When RK coerced his ill wife into having a herbal concoction with "Option A... Option B" which were actually no option at all, he may never have imagined the depth to which that sort of non-option that has been his way of life would etch its mark on Madhu's mind and heart, and on their relationship.š³
I love your opening sentence... This is what I call a Wow beginning.. š
When he lay unbreathing in the hospital, it was "Option A... Option B" that Madhu first dredged out to try to bully him back to life.
And it has become the same non-option that now governs the Rishbala equation at all points.š³ Two people who have not yet acknowledged even to themselves that they love each other - against reason and logic, and without coherent thought.
I was reasonably sure that RK would never send Madhu back with his current tender protective cherishing feelings for her. Remorse cannot be a motivator, because he feels no remorse for the course he took, though he has grown to regret hurting Madhu. The man who dislikes 'sorry' and 'thank you' seeks to heal that hurt and insult by giving Madhu care and respect, however complicatedly.š
But it is all based on Madhu no longer being the crusading girl who humiliated him, but rather his wife whose devotion and loyalty has won his regard. If it were all to happen again, would he react any differently to her actions? I doubt it.
It would be drastically out of character for RK to send Madhu back in good faith. In fury, out of a sense of betrayal or washing his hands off her and despising her, yes. But not out of guilt or for atonement. So long as he cares about Madhu and has regard for her, he won't expose his reasonably conservative wife to insult and insinuations by sending her back to her maayka permanently.š Rather, he has been trying to get along with Madhu's family so that they can more easily and constantly be a part of Madhu's new life. This pleases Madhu, and seeing her happy pleases RK. But he doesn't have some idealized image of Madhu's 'perfect family'. He can see their flaws, and sees no reason to believe Madhu would be happier as a castoff wife back in her maayka. What he is trying to do is gradually establish Madhu's honoured position as his wife in truth.š³ At least so far, though it may all be Schrodinger's cat.š
At the base of this is the fact that in this matter, RK and Madhu are both conservative at heart. Madhu is obviously so, belated only in recognizing the depth of her commitment. RK *appears* anything but, and appearances are deceiving.
He knows exactly what it would mean for Madhu to return permanently to her maayka after marriage. It was a humiliation he held in reserve when he wanted revenge, and it is now something he will not even chance the perception of.
What was *unexpected* was that Madhu not only took no initiative herself to return to her maayka in a snit for any duration, but also that she was ambiguous in her words to Padmini at the chawl to shield her husband's image in her mother's eyes.
I loved it when she did that.. A good relationship means being loyal even if the other may be in the wrong (in this case RK's behaviour at the party) and not dragging others into your fight (re. Dips offering money).. That action of Madhu's must have stuck a chord with RK... We all know how much RK values loyalty.
So no need to rehabilitate himself in his wife's eyes can drive RK to send her away permanently, and neither being offended nor believing her loved ones wronged can make Madhu consider leaving him even temporarily.š³ The CVs found the middle ground - RK taking her back to her maayka for a short stay without her involvement in the decision.š
Even in the 1st Nov. ep, Madhu had believed that her Maalik had humbled himself and set aside the past to attempt reconciled relations with RK - that too not once but thrice.š² And yet, not even her anger at RK for purportedly humiliating Shamsher stood even a slight chance in the face of RK doing disservice to his own health by not taking his medication.š
The girl has gone even past the point where even the greatest wrong he may do matters nothing in the face of his wellbeing.
If RK wants Madhu to do something, he need only show physical or emotional vulnerability or hurt. He would not need to pretend. Just a fractional unveiling of actuality, and she would be putty in his hands. How ironical then that the master-manipulator can't even think of deliberately using so surefire a weapon against the wife whose devotion to him is so clear even when she is displeased or irate.š³
I was thinking the same.. They are both such an exquisite and unique couple.. I just hope the CVs dont ruin them..
It is not merely his ego that stops him - that ego which had once had him stand in front of Padmini and Madhu at their home and pretend a nonsensical history of being misreared, spoilt and never criticized (really? Radha who badmouths her son to people at first acquaintance spent 17 years without being manipulated by her wonderful second husband and stepson into blaming her own son for everything they implied?). That day, RK had played a role that had nothing to do with his actual life but was safely unconnected, cliched and tugged at the heartstrings, and insured he could acquire revenge, without abandoning humanity to unleash any sort of vicious horror against Madhu.
Which is this scene you are talking about? I dont remember..
But now, more than even his absolute ego is his desire to not manipulate for selfish gain the one person who - despite their cause for mutual antagonism - has never knowingly betrayed or deceived him.š³
She adores her father. She implied she worshipped that father. Her husband has yet to realize that love that truly crosses the level into 'worship' is a Rubicon his wife has only recently crossed, albeit unknowingly.
Madhu does not believe RK cares enough about her to be affected or hurt by her words. And yet, even in flaring temper, she noticeably hitched - in the 31st Oct. ep - at saying even dialogues reminiscent of insults she once used to his face.
I didnt notice that until you pointed it out.. š
She did not want him told that she had donated blood to him because she worried at the hurt it would cause his *pride* to owe her anything. Would she have been able to utter a word in anger even at her father supposedly being unjustifiably disrespected, had she known her opinion can now *grieve* her husband, though it would not prevent him from doing what needs must to keep her from being shattered?
But the true extent of RK's care for her was - ironically - revealed in his conversation with Shamsher (31st Oct ep). What was also painfully obvious in that scene was that had Radha not been such a wretched judge of character and had instead remarried a man of worth and integrity who would be true in relationships, Rishabh would have accepted a second father-figure not in place of his deceased father but certainly with equal or nearly equal regard. And I see no reason why Mallick - once he has, like Padmini, overcome the aberrant self-righteous "You couldn't have done anything worse to us" nonsense - wouldn't be able to forge a strong positive bond with the man who cares as much and more about Madhu as he himself does.
It's hardly like Madhu's deprioritizing of everyone and everything for her husband is likely to be obvious to anyone besides RK... unless she walks in on Shamsher trying a 'fourth time lucky' attempt to 'reconcile' with his son-in-law. I can almost pity both RK and Shamsher in the event of such a situation coming about, because that girl in temper or tears? Each of the two men whose heart she holds - one quite unknowingly - in one each of her hands may wish he were dead rather than be the cause of her torment.
So true...
And later when RK conducted himself within the maryaadaa of relationships with Madhu's parents - never disrespectful even in his insistence on a blessing from Shamsher, Madhu could not keep the unbounded contented tenderness from her gaze when she looked at her husband.
Certainly Shamsher's feelings about RK in light of the past appeared to matter to her far less than RK willingly and of his own volition accepting yet another facet of his and Madhu's marriage - treating his parents-in-law with respect.
Consciously, Madhu knows she owes it to the father who fought so rashly for her that she should maintain antagonism towards his - and her - then opponent. But unconsciously? The moment Madhu admitted to Padmini that she had felt her own breath and heartbeat would halt with RK's, she had given in to whatever it was she felt so overwhelmingly and unreasoningly.
Had Padmini chosen the opposite tack to the one she did, had she chastised Madhu to remember the antagonism, Madhu would have been in torment over her welter of feelings. But she would have been unable to erase what she had never consciously cultivated. It would have fractured the mother-daughter relationship. Instead, Padmini's reaction and advice was couched in her gladness that she could, with the certainty that RK was no Balraj, strive for her daughter's marriage - however unsavoury its beginning - to work out. Madhu's mother unknowingly preserved her own relationship with her daughter by keeping Madhu's heart from warring against itself in a battle the outcome of which was already certain.
For a girl like Madhu to believe that her hot-tempered father, who just a while previously blessed his son-in-law only on the latter's insistence, had tried and failed *twice* before that to extend an olive branch to RK... It beggars belief. Until one takes into account that when it comes to RK, Madhu's usual wits, malleability and unassuming nature always seem to take flight.
With RK, she is in truth a sherni. But the sherni's attitude and purpose have both changed absolutely, from attacker to defender.
First, when RK sits back in the wake of his wife storming away with fiery words of condemnation after he slandered himself to preserve her father's image in her eyes. The man whose vindictiveness was once paramount now - for Madhu - willingly not only let off someone who had struck at him but even accepted blame in that person's stead. The second, when Madhu hurried into their bedroom with the tray of milk and medication, looking for her husband, with concern and not an iota of temper in her bearing. Neither RK nor Madhu had any thought or care for themselves in face of care for the other. Whatever needed to be done in the other's interests was done with no second thought, no qualms at the sacrifice or risk they would leave themselves open to.
Ego lay unnoticed in shattered pieces - though it would assuredly be whole in the mind of each as soon as concern and worry were no longer quite so immediate.But as assuredly, ego will shatter again as often as needed when needs must. Love has battled ego and silently established dominion, but permits ego to hold sway except in peril.
If I were to grade your post, I would give it a 10 on 10.. Superb.. I love these weekend long posts of yours..
And this post lengthwise redefined humongous.
š
RK returned home from jail in blue t-shirt and cap, changed into a white shirt at some point and went and playacted for Padmini, Madhu, Trishna and Roma, his obvious focus on the first two, his *apparent* secondary focus on the latter two.
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