#Devil's Den#feeling CONNED?wait CON in progress 3 - Page 67

Why AR Simply Do Not Work

The following is an opinion column on the characters: Armaan and Riddhima from the recently finished Star One show, Dill Mill Gayye.

With the ultimate union of Armaan and Ridhima, Star One's show Dill Mill Gayye finally came to an end. After all the hullabaloo, sound, fury, fangirl fights, tears, off-screen and onscreen drama, along with many other things, the dust finally settled down, and I sat down to think.

Why did AR ever fall in love? Were they compatible? What exactly kept their relationship going? Did they understand each other? Where was the communication?

To find the answers to all these questions, I dug into the past and rationally analyzed the whole series once again. Obviously, a reel couple that gained such a massive fan base has to have something extraordinary in their story. Back in 2007, I was a huge AR fangirl myself, thus far from being a rational human being and a billion light years away from looking beyond the mush and the romantic background music.

But the fact is that there really was no reason for Armaan and Ridhima to fall in love to begin with. They both hated each other with a burning passion until they were stranded in a secluded barn in a forest. He saw her drying her hair, the saxophone sprang to life in the background andbam: the hero had fallen for the heroine!

What followed was an extravaganza of mush and fluff. Fans continued to be reeled in, and slowly AR began to be touted as the best onscreen couple. It was only later that I realized that AR had no foundation to their relationship. Where was the 'communication'? Did they ever sit down and talk about their likes, dislikes, fears, dreams, aspirations, past, future? Anything? How do you love someone without knowing them? Or maybe they had an inexplicable 'soul' connection that they required no communication to understand each other at all?

At the end of 3 years, their relationship had not evolved at all. As individuals, they went through so many changes, and yet their relationship remained stagnant. It was about about bickering, teasing, fighting and playing pranks in 2007, and it was still about bickering, teasing, fighting and playing pranks at the end of 2010.

They were highly incompatible, not because they had so many differences, but because they neverrespected their differences. Armaan never respected Ridhima's willingness to attain stability in her life, and Ridhima never respected Armaan's wild streak. They kept trying to force their ideals on each other throughout the course of their relationship, and the process usually ended up in fights and break ups, and then some more fights and break-ups...

That is why the 'ultimate' AR union had no impact, because it was pretty obvious that they would go back to their same routine of fighting-breaking up-making up-fighting-breaking up-making up...so on and so forth. It wasn't an ending, as it was just another one of their 'make ups' blown up at a larger scale than the usual.

Therefore, I have arrived at the viewpoint that AR simply don't work as a couple. Even if we do take love into account (which came from nowhere), there was no evolution or groW*H in their relationship. It seems as though they were two good looking people and the frozen picture of their first meeting in the basketball court was framed and hung in front of the viewers in the name of 'love'.