Posted:
I felt the same thing when I saw Vandana's behaviour with Maya around the marriage time. She could have raised objections before marriage, that is her right as a mother but once they got married, she should have given one chance to Maya. In fact several chances. She is a mother, an adult who is expected to be mature. But she didn't show any maturity by never accepting Maya. She made things worse.
There was another show I used to watch - Sasural Genda Phool where Ragini Khanna was a misfit bahu in a middle class family. Of course she wasn't obsessive or insecure or even criminal but she was highly erratic and hot tempered and very insensitive. The saas in that case - Supriya Pathak - handled everything so maturely, giving Ragini chance after chance, allowing her to take time to adjust, giving her the benefit of doubt. Even when the other bahus had to behave in a certain way, Ragini was given many privileges. But that is how a family is kept together. That's what you do when you want to keep everyone together and happy. Not break them apart.
Vandana doesn't behave in a mature way. She behaves like those people who prefer nuclear families to joint families. Because they lack the patience and cannot survive conflicts with the family members.
Maya does seem to need counselling for her obsessive behaviour but if she indeed wanted to have a normal life like others, she could have been rehabilitated. But not with immature aunties like Vandana. And you know how they say, once the lines have been crossed, the relationships can hardly be recovered. That's what has happened. I have seen elders even in real life go by this rule that you want to save a situation from turning ugly because then it is difficult or impossible to go back. But sadly Vandana doesn't behave like a responsible adult and is incapable in my opinion.
Also, funny how everyone calls Maya a psycho and still blames her for all her actions. Maya is called a psycho because she does all these things and thinks herself right or innocent. She is not evil like the vamps in other shows. She is mentally ill. How much can you blame a mentally ill person for their actions?
There is difference between committing a crime coming from a sane place and where you do know that you have an option but choose to commit the crime anyway, which is what most criminals do. And in Maya's case, as far as I can see, she is so desperate for Arjun that she doesn't know another way to handle things.
When Saanjh got desperate in the court case, didn't she say "Jab rape hua hi nahi toh.." Would she have said that if she was in a stable state of mind? When she was calm and composed? Maya is unstable in her head at all times. She is desperate from within and that is why her actions are so extreme. That is not to say that anybody who acts like this is unstable or mentally ill. There are criminals who plot and commit crimes for some benefit knowing fully well that they could go another way. Who aren't desperate. But we are talking about Maya and any other mentally ill criminal. They don't know any better or they can't help themselves. The urge to be with Arjun is so strong, despite being intelligent, she can't see that her actions are pushing Arjun away. If she really was as smart and manipulative as that, she would have realised that her obsession gets too obvious at times and would have kept it under wraps.
Anyway, so yeah I do think Vandana's character only exacerbates the issue and people like her can never resolve such situations.
Anupamaa
