Are they cynical - yes.
Are they pompous - no.
Arnav isn't saying that he is surrounded by nonsense. He is questioning her if she would save him if her were so. It's one of those weak moments when his personal tragedies have morphed into physical entities and are bothering him to no end. Khushi simply echos that feeling.
Arnav has his own tragedies which from time to time make an appearance in normalcy of his daily life and mess around. It is possible that the sense of angst is deep rooted in him because of what has happened to him.
I am a child of 90s like Arnav and Khushi here are. Angst was more common than romance, desperation for being different was everyone's game. I don't find it odd because it's a reflection of my generation who wrote letters or made phone calls from a phone booth and had to keep it short cause there was a huge line behind them. We didn't have the access to share every damn thing we feel easily and quickly. They bottled up for a long time and came gushing out when had the time. Arnav and Khushi do not talk for several weeks before Arnav makes his first move. Yeah, calling would have been easy and maybe they even did. But there is only so much you can say over phone and so much more in a letter.
For the record, I wrote the first half of Arnav's letter when I was 17 for a milkshake and two samosas. A friend wanted to send a greeting card to his girlfriend back home after six weeks of first semester of engineering and I offered my services for a nominal charge :=)
Originally posted by: Japonica
I know I am in for a lot of flak for saying that my response to the two of them was to laugh at their letters to each other. Yes, I did laugh- they are so full of themsleves the two of them. for heaven's sake, how old are they? if I caught any of my 18-20 year od old undergrads expressing such views I'd ask them to stop being such pompus gits.
Arnav thinks the world around him is shit in which he is drowning, knows she'll come to grasp his hand only for him to drag her into the hole with him!!! And she instead of saying forget going down, I'm going to pull you out of it kicking and screaming and we will engage with the world, wants to create an equally isolated world for themselves.
Honestly either they are suffering from some form of inverted snobbery which makes them reject everything around them without even having tried to engage with the world around them or they are both seriously and clinically depressed and in urgent need of help! Teenageers are angst ridden- but theirs is way beyond normal.
Being different is very difficult, especially for young people who are brilliant and do not have the interests that the average sutdent has, I have students who are way brighter and way different from the rest of the class, but very rarely angst-ridden in the way Arnav and Khushi are. I have had very bright, angst-ridden students, but they have had genuine mental health issues.
I would love to hear from the readers, their views on what I have said. If anyone feels my views are unjustified, it is but one prespective and I am open to be persuaded otherwise. Do tell me what you all think. I'd love to hear your views RB, though you have moved on further in the story. I have been extremely busy these last few days, hence the delay in the comments though I read the updates as they came along.
I can see where Khushi is coming from, she is driven partly by her nature and personality and, of course, the need to echo his thought, but I want to know more about Arnav, His letter reveals his perspectives on things when he was young, but what drove him to view the world so? He seems to be more balanced now, so has he outgrown that phase of life or is it that we have not seen enough of him in the present (or in the past) to know why he was filled with so much angst or if it has remained unchanged.
Is it their natures to be so angsty or it is something in their pasts that has made them so? What is it that draws them to each other? is this angst the cog that moves the wheel of their relationship? That really raises the interesting question of the nature of love.
CID
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Ghum Hai Kisikey Pyaar Meiin
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