I have really enjoyed the discussions about Sonakshi from the last 10(!) pages so much, and it has got me thinking about another feature of society that this show is highlighting and critiquing. The following points that popped up in discussion are what prompted this idea:
Sona never saw Dev as her friend, and saw herself as weak if not completely independent, thanks to Bijoy's training (Shaavi)
Sona never trusted Dev enough to let him in (Latha)
Sona's connection to Dev began with attraction, both physical and emotional, where Dev's connection with Sona began with friendship (DQ). By the time they became friends officially, Sona was already in love with Mr. Dixit. Moreover, Sona was consciously looking for her "love story" and her "prince charming."
So my question for this post is, what is a prince charming, and what is a love story?
I think Sona, like many girls, got her idea of these concepts from romantic stories. The romance genre is meant to lift people out of the mundane, every day and take them to exotic places, introduce them to exotic people, or elicit exotic feelings. As someone naturally drawn to romance, Sona's first attraction to Dev and the Dixits came when she heard their rags to riches story. While she had lived a highly predictable life in a middle class family, Dev had gone through an incredible struggle and made himself into the man he was. He was ripe for casting as the tragic, brooding hero of her love story, and the fact that he fit the bill physically certainly didn't hurt. I think the fact that this is where Sona's attraction began says a lot about the way her love shaped up as the story went on. Though she came to love Dev much more intimately over time, she never quite abandoned this frame narrative for her life, and it disappointed her when Dev didn't live up to it.
This has a lot to do with the way these stories are structured, and one feature in particular: the man always pursues the woman. Because this is a genre geared towards women, they usually form the center of the story, and since it is meant to be a release for them from their daily struggles, the story is usually about the woman being saved in some way. It can be literally -- if you go back to the traditional rescue narratives in fairytales -- it can be emotional, where the barriers of a closed-off heroine are broken down by the hero -- or it can even just be the simple matter of the heroine being "rescued" from loneliness by the right man. Sona saw her love story as a combination of the latter two, which is why she keeps repeating the line that Dev brought colour into her life. That colour, to me, signifies excitement, romance, and unpredictability.
The second trope that Sona followed closely was that of the closed-off heroine. A lot of Bollywood movies, especially, teach us that it's the girl's job never to let on how she feels. The only women in old-school Hindi movies who express their feelings to the man without being pursued first, are either those under the negative influence of Western culture, or women who are too stupid to know better and are used for comedic purposes (eg. Mandira Bedi in DDLJ). Even on this show, lines were drawn between Sona and Elena; the one who was for expressing feelings was the flighty, frivolous one, and the one who kept them inside turned out to nurse the more serious love. In this cultural milieu, the heroine never discloses her feelings, and it becomes the hero's job to traverse continents, run through airports, display obvious jealousy, and reveal his love, despite his ladylove's apparent disinterest or disdain. The heroine then reveals that she feels the same way and, having elicited a confession out of a hero who is usually set up as unlikely to settle/surrender, ends the story with a victory -- a vicarious thrill for the women consuming the story.
Before the first break-up, and until it came time to reveal their relationship to their families, Dev fulfilled every single requirement of a romantic hero. Sona made a huge effort not to let it be known that she had fallen for him, and yet as soon as he realised, he came to her without restraint and confessed his feelings. This would not have been possible, were it not for Dev's unique confidence -- the trait that DQ mentioned, of never having to show off. With most guys, it doesn't come that easily; they hesitate and fear rejection. With the confession, Dev set the standards for his future behaviour very, very high which is why the hesitation to tell Ishwari and the subsequent break-up came as a disappointing shock to Sona. I think she never bargained for how low his weaknesses could take him, having seen how ideally he acted and reacted, based upon his strengths.
Once again, seeing the way he prioritised her family during the wedding, and assuming that he would never cross Ishwari, Sona expected that Dev would have already dealt with Ishwari's issues and made the boundaries clear. Finding Ishwari's disapproval intact on their first night came as a rude shock to her, and she once again Dev fell from the pedestal of peerless, romantic hero. Sona really cared about her wedding, and was sorely disappointed that it wasn't the fairytale she had dreamt of. With the bahu pageant, she set out to correct that, and shut Dev out completely. It was only after the double dinner, when Dev confessed how he struggled with his past, that Sona felt that connection again and planned the resort night. This, to me, was the most balanced moment in their marriage. That night, she said an important thing: "you tried your hardest to give me my fairytale." Instead of looking at the results, she appreciated the effort, and allowed herself to open up on the strength of that, putting her feelings out there for him to see. For a moment, she allowed her definition of a hero to shift but it all went haywire again with the Neha fiasco.
The last time she mentioned Dev as her "prince charming" was in the car ride back from Shimla, and the pattern is striking. There too, Sona held in her feelings, repeatedly apologised for overreacting, and resisted telling Dev what her actual problem was. It was Dev who pursued her relentlessly, and when she pushed him away emotionally and physically, made a show of force to ensure her that he wasn't going anywhere no matter how hard she pushed. Boom. That right there is the prince charming behaviour Sona wanted. Even though Dev caused a lot of trouble during their first break-up, I think she liked it, becasue as much as she tries to project herself as the kind of girl who would sensibly settle down with a Ritwick (her family still believes this), she loves the drama and unpredictability of a Dev Dixit.
If Sona brought what Dev needed into his life in the form of stability and emotional security, Dev brought what she needed into hers in the form of excitement and romance. But while Dev verbally appreciated Sona's contribution regularly, she often had the opposite reaction to his romantic advances. And what I am trying to say, is that those reactions are largely based on what she could have picked up in the media she consumed. Men are the ones who are desperate for romance and women of substance are supposed to temper their advances by never letting on that they are very interested. In reality, it simply doesn't work that way. Men need assurance as much as women do, that they are valued, and women have just as many personal desires. In a way, both of their tethers broke in the final break up. Sona's emotional strength, which Dev depended on, gave out, as did Dev's confidence/audacity that he could claim Sona as his no matter what. By trying to return his investment and accusing him of using money to highlight their economic differences, Sona showed how little she considered Dev a part of her, and dessimated the confidence Dev had in the rights his love gave him, and by obliging his mother so readily with the fertility treatment, and then focusing on her insult in the 5-crore fiasco, Dev snapped the bounds of Sona's patience and compassion. Both expected the other to recover and make amends, not realising how much they had been broken.
There is a lot more where this came from, and I am not even sure my point got across, but this is already so long that I'll stop here and ask what you guys think.
Edited by Samanalyse - 8 years ago
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