Leela,
Towards the title of the post " Love for RK - Not weakness but Strength", let me add some of my thoughts towards Madhu.Madhu is best known by her Hauslon se Veer Hoon, Sankaton mein Dheer hoon attitude. That positive thinking and stoic attitude comes only if one is grounded in some beliefs, which need to kept burning in her. Time and again, she is close to losing her "Dheer (tolerant, calm, poised, unfeeling state)" state as she gets rudely shocked. Once this weak Madhu had asked Bappa to replenish herself with her fuel (her faith). She asked Bappa to return RK to life. When her belief in her father was uprooted in a most outrageous manner, she lost her dheer state once again, her identity... and had to fall back on RK for support, for replenishment of faith in herself despite of loss of identity as given by our parents. Of course, she had her mother too, but belief was restored by RK.Just going by her innate character that she has, how can she not fall for RK, who upholds her place in his life, protects her from all animosities, fills her with what she needs most, belief in herself, in good, faith in love, provides her the fuel to burn bright, the way her innocent smile lights up everything.You are right. She too has that junooni streak for RK. She always had that caring streak for everyone. However now it happens to be RK, a man who showed her twice what it is to lose a poised state of mind, how it feels to be broken in belief...through him almost being at death's door, him being attacked by her father, a man who showed, how he has already lost it and would not want no one to mete similar fate, let alone her, his Biwi. How can she even falter now on the path of commitment that she would tread on after having reinstated by him so. It is nighly impossible piece of information to ignore.Only junoon beats another junoon. So her underlying need to be veer, dheer, bheer, balveer will always guide her to love and support RK in that junooni fashion with her sense of commitment and the love she has for him...like you said once in your own words...crossing rubicons...If that was about her need, her existential character, what about the other fuel that RK feeds her for her to take flight with wings of love ? Yes, we need to understand her Ishq equation with RK. Contrary to forum views (majorly), I maintain that RK was the first to fall in love with Madhu. It has been shown in his halluciantions when Madhu was away from him, staying at her maayka in the changed relationship. (To clarify, according to my understanding, the revenge game ended with end of studio track.) Now, time has come for Madhu to realize the same and imagine her longing for him and his company. But how come these two fell in love, inspite of themselves ? I will say, it just happened with the beauties they saw in each other and they couldn't help being mesmerized by each other and before long they started enjoying the responses.I once wrote this earlier. Not wanting to spend much time in re-paraphrasing, I am just pasting a portion here. Hope you don't mind my lethargy.. 😉 The post is to tell, that Madhu's beauty attracts RK enough to forget his Rishabh Kundra complex to shun love from his life. Isn't that interesting ? Everything about her attracts him enough to want to protect her always in his care and at the same time play with emotions, just to seek the pleasure of her response towards him...like the recent pinning her to the wall amidst the high voltage situation they just came out from...from Nov 2nd...Madhu's beautyBtw, I never said it explicitly. Hope we all agree that Madhu's beauty actually is a show-stopper for RK Express. Don't you think so ? Madhu might appear all angry, proud, stubborn, caring and all that before RK, however Rishabh Kundra is not excited with those traits of Madhu. He hardly cares as he has plenty of it in himself. What he likes is how those traits emotionally flare up Madhu and how her beauty comes across to him forcing him to stop in his tracks and just look at her. Basically its likes a bumpy accident to his smooth driving.That's how he has changed so much in Madhu's company. True to story's plotline, Madhu's beauty captivates him in all senses. The storyline doesn't require Madhu to be intelligent. The plot requirement is for her to be extremely honest and wearing her heart on her sleeve. In process of experience she may stop being so transparent, but her first time reactions are always going to be naive and straight from her heart. And this will gradually lead Rishabh to want her in his life. He is a superstar. He needs to have a gilb tongue to get through his everyday life. It must be such a relief to talk to someone where he doesn't need to act being worried for pitfalls in the process. But just her honesty, transparency would never have been enough to attract a man like RK to bond with her and marry her, even if it was a game in the beginning. He needed to be mesmerized by her. And Madhu...she sort of would have been a blonde belle and happily settle down where her mother would have wanted her to settle down, had it not been for RK. The way Madhu was shown enjoying the movie, there is so much of unexplored and unrequited childhood desires in her.Worries going awayIf you ask me, Shamsher as the wonderful father in adopted sense and not in biological bonding sense has already given her a SKEWED outlook on daughter's duties. She is constantly burdening herself with the weight of her gratitude to the man who became her father and in process though wanting to call him papa, calls him MAALIK ; quite different from her mother's MALIK. Its too much of baggage. Its now a good development that Shamsher's flaw will let her shed some of that weight.Little by little as she gets free-er, we will start to see the true Madhubala. With Trishna around at her home, she became the elder sister around even when she was younger to Trishna. Now RK has no one else than her to pamper. He is no Trishna and no Shamsher where Madhu should feel the weight of gratitude. She is actually much free in RK's place.