"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared."
Niccol Machiavelli, The Prince
Supremacy. Starvation. Ambition.
History has been as fascinated with the words as physics perhaps with the laws that govern our world.
Power is coveted. It is the ultimate desire. The most desperate wish. The most irresistible of lures.
Power. It is her affliction. And her only benediction.
Maya Mehrotra. Ashwin Mehrotra. Two sides of the same coin.
I begin watching Beyhadh when it had just started to air. I did watch the first two weeks religiously but quit somewhere in between. I do think I've missed a lot of episodes in between to be able to accurately analyze the characters as most people in the forum must be doing. However, I recently caught up with the show again (last week to be more precise) and I cannot help my fascination with how similar Maya and Ashwin truly are.
Maya's childhood has been fed to us in stroboscopic pieces of revelations and yet every single one of those bleached out flashbacks echoed only one sentiment. Torture. Power play.
It is the ultimate relationship between a tormentor and the victim. Master and slave. The one with power. And the one without it.
The one who wields fear and the one who cowers.
The one who reigns. And the one who bows.
Maya has been physically abused. But more than that it has been her mind molded by the licking, ripping silken claws of fire.
You see Maya fears her father. She absolutely despises him. Her throat tightens up until she's choking on her memories, her limbs tremble until the solid skin beneath her toes becomes liquid. Her eyes flood and seethe and bleed with a bone gripping terror she only feels when he's there.
But she also unconsciously admires him.
It is the case of that boy who once burned by fire sought to wield it.
Maya seeks the same power Ashwin wields.
Perhaps she began seeking it at a very early age.
When innocence and naivety couldn't stop the tyranny.
When she lay beaten on the cold ground in dark, desperate nights, shaking and writhing, gasping and crying and no prayer brought her absolution.
When the building years of her life were about submission and power.
When love became the ultimate manipulation, and, blotched her white heart with crimson stains.
She may have lain on that freezing ground and in the most desperate of her moments begin wishing for the same power that crushed her spirit.
For that untamed, unyielding, barking and glittering crown of terror.
Of power.
Of domination.
Of absolution.
"A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it."
Niccol Machiavelli, The Prince
She might have begun desiring the power to crush the way Ashwin crushed her.
The power to instill fear in people the way Ashwin did in her.
The power to have a whole world cowering beneath you, the power to control everything. The way he did her life.
The power to harm and to torture and to kill to achieve your means. The way he did with her.
Sometimes we begin to covet what we fear most. The abused start wanting the very weapon of their destruction. It is to them, no more the reason behind their afflictions, but the object of absolute power that has in it to have others cowering, sobbing, submitting, fearing.
The abused then becomes the abuser.
Because now she has the power. Never again will she be at the facing end again. Because this time she'll be the one wielding it.
This is the only way Maya know how to survive. She is fascinated by power play. She most despises and most covets the power Ashwin wields over them and in doing so she crosses the precipice of rationality and dances among the extremes.
"Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires."
Niccol Machiavelli, The Prince
Maya doesn't frighten or control people because it amuses her.
She does it because it's the only way she knows how.
She does it because she'd never, ever again bow.
She does it because it gives her the ultimate power. The power she's coveted all her life.
The power that has shaped her childhood and her present.
The power that takes away her torment and puts her in the role of the tormentor.
She seeks control. She doesn't only need it. But because she's also fascinated by it.
She's seen how it works. She's seen how the world submits and twirls to every whim of the dictator.
Power is the ultimate struggle.
And power is the ultimate prize.
And it is what she most desires and it is what she has subconsciously, in her most frail, defenseless moments, idealized.
And in the end power is what makes her more like her father.
Because as much as she hates him, she desires to be him.
The symbol of invincibility.
"And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved."
Niccol Machiavelli, The Prince
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I do have a lot to say about the show and the characters. Maybe for another post. I'm enjoying the show again but no idea how it's going to last. I'm probably in the minority of people who see more potential in Arjun Saanjh than Maya and Arjun. And my little shipper heart's gonna break soon. So I is prepared. Though I'm not a full-blown shipper of any pair yet.
And Jennifer Winget as Maya is just so freaking good. Even that deserves a topic of its own but gah too lazy.
I was itching to write something about the last few episodes so here are my not so humble thoughts. And I couldn't resist Machiavelli-ing this post. Haha.
A few of you might know me from another forum haha. My old username was MaybeSomeday...
Much love,
Rida.
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