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It is the dark side of female mind, destructive nature of feminine force and female aggression.
From time immemorial women's aggressive tendencies have been ignored by media. They are at best shown in petty clashes. They are either mythical devis or daayans. But the human tendency and natural dark side are ignored.
The female aggression is very much there. Like other organisms female Homo sapien also gets aggressive. She can be misguided and ruthless too. Human personality including females can and do have dark side.
This is not to be justified, glorified or celebrated. But meant to be acknowledged, understood and dealt with so to prevent and tackle it.
Male aggression and deviance has given fascinating characters like Sunil Dutt in Mother India, Amitabh Bachchan in Don, Deewar, Agneepath, Aks, Aankhen. SRK in Darr and Anjaam. Dilip Kumar in Amar. Aamir Khan in Earth. Sanjay Dutt in Khalnayak and Vaastav. And many more.
Movies took up dark side of females too in Kajol from Gupt, Amrita Singh in Kalyug, Shabana Azmi in Godmother, Seema Biswas in Bandit Queen, Isha Koppikar in Shabri, Priyanka Chopra in Aitraaz and Saat khoon maaf, Tabu in Maqbool.
But TV mostly shied away from it. The so called vamp used to be just a crazy troublemaker. Often dismissed as a witch. Or a psycho.
Fact is that many otherwise normally functioning people turn deviant. Many factors like ego, social conditions, deprivation, abuse, overindulgence, pampering, poor guidance, bad company, unchecked tendencies etc., can affect women too as they affect men.
Many typical female traits such as beauty, protective instinct of mother, ability to charm men, need for making place at home can be damaging too if in wrong direction.
Sakshi and Raima have shown dark side of female mind very well.
Sakshi couldn't take being cheated, so she made Rajnath marry him by using his crime against him. Raima couldn't take betrayal, she did become mistress but continued to punish Goenkas by creating rift between them as she posed as a friend and confidante. They both helped and supported Rajnath in different ways. One covered up his crimes and alerted him to dangers. Other encouraged him, allowed him to bitch, rant, relax and whatever. In a way support of both, fed a monster. While they shaved off his wealth and fame.
Sakshi is a case of protective mother gone too far. She will do anything for Shaurya. She hesitates to raise her hand on him. She feels hurt seeing him sad. She wants to fight for him till eternity.
Maternal instinct of a woman gone extreme.
In a way Durga showed dark side of feminity as enemy to Shaurya. Using lust attraction, playing hard to get, feeding his obsession, sometimes feigning weakness to fuel ego of that man and cloud his judgement.
What's interesting is that each woman has been shown to feel used, exploited, guilty and fed up in some way at some point. Sakshi often has mildly moist eyes when she does something wrong to save Shaurya. She cried over photos of Akram. Her guilt quickly gets masked by sense of control. Raima was drinking and crying in frustration of what had happened all these years. Raj thought he could calm her. But she wouldn't though she returned to same pretense the next say. Durga often cried, looked at herself in mirror as if wondering what she had become. She cringed at Shaurya's touch. Her regrets too masked by sense of purpose.
The portrayal of grey areas in female personality and conflict between ego and conscience has been very interesting in Ek Hasina Thi. Neither character is a caricature. It's seemingly normal people living twisted lives and having wrong priorities, questionable means and ends.
In end all deviant people, male or female have to pay as they were on path of destruction anyway.
End should be spectacular and painful like end of most deviant characters. Durga of course is saved by turning to normalcy side by side.
Sakshis and Raimas end up like Birjus and Vijays. Dead. Or in asylum. Or jail. After all even a spider gets caught in its own web. All its spinning and weaving ultimately traps it someday.
I do applaud EHT and its original version Revenge for exploring dark side of human mind, particularly females who can be both creative and destructive force as much as men are.
It was high time that issues of good or bad were examined as is, instead of pretending that people behave in set ways. Both genders can be deviant. Even juveniles can be. The point is to understand how they work or arise and how to prevent, tackle, punish or finish the deviance.
You can read characters of this show. They are not just comic book villains (or heroes). They have an arc.
It's in many ways a commentary on loss of innocence and spread of cynicism in humanity. It will be remembered for that irrespective of how rushed its end is.
Bade Achhe Lagte Hain
CID
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