Really enjoyed the discussions about Dev and Ishwari's interaction. I've also been thinking about it a lot today, and here are some of the thoughts that came to mind.
Part of Ishwari's control over Dev involved mitigating all of his relationships. Except for brief flashes, he never had direct emotional contact with anyone in his family, neither his sisters, nor his extended family. Ishwari was the only person in whom he invested actual emotion, and the rest was merely following her instructions. Neha pointed this out early on when GKB first brought up the idea of Dev getting married; she said that Ishwari wouldn't even let her own daughters come between Dev and her, so how on earth was she going to allow someone else's daughter to do that?
Sona was the first person besides Ishwari with whom Dev formed an unmitigated bond, it was just Dev, loving Sona, unguided by outside forces. That is why it took him so very long to realise that he had fallen in love in the first place; he wasn't used to relating to people directly, without Ishwari as a middleman. And that is, I think where the instinct to compartmentalise his relationship with Sona came from. It was so different from the way he dealt with the rest of the world, almost an alternate reality where he was an actual, functioning, adult human being.
When his two worlds collided, two ways of seeing the world collided and clashed. On the one hand, Ishwari continued to manage all of his relationships but on the other, inspired by Sona, Dev wanted to make those relationships real and direct. We saw this in his interaction with his younger sisters, which became much more informal and sibling-like than before, especially after Neha's bidai. But it was most apparent in the conflict about Vicky's job. On Sona's advice, Dev tried to act as a genuinely invested brother would, giving Vicky training and starting him off with a strong foundation. But in the end, his strong emotional pull towards Ishwari had him seeing the world through her eyes once again. Both women held Dev's emotions in their hands, but while Sona inspired him to cultivate that connection with others as well, Ishwari sought to maintain her monopoly... and because she was the one who controlled all his relationships, once his bond with her was severed, those other relationships disintegrated as well. The only ones that seem genuine are those that were formed outside Ishwari's definitions: to Golu, and to Elena.
I know people wanted Dev to still be visibly angry with Ishwari all these years later, but as I keep saying, the opposite of love is not hate. Seeing Dev, I would say he has moved on from the past much more successfully than say, Bijoy, who is still nursing intense, easily-triggered anger and bitterness. Dev it seems has almost become like wandering monk, in the sense that he has no attachments either weighing him down, or anchoring him. He only had obligations and now that those are complete, he feels free to ride off into the sunset. It remains to be seen how Sona and/or Soha will change that.
PS: Welcome to all old and new friends! It's good to see you all on the thread 😊
EDIT: I also thought the hip flask was an interesting touch. Before, Dev used to demand alcohol in the places that he went to, go completely overboard whenever he drank, and let out all his pent up emotions in a huge scene. I know everybody is making a fuss about the fact that he is still drinking, but I think it's significant that the manner of his drinking is so different. He has his own flask = showing his independence, and it has a limited amount of alcohol in it = showing his control over how he lets out his emotions, perhaps?
Edited by Samanalyse - 8 years ago
Ishaani
Cricket
