Posted:
I think I'm incredibly late to the party on this one, but it took me awhile to figure out how to say this, so I'm just going to put it out there. Here goes.
Statutory Warning: LOOONG post ahead.
😃
Here be why I think Veera wasn't 'wrong' in 'jhado-fying' Baldev the way she did in yesterdays episode (or even in the way she has been dealing with him ever since she found out he thinks they should get married):
Okay. Picture this.
You're Veera Sampooran Singh.
Baldev is your childhood nemesis who on various separate occasions has held you responsible for breaking up his sister's rishta, forcibly tied you up in a tabela, and instigated the villagers to get you thrown out of the pind for being responsible for the major pind-wide power-cut.
When you see him save your Veerji and help him fight the Gunda's, you apologize for mistakenly thinking he was responsible for destroying the solar panels. But at the same time, going by your experiences with him so far, you also think he only fought the Gunda's for his own benefit.
Just before, and after the Karan fiasco, your equation with Baldev kind of gets back to what it used to be (before he tried to get you thrown out of the pind, i.e.), but this time the nok-jhoks are just that...more 'nok-jhok' than a serious attempt to put the other person down or teach the other person a lesson.
After the Gunjan rishta fiasco, you're rightly mad at Gunjan and Baldev for hurting your Veerji. When you cross paths with Baldev while taking leave of the villagers the day before you have to leave for London, you refuse to speak to him.
When you find out about the truth of your birth, you unexpectedly find a shoulder to cry on in Baldev. Before leaving for the airport, you thank him for being there for you and acknowledge that he may not be as bad as he seems, and is actually a good guy at heart.
After the whole revelation of the house nilami fiasco and your return home, things subtly change on the Baldev front. For some reason he's no longer fighting with you at every turn, but is acting slightly bizarre and quite unlike himself, by offering you a lift when your bike breaks down (this is the same guy who didn't want to accompany you to the neighborhood pind when you needed to use the internet), gifting you a set of tools for your bike etc.
Then comes the film shooting fiasco. Baldev is now your Veerji's saala, and continues with his bizarre antics. Much of it makes no sense to you, and you're amused and irritated by them by turns (At one point you're amused enough to pinch his cheeks, going 'Tu nahi sudharne wala, bewakoof kahin ka!')(I don't blame you, he can be an adorable bewakoof).
Then comes Holi, and you find out that Baldev thinks you're in love with each other (!). You can't help but laugh, 'cos really, where on earth did that come from?! You put it down to more of his 'bewakoofiyans', and a direct influence of a)one too many film and b)his two chamchas.
(His answer to your 'What do you even know of love?' doesn't help his cause in any way).
Later that day, after a highly charged confrontation with Gunjan, you bump into Baldev again. First he insists he was joking about the whole pyaar thing, and then when he ends up helping you with your sprained ankle against your wishes (it's been a long, emotionally draining day, you've just left Gunjan at her maikaa without telling anyone, and all you want to do is go home and figure stuff out), you realize he believes that the two of you are going to get married ('Shaadi ke baad mujhe lassi pilane kaise aayegi', 'Mujhe langdi vote nahi chahiye' etc.) You just don't get why he thinks you would want to marry him and try to tell him the same, but your words seem to fall on deaf ears.
Gunjan comes back etc. etc., and Baldev has now taken to popping up at your house at every turn, still making those marriage references. You can't take it seriously (Who can blame you?), and continue to deal with them as his now typically Baldev-type bewakoof antics.
At Balwant tayaji's anniversary party, Baldev catches you at a wrong moment (at a time when you're frustrated about not being able to fix whatever is wrong between your Veerji and Gunjan) and you lash out at him in your frustration, for thinking he knows you well enough for the two of you to get married. However, he manages to catch you by surprise with his words and insight, and this is the first time you see him as someone who's not just your one-time nemesis or the class (village?) clown or goonda or spoilt brat. You feel the beginning of 'something' but get distracted when something he says makes you think of the perfect idea to bring Gunjan and Ranvi closer.
You run into Baldev the next day at the market, dancing with some band people, claiming to be practicing for the baarat at your impending wedding. You're now beginning to get really frustrated with his marriage fixation and can't understand why he refuses to understand that you don't want to marry him. Forget wanting to marry you, you don't understand how he thinks he's ready to marry anybody at that point, considering he doesn't earn a living and hasn't done anything to become capable enough to stand on his own two feet etc. You go so far as to tell him that you wouldn't marry him even if he were the last person on earth. He retaliates by saying any girl would want to marry him and threatens to tell his Mom and Dad everything and turn up at your house with rishta if you continue to say no. This leads you to panic for a moment, and you decide that if he thinks he's so ready for marriage you'll throw him some challenges that you're sure he'll fail ('Cos really, you know he's not ready for marriage and responsibility and hasn't done anything so far to prove himself capable in any manner), and forget the idea of getting married to you. If he wins (which you're 100% sure he won't), you say he can come to your house with rishta.
But your plan backfires, and to your dismay, he manages to somehow complete the first two challenges.
At this point, something's changed again with respect to your equation. There are moments when he catches you by surprise with some unexpected side of him, and there are moments where you're aware of him in a way that you've never been before. But these feelings just confuse and maybe even frighten you, making you slightly more wary of him.
Veerji returns sans Gunjan, and you make a plan with your family, hoping to force Gunjan and Ranvi to reveal their true feelings to one another. You had to let Baldev in on the plan, and you're surprised and pleased by his protectiveness toward his sister and his readiness to do anything to save Gunjan and your Veerji's marriage. He also takes you by surprise when you catch him defending your Beeji in front of some nasty pind women.
After the wedding, Baldev once again blackmails you into meeting him ('Varna main andar aake teri Beeji se tera haath maang loonga'), and insists on taking you on a date. The idea is laughable and you tell him that you have no intention of doing so, 'cos you're not in love with him and won't be even if you spend two life-times with him. But he wants a reward for having helped you with your idea to save Ranvi and Gunjan's marriage and is convinced that you'll fall in love with him if you just spend some time with him (Mind you, unbeknownst to you, at the same time, he's sure that he himself is not someone who'll padofy into pyaar-vyaar ke maamle. He just knows that you're the 'Sherni' to his 'Sher' and that you need to get married).
You give in, deciding to give him three hours, fully convinced that it's not going to change a thing. But the date ends on an unexpectedly intense note, and when he asks you if you've fallen in love with him, for a few seconds you have no idea what to say, 'cos you're overwhelmed by this sudden 'something' that you're feeling and moreover you're unsettled by the fact that you're feeling this 'something' for Baldev of all people! When the alarm sounds and interrupts the moment, you clearly tell him that you haven't fallen in love with him and flee.
The next day at the breakfast table, when Chaiji praises Baldev for doing something most guys would have found difficult to do, you agree with her and tell everyone how you caught him doing something admirable when you overheard him defending Beeji's izzat.
Baldev turns up, you feel awkward and leave the table to call Amrit about how this guy just does not seem to be getting the message.
He seeks you out, finds you, and tells you how you agreeing that he defended your Beeji's izzat means that he's won the third challenge and that now he has all the 'haq' to talk about your marriage to him.
You're shocked that he's managed to win the stupid challenges, and you're starting to feel trapped and frustrated. You tell him even mazak has a limit, and that he should stop with the foolishness. His usually amicable mask slips, and he tells you that he's always been serious about the idea of marrying you and that since he's won your challenges, you shouldn't go back on your word.
By now, you've reached the end of your tether and you tell him outright that the challenges were a means of keeping him occupied, and that you'd hoped he would lose them and give up on the idea of marrying you on his own. You tell him that marriages are for a life-time and that winning a few challenges doesn't mean you'll marry him (And if you think about it, you didn't really promise him you'd marry him if he won). You rightly point out that marriage is a huge zimmedari, and that he hasn't even learnt to take his own zimmedari yet, so how can he expect any girl to think he can take on her responsibility as well?
And when you ask him what he's done till date to prove himself capable, and what his kudh ka pehchaan is, his response is that he'll prove himself worthy once again by winning the Sarpanch elections!
Now you're seriously irked, 'cos he doesn't seem to get that what you're saying is NOT that he needs to jump more hoops to marry you, but that he needs to grow up a little, act his age and make an identity for himself separate from the one he has because of his father before he can think of marrying ANY ONE.
So you try once again to put him right...correctly pointing out that winning the elections is not something to be taken lightly, and that as a Sarpanch he'd need to put his own needs and wants aside and put the pind and it's people first.
Your parting words to him are to advice him to first take on his own responsibility, change the way he looks at people and only then think about taking on the responsibility of other people (or an entire pind, as the case may be).
So, now.
How are you 'wrong' exactly?
As far as I can tell, you're just being 'you' and trying to deal with a 'situation' (that initially caught you by surprise and now frustrates you and confuses you by turns) in your own way. No?
-The End-
PS: You can go back to being you now.
PPS: Coming to the way Veera said what she said, well, I think VeeBa have always had an equation where they've been nothing but straightforward with each other. Neither have shied away from calling a spade a spade when talking about one another to each other, have never sugar-coated their words to one another, and have never found the need to watch their words or tone when talking to each other. They just seem to take one another's outbursts and actions in stride and move on.
(I kinda love this about them.)
Besides, no one is perfect, including Veera, and Baldev himself considers her to be a little 'nakchadi' (I think he says so at some point during the first challenge), so I'm putting it down to being a result of her frustration at the time, and choosing not to take it too seriously or as a grave injustice to Baldev.
That's all.
PPPS: Honest to God, my arms feel like I've just been to the gym for a strenuous arm workout for the first time in my life. Is this a sign that I actually need to start working out?!
Statutory Warning: LOOONG post ahead.
😃
Here be why I think Veera wasn't 'wrong' in 'jhado-fying' Baldev the way she did in yesterdays episode (or even in the way she has been dealing with him ever since she found out he thinks they should get married):
Okay. Picture this.
You're Veera Sampooran Singh.
Baldev is your childhood nemesis who on various separate occasions has held you responsible for breaking up his sister's rishta, forcibly tied you up in a tabela, and instigated the villagers to get you thrown out of the pind for being responsible for the major pind-wide power-cut.
When you see him save your Veerji and help him fight the Gunda's, you apologize for mistakenly thinking he was responsible for destroying the solar panels. But at the same time, going by your experiences with him so far, you also think he only fought the Gunda's for his own benefit.
Just before, and after the Karan fiasco, your equation with Baldev kind of gets back to what it used to be (before he tried to get you thrown out of the pind, i.e.), but this time the nok-jhoks are just that...more 'nok-jhok' than a serious attempt to put the other person down or teach the other person a lesson.
After the Gunjan rishta fiasco, you're rightly mad at Gunjan and Baldev for hurting your Veerji. When you cross paths with Baldev while taking leave of the villagers the day before you have to leave for London, you refuse to speak to him.
When you find out about the truth of your birth, you unexpectedly find a shoulder to cry on in Baldev. Before leaving for the airport, you thank him for being there for you and acknowledge that he may not be as bad as he seems, and is actually a good guy at heart.
After the whole revelation of the house nilami fiasco and your return home, things subtly change on the Baldev front. For some reason he's no longer fighting with you at every turn, but is acting slightly bizarre and quite unlike himself, by offering you a lift when your bike breaks down (this is the same guy who didn't want to accompany you to the neighborhood pind when you needed to use the internet), gifting you a set of tools for your bike etc.
Then comes the film shooting fiasco. Baldev is now your Veerji's saala, and continues with his bizarre antics. Much of it makes no sense to you, and you're amused and irritated by them by turns (At one point you're amused enough to pinch his cheeks, going 'Tu nahi sudharne wala, bewakoof kahin ka!')(I don't blame you, he can be an adorable bewakoof).
Then comes Holi, and you find out that Baldev thinks you're in love with each other (!). You can't help but laugh, 'cos really, where on earth did that come from?! You put it down to more of his 'bewakoofiyans', and a direct influence of a)one too many film and b)his two chamchas.
(His answer to your 'What do you even know of love?' doesn't help his cause in any way).
Later that day, after a highly charged confrontation with Gunjan, you bump into Baldev again. First he insists he was joking about the whole pyaar thing, and then when he ends up helping you with your sprained ankle against your wishes (it's been a long, emotionally draining day, you've just left Gunjan at her maikaa without telling anyone, and all you want to do is go home and figure stuff out), you realize he believes that the two of you are going to get married ('Shaadi ke baad mujhe lassi pilane kaise aayegi', 'Mujhe langdi vote nahi chahiye' etc.) You just don't get why he thinks you would want to marry him and try to tell him the same, but your words seem to fall on deaf ears.
Gunjan comes back etc. etc., and Baldev has now taken to popping up at your house at every turn, still making those marriage references. You can't take it seriously (Who can blame you?), and continue to deal with them as his now typically Baldev-type bewakoof antics.
At Balwant tayaji's anniversary party, Baldev catches you at a wrong moment (at a time when you're frustrated about not being able to fix whatever is wrong between your Veerji and Gunjan) and you lash out at him in your frustration, for thinking he knows you well enough for the two of you to get married. However, he manages to catch you by surprise with his words and insight, and this is the first time you see him as someone who's not just your one-time nemesis or the class (village?) clown or goonda or spoilt brat. You feel the beginning of 'something' but get distracted when something he says makes you think of the perfect idea to bring Gunjan and Ranvi closer.
You run into Baldev the next day at the market, dancing with some band people, claiming to be practicing for the baarat at your impending wedding. You're now beginning to get really frustrated with his marriage fixation and can't understand why he refuses to understand that you don't want to marry him. Forget wanting to marry you, you don't understand how he thinks he's ready to marry anybody at that point, considering he doesn't earn a living and hasn't done anything to become capable enough to stand on his own two feet etc. You go so far as to tell him that you wouldn't marry him even if he were the last person on earth. He retaliates by saying any girl would want to marry him and threatens to tell his Mom and Dad everything and turn up at your house with rishta if you continue to say no. This leads you to panic for a moment, and you decide that if he thinks he's so ready for marriage you'll throw him some challenges that you're sure he'll fail ('Cos really, you know he's not ready for marriage and responsibility and hasn't done anything so far to prove himself capable in any manner), and forget the idea of getting married to you. If he wins (which you're 100% sure he won't), you say he can come to your house with rishta.
But your plan backfires, and to your dismay, he manages to somehow complete the first two challenges.
At this point, something's changed again with respect to your equation. There are moments when he catches you by surprise with some unexpected side of him, and there are moments where you're aware of him in a way that you've never been before. But these feelings just confuse and maybe even frighten you, making you slightly more wary of him.
Veerji returns sans Gunjan, and you make a plan with your family, hoping to force Gunjan and Ranvi to reveal their true feelings to one another. You had to let Baldev in on the plan, and you're surprised and pleased by his protectiveness toward his sister and his readiness to do anything to save Gunjan and your Veerji's marriage. He also takes you by surprise when you catch him defending your Beeji in front of some nasty pind women.
After the wedding, Baldev once again blackmails you into meeting him ('Varna main andar aake teri Beeji se tera haath maang loonga'), and insists on taking you on a date. The idea is laughable and you tell him that you have no intention of doing so, 'cos you're not in love with him and won't be even if you spend two life-times with him. But he wants a reward for having helped you with your idea to save Ranvi and Gunjan's marriage and is convinced that you'll fall in love with him if you just spend some time with him (Mind you, unbeknownst to you, at the same time, he's sure that he himself is not someone who'll padofy into pyaar-vyaar ke maamle. He just knows that you're the 'Sherni' to his 'Sher' and that you need to get married).
You give in, deciding to give him three hours, fully convinced that it's not going to change a thing. But the date ends on an unexpectedly intense note, and when he asks you if you've fallen in love with him, for a few seconds you have no idea what to say, 'cos you're overwhelmed by this sudden 'something' that you're feeling and moreover you're unsettled by the fact that you're feeling this 'something' for Baldev of all people! When the alarm sounds and interrupts the moment, you clearly tell him that you haven't fallen in love with him and flee.
The next day at the breakfast table, when Chaiji praises Baldev for doing something most guys would have found difficult to do, you agree with her and tell everyone how you caught him doing something admirable when you overheard him defending Beeji's izzat.
Baldev turns up, you feel awkward and leave the table to call Amrit about how this guy just does not seem to be getting the message.
He seeks you out, finds you, and tells you how you agreeing that he defended your Beeji's izzat means that he's won the third challenge and that now he has all the 'haq' to talk about your marriage to him.
You're shocked that he's managed to win the stupid challenges, and you're starting to feel trapped and frustrated. You tell him even mazak has a limit, and that he should stop with the foolishness. His usually amicable mask slips, and he tells you that he's always been serious about the idea of marrying you and that since he's won your challenges, you shouldn't go back on your word.
By now, you've reached the end of your tether and you tell him outright that the challenges were a means of keeping him occupied, and that you'd hoped he would lose them and give up on the idea of marrying you on his own. You tell him that marriages are for a life-time and that winning a few challenges doesn't mean you'll marry him (And if you think about it, you didn't really promise him you'd marry him if he won). You rightly point out that marriage is a huge zimmedari, and that he hasn't even learnt to take his own zimmedari yet, so how can he expect any girl to think he can take on her responsibility as well?
And when you ask him what he's done till date to prove himself capable, and what his kudh ka pehchaan is, his response is that he'll prove himself worthy once again by winning the Sarpanch elections!
Now you're seriously irked, 'cos he doesn't seem to get that what you're saying is NOT that he needs to jump more hoops to marry you, but that he needs to grow up a little, act his age and make an identity for himself separate from the one he has because of his father before he can think of marrying ANY ONE.
So you try once again to put him right...correctly pointing out that winning the elections is not something to be taken lightly, and that as a Sarpanch he'd need to put his own needs and wants aside and put the pind and it's people first.
Your parting words to him are to advice him to first take on his own responsibility, change the way he looks at people and only then think about taking on the responsibility of other people (or an entire pind, as the case may be).
So, now.
How are you 'wrong' exactly?
As far as I can tell, you're just being 'you' and trying to deal with a 'situation' (that initially caught you by surprise and now frustrates you and confuses you by turns) in your own way. No?
-The End-
PS: You can go back to being you now.
PPS: Coming to the way Veera said what she said, well, I think VeeBa have always had an equation where they've been nothing but straightforward with each other. Neither have shied away from calling a spade a spade when talking about one another to each other, have never sugar-coated their words to one another, and have never found the need to watch their words or tone when talking to each other. They just seem to take one another's outbursts and actions in stride and move on.
(I kinda love this about them.)
Besides, no one is perfect, including Veera, and Baldev himself considers her to be a little 'nakchadi' (I think he says so at some point during the first challenge), so I'm putting it down to being a result of her frustration at the time, and choosing not to take it too seriously or as a grave injustice to Baldev.
That's all.
PPPS: Honest to God, my arms feel like I've just been to the gym for a strenuous arm workout for the first time in my life. Is this a sign that I actually need to start working out?!
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