A Cadet or a Daughter?

I'm not going to get into the episode overall today, but there is one specific part of the episode that I'd like to talk about.

I got that this was supposed to be Vijay's long drawn goodbye to Sumo, which is why the scenes were mostly being shown from his perspective....him looking around Sumo's room, him feeling bad about her not being normal with him etc. etc. but in the process, the writing definitely papered over some issues for convenience.

What got revealed to me as I was watching all his scenes today was just how regimental his whole mindset is.....he only seems to view Sumo as a cadet who must become an officer since that is her destiny....not even once did I hear a peep from Vijay about Sumo's emotions, her thoughts even when he's seen her in this kind of turmoil for the first time in her life.

As a father, shouldn't your first thought be about your child's pain? I get his protectiveness as a father...and that's totally fine...but the fact that not even a thought or moment was spared for him to even REFLECT over Sumo's emotions, not even a little wondering over why his child might feel the way she does....that definitely was a let down. He literally shunted the entire incident aside quickly as some minor aberration on Sumo's destined path to the Army. This is a problematic part of Sumo's upbringing....yes, discipline is important but the level to which the whole family seems to have robotically programmed her to view the entire world only as a goal towards Army is flawed....and the flaws are coming to fore in this phase.

Now Vijay is about to die so obviously that leaves his character on a tragic note....but I still could not find myself in alignment with his viewpoint today...to me, it was problematic to see a father only view his daughter as a cadet who must fall in line with what he dreams for her. They only seem to be able to communicate with each other in Army metaphors....but there is life beyond that and sadly Vijay didn't seem capable of viewing his daughter through that lens. That is part of the tragedy he will leave with.

I just found it odd that Vijay actually expected that the daughter he saw crying so badly yesterday should suddenly be normal with him the next day as he's sending her away to Pune? For real? lol....that this is the level of expectation from Sumo that she never feel the human emotions of hurt and disappointment and always fall in line with whatever daddy says to "normalize" in an instant. Ajeeb hai.

This is a tale of two fathers in a sense....one (Vijay) who was excessively proud of his child to the point of being blind to everything but the ambition he chose for her....and the other (Devraj) who was excessively harsh on his child many times, unable to see his potential. They both lacked a level of communication with their children despite attempting to be their friends.

Anyways, the stage had to be set, so it has been....and it will still be very sad to see Vijay's character passing....but I still think it's worth noting the flaws in his character that led to the issues at hand.

Great post

Totally agree with you. Since the start I have felt vijay is sometimes too rigid or has tunnel vision in his perspective about things. See how he treated devraj just from the start coz he didnt approve of his business style to get the contract. I guess the whole sumo will join the army has been such a mission goal for them that now that he feels its being threatened he has gone all colonel vijay on cadet suman. Obviously if suman had a brother or guy cousin this responsibility to carry on the family legacy would be on his shoulders too but vijay and I guess his own father raised cadets who would carry on the legacy of the family and not express their true emotional vulnerabilities. I think sumo does want to be a army officer but not once have we heard her parents or other family members ask if there is anything else she wants to do like maybe study art as we have seen she is an talented artist too. Is kancha also gonna be forced to join the army or she has a choice?

Vijay and by extension anjali trying to ignore sumans emotions and her feelings was sad to watch, they have raised a fairly mature kid but have also taught her to suppress her feelings till it overwhelms her. Thats not healthy at all. The family might look all perfect but there are some serious issues hiding inside this family. Its sad there will be no closure after his death the email is just gonna put more guilt on suman and push her towards joining the army and also put this big dark cloud over her choosing her emotions over her fathers dreams.

As for devraj he is the typical exasperated parent whose kid isnt doing what they want them to do and we know shravan has been irresponsible in the past but i guess what happens to vijay and then by extension to his dad and family will push shravan to grown up very quickly and push him towards proving himself to everyone who thought of him as a immature boy.

I agree. Whilst it sad to see Anuraag sir depart from the show because he portrayed Vijay very well, the way Vijay reacted was obviously of the act he portrayed. He was still expecting that Suman still will communicate with him and all, not knowing that Suman is a human with emotions before she is a cadet or whatever role they want to label her with. Had he calmly thought about he was doing before taking any action, she wouldn't have taken such a step.

I liked that Shravan questioned as to whether they are doing the right thing and Suman seems to be aware of the consequences but they are helpless to take this path. Here, we have to take a look at both Vijay and Suman's POV on the situation that cropped up. Nobosy is right/wrong from their POV's. Suman asked for them to give their relationship at least once chance and they are equally if not more focused on their career goals. Hence, she was forced to do the my way or highway kind of approach.

I agree Vijay should not force his career choice on Suman. I think it has been drilled into Vijay from his adamant father. And being an army officer is not the only respectable job where you can serve the country which Dadu seems to believe. I did find it sad that they did not say bye properly but Suman was not wrong in her perspective

I guess part of the issue for me also is that I was braced for feeling sad about Vijay's death but today's epi sort of went sideways for me with him being shown as so oblivious.

So instead of being able to dwell on him being an emotional father feeling sad that his daughter is being distant with him, I was mostly left feeling disconnected from his character and in some ways it just felt like he was going through the motions. This is not reflective on the actor obviously....Anurag Arora has been great in this role but today, Vijay just seemed disconnected from the story of the last two epis and I wish it hadn't been that way....I wish the build up had continued on the emotions of the last two epis in sync.

Just adding even one brief scene of Vijay reflecting about all that Sumo had said to him would have added so much more pathos to this upcoming tragedy more than this scene of him walking around her room and once again repeating the same lines of "meri favorite cadet, tumhein officer banna hai" etc. etc.

Originally posted by: priya185

I agree Vijay should not force his career choice on Suman. I think it has been drilled into Vijay from his adamant father. And being an army officer is not the only respectable job where you can serve the country which Dadu seems to believe. I did find it sad that they did not say by properly but Suman was not wrong in her perspective

There is nothing wrong in wanting to be an Army officer and clearly, Sumo does want to be an Army Officer on her own also....what gets too much is the constant reference to everything in terms of Army.....every incident in their life is only measured by how Army related it is....that is way too much and definitely an exaggeration of any Army family. They make them all sound like robots who can't think rationally beyond the Army....aise thodi na hota hai.

Originally posted by: AreYaar

I guess part of the issue for me also is that I was braced for feeling sad about Vijay's death but today's epi sort of went sideways for me with him being shown as so oblivious.

So instead of being able to dwell on him being an emotional father feeling sad that his daughter is being distant with him, I was mostly left feeling disconnected from his character and in some ways it just felt like he was going through the motions. This is not reflective on the actor obviously....Anurag Arora has been great in this role but today, Vijay just seemed disconnected from the story of the last two epis and I wish it hadn't been that way....I wish the build up had continued on the emotions of the last two epis in sync.

Just adding even one brief scene of Vijay reflecting about all that Sumo had said to him would have added so much more pathos to this upcoming tragedy more than this scene of him walking around her room and once again repeating the same lines of "meri favorite cadet, tumhein officer banna hai" etc. etc.

Originally posted by: Meena_J

When he said the other day about her being drifted from her goals upon finding about their relationship and its not just her aspiration but her family's too, I did feel bad that it was kind of "expected" that Suman was "EXPECTED" to enter the army, I did feel weird as to whether it was a family trend or something.😆 Like, Shravan commented to Anish the first episode, that his father is any army officer not him and then the pride of being an "army brat" which she used to talk about in the initial episodes followed by opening up very quickly to Shravan that she's still a human with emotions. It was amajor change and Suman said to him that he's taught her to live life from another perspective that she wasn't aware till his arrival.

Yeah, they've established since the beginning of the story that this is expected of Sumo that she be an Army Officer as per the tradition of the family ya jo bhi.

But my point is that even after such a BIG incident....I mean come on, you find your daughter like that, you see her being so upset, so emotional and talking about something different for the first time in her life and your instant reaction to it is to just brush it under the carpet and "march on" (pun intended) to the Army goal? That is where it got disconnected for me. The issue isn't that parents sometimes get blinded to the pleas from their kids....the issue is not even showing Vijay reflecting a bit on Sumo's pleas.

We have been shown in the story that father-daughter dote on each other, but in this crisis mode, Vijay became so focused only on the fact that Sumo isn't blindly agreeing with him as she usually does? That didn't seem to jive with the Army Officer who otherwise likes to give lofty speeches on life lessons to all the kids around him.

That way, Devraj dismissing Shravan was still more understandable because he's always been like that with Shravan....but Vijay is the one who's been presented as the more "sorted" and "calm" one....but turns out he too is only interested in things that fall in with his life view....otherwise he dismisses them.

Originally posted by: AreYaar

Yeah, they've established since the beginning of the story that this is expected of Sumo that she be an Army Officer as per the tradition of the family ya jo bhi.

But my point is that even after such a BIG incident....I mean come on, you find your daughter like that, you see her being so upset, so emotional and talking about something different for the first time in her life and your instant reaction to it is to just brush it under the carpet and "march on" (pun intended) to the Army goal? That is where it got disconnected for me. The issue isn't that parents sometimes get blinded to the pleas from their kids....the issue is not even showing Vijay reflecting a bit on Sumo's pleas.

We have been shown in the story that father-daughter dote on each other, but in this crisis mode, Vijay became so focused only on the fact that Sumo isn't blindly agreeing with him as she usually does? That didn't seem to jive with the Army Officer who otherwise likes to give lofty speeches on life lessons to all the kids around him.

That way, Devraj dismissing Shravan was still more understandable because he's always been like that with Shravan....but Vijay is the one who's been presented as the more "sorted" and "calm" one....but turns out he too is only interested in things that fall in with his life view....otherwise he dismisses them.

Originally posted by: Meena_J

Yes, it was bad to for him for trying to nazar-andaaz the changes that she was wanting to talk about with him but he was adamant on making her move to Pune to focus on her army goals. It was all of a sudden to decide and that too w/o her consent when she was wanting to talk about sorting the matter out and Suman herself said it yesterday that he was the one to inspire her to maintain a balance of the relationships & career. A proper understanding from Suman's POV would've kicked out the khamoshi as he's primarily seeing from being legal guardian & army officerPOV. He thought that she was sensible enough to decipher between wrong & right.

I guess what I'm saying is, he can "nazar-andaaz" if he wants to since he isn't understanding her POV right now.....but for him to be shown SO clueless ki he EXPECTED Sumo to smile and hug him the next morning? 😕.....that was really stretching it.

A better scene would have been him feeling a pang seeing Sumo being so distant from him but him still not acting so surprised that she would do it.....agar waise type ke parent hain ki bacchon ko nasamajh hi samajhna hai toh then why even expect Sumo to become normal with him so quickly?

This just shows that he's been too used to always having Sumo agree with him and listen to him on everything and he couldn't handle her disagreeing and showing her hurt over that disagreement. That was very short-sighted of him....he really is mostly a rigid man who just wants things his way.

The whole epi was built around stuff that Sumo is supposed to feel guilty over after his death....like her not saying a proper bye to him, like her getting his email after his death....but to me, the fact that Vijay was shown acting so obtuse was what made these things fall flat...I couldn't feel the pathos as much as I would have otherwise.