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Welcome to another edition of Director's Cut
A Baby Killed... a Mother Devastated... A Brother Questioning his Ability to Keep his vows...A Bride-to-be Standing by her Man...A Family In Mourning..a Haunting Past Slowly Unveiled...and... A Man Standing in the Shadows Waiting to take what He Believes is His Rightful Place
Today we saw all of that and more. Just one person caused all this pain, today. Shyam Manohar Jha.
Beens. Your thoughts yesterday is what made me write this post. So here we go.
Inside the Criminal Mind of Shyam Manohar Jha
There are crimes being committed in IPKLand. We all know who the unsub is - one Shyam Manohar Jha. Not everybody in IPKLand is aware of the true extent of his criminal activities. While some know, some doubt, and others clearly disbelieve that this man is capable of the types of crimes he could have done. But we know better or do we?
Who is Shyam Manohar Jha?
When we were first introduced to him, he strode in like a Knight in Shining Armour to save a Damsel in Distress! He fought off a bunch of hooligans who were teasing Khushi, and finally got her her dupatta - the symbol of her dignity and honor. Her family was grateful to this stranger - a good-looking, clean cut young man - who risked his life for her. He made sure the Guptas would remember him. Shyam to all intents and purposes was smitten by her at first sight.
He runs into her in Delhi - in a bazaar, and then again, and again. Each time, he plays on her needs, clears out some obstacle in her way. Be it the sabziwala or a job. Shyam always has an answer to her needs. In the process, he is shown to be falling more and more in love with her.
Then he meets Buaji. A woman plagued with financial issues, having trouble getting her husband's pension on time. He offers to help. In return, he manipulates Buaji into asking him to be a paying guest as it would help ease her financial issues.
He helps Khushi gets a job in ASR's company. Unknown to Shyam, she ends up working directly for ASR. For the first time, Arnav has unknowingly become an obstacle in Shyam's path. He tries to persuade Khushi to give up the job. Luckily for him, ASR actually helps Khushi's decision to resign from the job. ASR therefore, is no longer an obstacle to Shyam.
But Khushi's fate brings her into ASR's path again. It is not until Teej that we finally see Shyam revealed as Anjali's husband.
Anjali, the devoted wife and sister, with an almost pathological need for rituals and poojas. We know that Anjali and Shyam had a love marriage, so they have known each other for over four years. In the Raizada fold, Shyam is the perfect husband - with one big fault. He disappears for days and nights, every now and then, long absences in the name of work. No one questions his disappearances, not even ASR.
When Shyam and Anjali met, she was a woman with a scarred past. Her parents had committed suicide. She was left at the altar. She and her brother were thrown of their house. Although life was now secure, with a loving family and a doting brother, who was himself immensely wealthy, Anjali was still an emotionally needy person. Shyam had found the perfect target. They fell in love, at least she did. He became the person she needed him to be - a loving boyfriend and then a doting husband, who danced to his wife's tune. So much so, that he became a ghar-jamai, earning his living as a lawyer and living a life of ease bankrolled by the wealthy brother-in-law.
To Arnav, Shyam was a godsend, who shared the responsibility of his sister's happiness with him. He was more than happy to keep Shyam happy. Shyam became the brother-in-law Arnav needed. An older male role model, who was in love with his sister, and so willing to keep her happy that he had no problems living in her maternal home. Arnav was another perfect target, because Shyam fulfilled Arnav's needs.
Once Khushi took the job as Lavanya's trainer, Shyam's life got really complicated. He now had to juggle his time between the woman he 'loved' and the woman he was married to.
The problem with Khushi, as far as Shyam was concerned, was she had no need of him. She looked on him as a friend and nothing more. She had a job, she was financially independent. Shyam was not able to find out what Khushi actually needed. But as his obsession with her grew, he began to read more and more into her actions than was there. So he had to make Khushi need him in her life. And in this, he found another perfect target, Buaji.
Buaji needed to get the girls married. So Shyam set out to make himself the perfect damaad for Buaji, She was more than happy with the situation. Until Garima and Shashi arrived from Lucknow.
Shyam was quick to see that Garima also had the same needs as Buaji. He used the same tactics on her that he did on Buaji. Shashi Gupta, however, was another matter. He was someone that Shyam had not factored into his 'happy ending with Khushi' plan. Shashi Gupta, like his daughter, had no obvious need that Shyam could fulfill, much as he tried.
He was also suspicious of Shyam. Shyam was too good to be true. Once he knew the extent of Shyam's duplicity, Shashi Gupta became an obstacle in his path, an obstacle he had to remove. With clinical precision, he set about doing that. He tried to kill him the first time, and when that didn't succeed, he tried again, which resulted in Shashi's paralysis. Shyam Manohar Jha had just escalated from obsession to attempted murder.
So far, Shyam had chosen his victims with care. He found people who had a driving emotional need in their life, and who in turn, could give him what he wanted - a cushy lifestyle, a wife who fed his every expensive fancy. He wanted more when he met Khushi. She did not want him. So as it made his attraction to her even more deeper, his obsession for her grew. The more she drew away, the more he wanted her. Any obsessed person is by nature delusional. Ironically, this is a characteristic he shared with Anjali. He only saw what he wanted to see. He saw a girl who was attracted to him, but could not acknowledge that attraction.
What he never factored in were the unknowns:
a) the two other men in Khushi's life - her father and Arnav
b) Akash's attraction and subsequent engagement to Payal
He had dealt with Shashi.
He never saw the attraction between Arnav and Khushi because he was never in the same room with them. The more he accelerated his attempts to get married to Khushi, the more she resisted, because Arnav was now firmly in her heart. However, once more, Arnav unknowingly threw him a bone. He announced his engagement to Lavanya. Of course, Shyam did not know this, but he benefited from it. Khushi agreed to marry him. And so they became engaged. He was one step closer in achieving his goal. He never had any intention of giving up Anjali. She was after all, the icing on the cake.
The Akash-Payal rishta threw a serious wrench into his plans which had been going so well so far. He was not prepared to deal with this. There was no way he could avoid running into the Guptas and the Raizadas together. There hadn't been anything he could have done about it, nor was there anything he could do about it. Shyam had run out of options. It was only a matter of time before Khushi found out and she broke off the engagement. He was trapped.
His second escalation happens at this point. He decides to show Khushi how unhappy he is with his marriage thinking she would understand and come back to him. He also asks forgiveness from the Gupta family, showing them the side he thinks they want to see - a repentant man, in love with their daughter, stuck in an unhappy marriage. It doesn't work - the Guptas have no need of him, nor does Khushi. Shyam does not have any leverage left with the Guptas.
In his mind, there is only one obstacle in his way. If Khushi won't marry him because he is married, then he will become unmarried. Anjali has now become the obstacle in his path which must be removed.
His third escalation takes place. He decides to kill Anjali. His first attempt to electrocute her fails as Mamaji saves her. His second attempt to let a scorpion loose so that she dies of a scorpion sting, is also a failure.
At this point he has also noticed the Arnav-Khushi attraction, as well as NK's flirting with Khushi. He realized who his real competitor was - none other than Saaley Saab, Arnav. He had to accelerate his attempts. In a last ditch attempt to kill Anjali, he tampers with her car's brakes. He is certain of success, but alas! this too fails. Anjali survives the crash. Once again, Shyam is out of options.
He has overheard Arnav wanting to talk to Khushi and is pretty sure where that conversation is going. For the first time, he does not use violence to achieve his objective. He uses his brains. He gets Khushi to come to the terrace to appeal to her directly. Unknown to him, Arnav observes a little of the conversation and immediately misunderstands Khushi.
For the first time, Shyam changed his methods. He goes away from violence to cunning. This is not typical for a sociopath. And for the first time as well, the plan backfires in a way he did not expect. Arnav marries Khushi.
Shyam is convinced that there is something fishy about this marriage. But Arnav is now Khushi's husband in the eyes of the family and society. Shyam cannot get his hands on her.
But he still has Anjali and he still has Arnav's money, albeit through Anjali. Once he comes to know that Arnav forced Khushi into the marriage, he is happy. In his warped mind, Khushi is being kept from him by Arnav. Arnav is now the obstacle in his way to Khushi. Arnav must be removed.
While Shashi's and Anjali's mishaps could be attributed to illness or accidents, he knows that removing Arnav Singh Raizada will not be that easy.
His fourth escalation takes place. He has been thwarted by Arnav Singh Raizada, so Arnav Singh Raizada must pay. At this point, Khushi comes to him with a need. She needs him to tell Arnav the truth about their relationship. He quickly seizes this opportunity to get her to sign the will, making him sole benefactor of Arnav's will. This is the moment he has been waiting for. Arnav's money and his wife will soon be his. He kidnaps Arnav.
As you can see, Shyam is now thinking more strategically. He is convinced that Khushi wants only him. With Arnav's money, he and Khushi will live happily ever after. Anjali is not even collateral damage, although she is pregnant with his child. A sociopath like Shyam has no emotional attachments, other that with his driving obsession - money and Khushi.
Only Khushi is one step ahead of him. She uses his one weakness, herself to entrap him, making sure he signs over everything to Anjali. And then it all falls apart as Khushi finds Arnav and tells him that she only loves Arnav and that he is her husband.
In a full mental breakdown, he decides to kill Khushi - but at the hands of Arnav. He finds a vicious pleasure in the thought. He leaves Khushi on the road and heads home, with a story of an accident. Khushi and Arnav enter the hall separately and stand apart. To him, they are still not together. By now he has put himself together, at least so he believes.
But his ability to keep the glibness and superficial charm alive fails. He reveals the ugly inner truth of him. Until Arnav slaps him shut. And that is when he realizes that Arnav and Khushi together have duped him instead. For an ego as big as his, this is a bigger blow than the slap. In his paranoid, hate-filled state, his focus shifts. His obsession with Khushi changes to an obsession for revenge on these two people who have fooled him - Shyam Manohar Jha. How dare they?
He will go to any lengths for his revenge on these two people. Who knows? He might even get his hands on Khushi at the end of it.
First he must find an ally. Dadi needs to feel needed to fix her grand-daughter's marriage and the misunderstanding. He feeds her need. He becomes the perfect grandson-in-law.
Then, he uses Anjali to jump start his plan. Once again, he feeds her need to have a loving husband in the last months of her pregnancy by her side. He becomes the loving husband, but one who is wrongly accused. To him, she is nothing other than an instrument to be used to get back into Raizada Mansion, so that his new obstacles can be removed.
Shyam Manohar Jha has manipulated every single person in the story, except Shashi Gupta. He is better at judging people than Arnav is. He knows how to read their weakness and use it to his advantage. Feed their needs and get his fix. This is the simple code by which Shyam Manohar Jha lives. Any obstacles in his path need to be removed.
If it means killing his own baby, so be it. The baby is after all, collateral damage.
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