Just a few thoughts on the RK-Dipali scene yesterday. My thoughts are fairly random and from no very staunch point of view, so they are ambiguous but I genuinely felt all things in the spectrum.
A lot of people have been very disgusted with the scene and I agree: it was difficult to see Dipali touching RK so intimately when we know OUR girl Madhu is far away, rejected summarily; sent back home in dishonour, and... well, didn't take such bold liberties even while she had the chance. It is galling, no doubt. That RK permitted, no, invited š¤¢ these advances is even more irritating. Just what, WHAT, was he thinking?!š”š¤¢
That was the immediate, knee jerk emotional response.
The logical response grew out of a sense of what the creative team needed to establish. Madhu has gone away and RK is vulnerable. He is alone, and even if it is a shocking thing to think of so dominating and assertive a character, he is defenceless. Everyone is taking a shot at him: HER mother has cursed him, his mother has ranted herself hoarse, his trusted secretary has disapproved of him so thoroughly he almost quit. He himself is completely out of balance... he has sent Madhu away (for whatever reason) and whether he is self-informed or not, he is missing her like the very devil. Naturally Dipali, the hyena, is moving in for the kill.š²
What would we like his reaction to her to be? He flinches at her touch, he pushes her away physically, rakes her down verbally... every now and then he plays with her, either simply because it amuses him, to gain leverage, to hit harder, like pulling a catapult for maximum impact? It could be both, probably is both. While I can sympathise with fantasies where Dipali is being slapped by RK, I don't think I would relish it very much if the hero COULD hit a woman, an ex-girlfriend who was coming on to him. No, I wouldn't approve.
In real world terms, RK would have other choices. Let Sikki know and ask him to handle his wife as he thought fit. But RK is too honourable to do that. Sikki is a pawn, has always been, but he's relatively harmless and already down in the world. And besides, in spite of a dozen hints that he would be cuckolded in less than a minute if only his wife got her way, Sikki has always been in denial. He doesn't WANT to know. And RK, who has his own strange limits and standards about everything, won't tell him.
Another choice RK would have in theory is to throw Dipali out. Ask Sikki to leave, take his wife and go - give him a house, an allowance and get them the hell out of there. But here, we run into the Creative Team's constraints. They need the very entertaining and useful Dipali around. And we run into the trap that many Story-verses can become. You can't let a character out, because they're needed. Here.
But I enjoyed the scene very much on a purely creative level.
a) How sexy is Seema Mishra! Great body, looked great in those exercise tracks and fawned over RK so superbly. She is really a great vamp.š
b) And what a sexy beast RK is! She throws in a few potshots about Madhu. His jaw hardens but he can't come out and defend her, but he wants to put an end to this, so he turns a little devious. Something subtle changes about his body language... he turns to her a fraction and LOOKS at her. It's as if you can SEE those pheromones wafting towards her. And she, all antennae quivering when it comes to his body language, is pulled forward as if on a string, purring at him. She's all over him - like a rash, as they say so vividly. He leads her on for a bit, deposits her in her own room, splashes a glass of water in her face as if to shake her out of her delusions, lays the line (again, sigh!) and stalks out.
c) I understand the audience discomfort with such scenes but... you know, great chemistry! Such awesome chemistry. Rk and Dipali, Vivian and Seema - they give us a picture of this past we haven't been privy to. A past where this couple has been physically intimate, passionate even if they weren't loving. She underestimated him, he mistook her ardour for integrity... she dumped him, he felt betrayed. He proved himself and now wants nothing to do with her. But she's there, lodged in his life, his house. She has to be suffered.
She still doesn't get him - she still thinks he rejects her out of pique. She doesn't realise the depth of his disgust of her, his comprehensive disillusionment with her shallow, greedy, grasping, self-serving nature. RK doesn't tom-tom it to the world but he's an idealist. Which is why he found Madhu's purity, her generosity so tremendously appealing. Something that Dipali can never fathom - she simply hasn't got what it takes to understand.
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