate even. Too easy an absolution for some pretty horrific ASR misdeeds? --- perhaps? But this is a horror thriller love story and I'm very forgiving --- at least of fictional characters 😉, so it worked for me. ⭐️
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The episode itself took us back to the three principal players in the triangle:
Anjali: She's lost, broken and confused... "Do I believe the evidence that was before my eyes and stay faithful to memories of the love I've had over the years from my husband or do I believe in my brother who's been the mainstay of my life?" She's been a horrified bystander in the drama, things have happened to her, decisions made for her ---- even when she's ready to vent, she's shushed and sedated.
Clearly sach ya jhoot was not established -- it was husband said, brother said. Back again to atoot vishwaas - where does she place it? The horns of an emotional (or existential even) dilemma about what is the truth... chottey is unavailable to her to resolve it, fighting as he is battles of the heart. Can she be more understanding of his ordeal? Sure!... but how does one begrudge her time to grieve?
ASR: He's been to hell and back, finally the barriers around his heart have come tumbling down. He's eager to make things right with his much loved patni and she isn't even playing. The vintage version of ASR picked up from where we left off yesterday. He's done everything she wanted... chosen the gift, ordered it, personalized the message and she still won't accept it. Dammit, what does she want? The hell with it... "I'm not giving you a choice, accept it you will and wear it you will." And... then he softens as he recalls NK's advice, "I'd like to see you in it" ... that passionate request melted me but not Khushi 🥺 . So now he'll try again with the 360s... cute but pagal stunts - like coming out of the closet!!!! 😲😲😲.
Could he have been more attentive to his Di in her time of dire crisis?... sure! It's been what ...3 maybe 4 days since D(i) day, but how does one begrudge him his shot at Khushi?
Khushi: What does she want? Can't she see that he's doing cartwheels for her - all in the name of love? What were the cake, fairy lights, rose, forehead kiss, poori-aloo, sari but manifold demonstrations of love? 😕
Today she tells DM - "I'm sad that others are sad and I feel like it's all my fault. I'm hurt that he used me as a punching bag and that he did that so easily. Then he tells me what's between us is just a contract. How can I just acquiesce when he can use hurtful words so readily to justify his ends?" So, it's complicated --- does he even realize what's at the root of her resistance? Until he does, does he think she can be placated with candy as if she were a child?
No she hasn't told him ---- why should she? Why does she need to hold it up in 72 point bold font. If she does, how can she know that he won't revert to type and blame her for his misery the next time Di has a crisis. "You're the biggest mistake of MY life." What about HER life? "Aur Main?", he asked when she was ready to walk out. Never one did he ask, "Aur tum, tumhaare Khushi ka Kya?" Her desire for the birday greeting was never about the words. The kostin was would he subsume his out-sized ego to do something for her that he had never done before. When he gets that he should be able to bring a smile to her face.
Could she have been more understanding and accepted at least one of the many olive branches he extended her way, knowing where he was coming from? Sure!...but how does one begrudge her a shot at getting her atoot vishwaas and her Khushi? --- nope, not the pretty telepathic words or the hotheaded thappad to her tormentor BUT the kind that doesn't vanish in a crisis, that doesn't get sacrificed at the altar of the bahot badi ego.
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So here we are at the crossroads of the story at #300... it seems wide open, lots of different ways to take this and it will surely involve a TRP prediction game. The one thing that keeps coming back to me is last night's drama of 2.0 TRP (it did end up being 3.0!). I had to wonder if somehow #300 portends the show's own version of the Battle of Thermopylae... that this story is Leonides with the dwindling audience of 300 that are doomed to die at the hands of the Xerxes that is the Lamp and Wick type of drama.
We got a pretty darn great week and still the ratings were at 3.0, the ME while I was not the biggest enthusiast, was surely better than a 2.0. What do women want... esp those in the TRP audience? 😕 Don't mean to bring anyone down on celebration day... I only want to raise the kostin of whether the hatke horror thriller love story that drew us in is a double edged sword... it draws a somewhat different kind of audience perhaps but does it struggle to play with the big "boys"?
Maybe SKD is just fine... we enjoy the mantal and the craji times for as long as they last and give thanks to the masala ladkis that we made it to #300. 🥳
Thanks everyone on the IPK team for a wonderful run! 👏👏👏
