Originally posted by: nith125
Wicc, I so feel you.I used to pride myself on being a Sumo person through and through.
First of all...a beautiful post and beautiful musings...without a doubt, Sumo is an absolutely interesting character as female leads go. I did feel the writer was making an interesting point when he built a Sumo centric story...so in that sense...how it petered out is bit of a tragedy but I can't be sorry that Sumo happened, she was unique..we needed a bit of perspective and a little better writing and direction to see HER...I can't dwell much on the reasons becos honestly in the creative process...so many things can indeed go wrong and not all becos the writer is incapable of imagination. Sumo was interesting for me becos she had kept one corner of her heart absolutely what she always was and what Shravan actually fell in love with her for. Lets never forget that Shravan fell in love with the Sumo...the so called bully. A bully he could align with and be himself as could she. Theirs was a secretive bond but it had its rules and they abided by it. Sumo kept that alive despite the distance and time. So, for me Sumo wanting Shravan to understand her in all her avatars was just a beautiful interpretation of love...one of the many hues of love...
How I wish I could say categorically that Suman loves Shravan. How I wish they didn't ruin her so much that we who so loved Sumo can no longer relate to her at all.
I don't know where she is lost. Did we lose her when she made a promise to Ramnath, I think we lost her a little there, but she came running when Shravan was missing right ? I felt so happy that day that Sumo was back. But after that between Adithya,Nirmala,PCT,Preekar and America where did we lose Sumo ?
Did the writer forget to complete the character sketch or was she misinterpreted by the director ? Where they bent upon showing a Nirmala in Suman so much that they forgot that Sumo is missing ? Not that I understand Nirmala either but I didn't start watching the show for Nirmala. Anyway let me try to answer your question. I think what they tried to do was to get to a point where Sumo is cold towards Shravan because she has "moved on" like he had at one point. The thing is with Shravan there is so much depth in the character and so much time was devoted to him as well that we can empathise Shravan, we can feel him, even if he does something wrong we discount him because we understand where he is coming from but that hasn't been the case with Sumo. Why have they not told us anything about her ? Do we know when she fell in love with Shravan ? Do we know how she must have missed him in those 10 years ? Why keep her so closed that even we as women are not able to relate to her ?
Did they attempt to show us a reversal of some kind ? Generally the ML is the one who is closed, who doesn't open up and speak of his love but in this case we have the opposite. Looks like they tried to give these characteristics to the FL. If that was what it was, it was a very poor attempt. And we are the losers for we have lost Sumo. I will not blindly justify her actions/inactions just because I am a Sumo person or at least I was.
For a person who was neither a Sumo or Shravan person...rather a Shraman person...all I can say is the story lost out unfortunately...Yes...I do think the writer or the ones who wrote later around his vision must have not got the essence of the conflict between Shravan and Sumo well enuf to translate it. For instance in IPK...some of Gul's vision was not translated on to the screen when the actual writers like Gautam or Janaki took over...So..I do feel some of Dilip Jha's vision of Sumo (if indeed he had one!!) was lost in translation. Sumo was not meant to be cold ever...she was meant to be eager but stoic becos on the one level circumstances were meant to thwart her life long dream but at the same time her inherent belief in Shravan was meant to egg her on to believe that her dream was never going to fail. That Shravan kept getting alienated from her was somehow not visible to her in her blind faith and/ego. She never ever wanted to be in the state of having to beg for Shravan...the one thing that she considered her own...do we beg for a thing we "own"? This aspect was somehow not translated on to the screen well enuf for a large section to appreciate it or understand it. What complicated matters was this particular trait of Sumo needed greater focus...but it was sadly missing so lay viewers continued to get confused by her reactions, many reactions were a bit inconsistent too...Jha needed to get her POV out strongly ebcos he had the heart to build an interesting character...he needed to work on her nuances a bit more...
So getting to the point, can someone move on without having loved ? And once we are in love, can we "unlove" ? That is my answer to you. However poorly expressed her love is, I believe that she does love Shravan. Sumo has for a long time reminded me of the person who had only half a shadow (Kafka on the shore - Murakimi), I wrote this in another post a a few days back. I hope Shravan completes her, because it is not that she is incapable of loving him, it is that she is incapable to expressing it in a manner we understand. I hope I made sense, sorry for the long reply.
Nith...u made a lot of sense...lovely post again..👏
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