Posted:
I think the main roadblock that Dev and Neha are facing with this whole class conversation is that they have seen dire poverty, on the one hand, and incredible wealth on the other, but have never really seen what exists in between those two extremes. It seems like they are equating "not rich" with "poor," therefore misunderstanding their own concerns and miscommunicating them to the people they love. They are also terrified to lose what they have built up in the belief that living any less luxuriously than they do will take them right back to their days of abject misery. The central problem here, and one that Sona and Ranveer are introduced to address, is balance.
Thanks to their harsh childhood, Dev and Neha have absolutely no idea what a happy, united family looks like, and no idea that this domestic happiness can be achieved with much less money than they have now. Ishwari was on point today with her lecture to Dev. Happiness and sadness don't distinguish between rich and poor, and what makes a man is not how much money he has, but how he treats other people. There's no doubt that Ranveer is a man who should be valued very highly for his integrity and clearly Neha does, but she fears the outcome of his principles. She's not wrong for expressing what she wants, but it does raise the question: does she really know?
Look at Dev. He has discovered so many new things about himself since he surrendered completely to his love for Sona. A man who thought he only cared about business and balance sheets is now enjoying jewelry-shopping because the idea of making the woman he loves happy is so exciting to him. As he said himself, he is just beginning to understand himself. So what everyone understood as his "personality," calculative, workaholic, doesn't ever think of himself, wasn't really Dev at all. It was just what circumstances forced him to be. Now that he has someone with whom he can open up completely, he is discovering a lot of things that had been suppressed for a long time.
In the same way, I don't think "bitter and materalistic," is the real Neha; it is what circumstances have forced her to become, and unfortunately Neha's practicality never allowed her to surrender and trust Ranveer completely the way Dev did with Sona because she faced the far more daunting reality of moving her entire life... the unfair burden of being the woman in the relationship. She never had a chance to discover where her happiness was the way Dev is slowly doing now, and she is still blinded by fear of losing control to the extent that she can't recognise what she herself fell for in Ranveer: his patience, his acceptance, and his self-respect.
That's why Sona's reaction to me was completely justified. She is forcing Dev to be accountable for what he said, what he is assumed, when he says the match between Neha and Ranveer is unequal but theirs was different. Less assumption, more introspection is truly what the Dixits need more of! Think about it for a second... Dev so eaasily said "it's different," but why would it be different with him and Sona? Because he assumes that she is going to come and live with him after marriage, and since money is the primary concern, and he has more than she is used to, she won't have any issues adjusting (we already know that's not true!)? I can totally understand why this is unacceptable to Sona.
She experienced this side of Dev right at the beginning of the show, the one who thought money was the answer to everything, and she did NOT think highly of him. He completely failed to understand what her job meant to her, and showed no compassion in his quest to get her to care for his mother. Sure, circumstances forced her to see different, more vulnerable shades of his personality that led her to understand and love him, and her uncompromising integrity gained his respect and love in turn, but her reaction shows that deep down, her core principles haven't budged an inch and she is just as committed to defending them, in love or not.
Sona and Ranveer have the advantage, even luxury, of knowing exactly who they are because they were given the opportunity and space to find out, and it's no coincidence that Dev and Neha have selected such similar partners. They gravitate towards people who seem imbued with the balance and contentment that they can't seem to pin down, no matter how much they spend on trying!
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