In the past several months (January 2010 to December 2010), it was my personal belief that the former creatives of the show were doing a brilliant job at keeping LTL unique by making sure that it evolved around character-development (more than anything else), and especially (most importantly, in fact) Dutta's character-development.
With January 2011 came waves of changes for the show, and at first I could understand those changes ' to some extent, I even found them necessary. But when the new CVs continued to oppress certain essential elements of LTL, I realized that not all changes are for the best, especially when you might be dealing with creatives who don't seem to understand the heart of the show or the soul of it. The show maintained a realistic, unique glow to it throughout 2010, but something went horribly wrong once January 2011 came around and we were presented with a new crew of creatives and, apparently, even a new director.
When Dutta met with his accident, we started seeing less of him. The focus was on Nakusha, her character-development which, I admit, needed some space. But after showing her as a female half-version of Don for the umpteenth time, I thought that enough is enough. She is, at heart, Naku ' and her innocence shouldn't be tainted. To have her wielding a gun (the very Naku who once feared touching guns) was taking it too far. Dutta fell in love with her innocence, not her ability to point a gun at another man. That was never Naku.
Regardless, something else bothered me even more: Due to her character-development, other essential characters and relationships faded so much into the background that they almost ceased to exist. Instead Chaskar's supposedly fun-but-dangerous character, Seema's constant self-pity, and Kala's evil schemes took over the majority of the screen time and dragged the story onwards in an un-LTL-ish way. It continued in this slow, meaningless pace to the point where I started wondering if the CVs even knew where they were going with the current track, or if they even had a story to tell (other than Seema showing up after seven years of prostitution ' still, Seema's return should've brought about some sort of climax?).
We've had drags on LTL before, "the Anna track", but during that track the CVs made sure that everything that happened during the separation between Dutta and Naku was meaningful, essential, and made sense. There was a point with everything being said and done, and it was all executed in a perfectly sensible way.
The same cannot be said about the current track. Everything has happened, has been executed, in an illogical way that makes no sense and only drags on the episodes.
Returning to the other characters, what bothers me the most is how poorly they've been treated in this whole series of events. Baji's confusion and grief over having lost his best friend and brother whom he is so dependent on has been oppressed. He hasn't even been given a reasonable amount of screen space or the chance to show his grief and handling of Dutta's possible death. Madhu's grief over having lost her brother (and only surviving family member, excluding her cousins) hasn't even been given any consideration. Leela and Roops' strange turn of attitudes have barely been grazed with a fingertip before moving on to more "pressing issues" such as Seema dancing for Chaskar and Chaskar spending at least fifteen minutes of each episode on delivering his incomprehensibly long monologues. None of us watch the show for Chaskar, or Seema's dancing.
Having dragged the story (in a very un-LTL-ish and illogical way) to the point that Dutta faints for the fifth time and almost gets married to Seema in his sleep, we've reached the point where he has finally woken up - for good.
To find what? To find that LTL has almost turned into one of those typical soaps where the man is weak and the woman is the fighter. Needless to say, we all know what was so special about this show in comparison to others: We had a strong and beautifully complex male lead and a woman to complete him. Not the other way around. But Dutta's character has seemed so out of it lately, and in Friday's episode (the 28th January 2011) I became even more certain that the CVs have him all wrong. The episode had flaws that I've never seen on LTL. For instance:
- Dutta's dialogue about "Naku's prayers saving him" and his "paap" being the reason for where he is now. First of all, Dutta doesn't believe enough in prayers to claim that it was Naku's prayers that saved him. He would've said that it was Naku's love or Naku who saved him. Second of all, he would never say that his sins have resulted in his current condition. He has always known what he's done. It does eat away at him, but he would never admit it out loud that they are his sins and thus he's being punished for them now.
- The directing. The way that the whole scene was filmed didn't match the usual LTL style whenever Dutta's in focus. Moments where the camera would've usually focused on the tears in his eyes were cut oddly, and he was filmed in an angle that showed him as anything but the man he is, in my opinion.
Dutta is a strong character. He's vulnerable, but he's not weak. Considering the fact that he's in a strange place, that he can't see anything, that he's surrounded by people that he can't trust (he's being held captive by his first love who turned him into a killer), I can't seem to understand why the CVs are keeping him stumbling around the kotha like some ordinary male character would do in any other Indian TV show.
Where is his hell-fury? Where is his fiery strength? Where is the powerful Dutta who erupts like a volcano when he has no control over the situation, when he feels extremely vulnerable, but can't afford to be so? We've seen him wandering around, blindly, for days now, lying/sitting on a bed or sleeping. Where the beep is Dutta Bhao in all of this?
By now, Dutta, as we've known him since day one, would've planned his escape, or done something ' other than leaving a few missed calls. He would've returned full force, even when shrouded in complete darkness, because he can't afford to be vulnerable at this point ' not when he doesn't have Naku to support him, not when he's surrounded by people that he can't trust.
Where did the focus on his character-development go? In all this time that he's been blind, so much could've been done with him. He has been given five minutes in each episode that he's been awake - barely enough time to show how Dutta Bhao must feel about being blind, helpless, dependent on people that shouldn't be trusted. The former CVs were clearly in love with the character of Dutta Sriram Patil, but the new CVs seem more in love with Naku as the next Don and the Saas-Bahu drama. That was never what LTL was. The show belonged to Dutta, and it always will.
I've just had enough of the dragfest and the CVs new, typical Saas-Bahu trend called: Give the viewers a shock once in a while and raise the suspense. Like they did with the scene where Seema's maang is bloodied by Dutta's hand, and just like they did with the whole newspaper incident in the recent two episodes. They've tried different angles with this show, some that have failed horribly (for instance, when they involved the cops on the show). They're leaving loose ends everywhere and executing the story in an illogical, un-LTL-ish way ' and now they've struck a nerve with the way they're handling Dutta's character. Or rather: not handling it.
I don't want Dutta back. I want Dutta Sriram Patil back. The fighter, the one who saved Naku time and time again, who protected his family, who stood against his enemies alone, yet came out a conqueror; the one who found the way out of the jungle and thus found his manzil.
That Dutta.
Kumkum Bhagya
Tu Dhadkan Main Dil
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
