I don’t buy into the 26 years ki tapasya. Yes Anuj’s feelings for Anupamaa were probably true as he never forgot her. Anuj in in his teenage, saw Anupama in college, whatever he felt then be it attraction, fascination or infatuation, he named his feelings as love. At this point they were not even friends. He tried but never had the courage to to talk to her or express his feelings. When Anupama got married, he did not interfere in her life, did not become a Devdas or Kabir Singh and distanced himself from her and left the country. There probably he tried to move on from Anupama, tried to date. But the image of Anupama did not leave him so he could not commit to anyone. So all his later relationships remained as dates, some as ONS and some became his girl friends but then it went no where. He decided not to marry as he still had Anupama on his mind, he did not want to two time them. Anuj was single, if he had found someone who he could move on with and forget the image of Anupama, he may have married the one.
After years he returned to India and in the initial few days met Anupama at their college reunion. He realized his feelings for Anupama have still not subsided and yet he did not want to interfere in her life. Devika told him about Anupama’s financial struggle. He wanted to help her, be it for whatever reason, because Anupama was his crush, he considered her as a friend or just out of goodness of his heart. This led to further contact with Anupama and they became friends. His feelings deepened, he committed himself to his feelings and he blurted them out when pressured. Anupama respected his feelings remained his friend after knowing he loves her. After his accident, Anupamaa looked after him and they got closer. He has an intuition that Anupama’s feelings are also changing towards him. At this point, he feels they are moving somewhere towards a possible relationship. I don’t think that it is anything wrong when Anuj says every other women is like sister to him as by then he had expressed his love for Anupama.
His past relationships,when he had no hope of even meeting Anupama and when he thought she was happily married, do not mean he cheated on Anupama or cheated the very idealistic romantic notion of the memory of Anupama. Neither do his past relationship mean he will cheat now when Anupama is in his life. After meeting Anupama again, he committed to her and now they are married. Here on, there would be Only Anupama in his life and no one else, if the PH does not want to completely butcher the character of Anuj Kapadia that they built.
The Kanha, Radha ,Meera references mean nothing to me here.
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