Rishbala - Through the prism of ep 23rd Feb 2013

Saturday, 23rd Feb. 2013 (ep.#203) was twelfth and last of the 12 episodes in the MEIEJ CVs reassurance of 'two weeks' after the commencing of the 'twist' track.😊

Loved this ep.😳

DVD were fantastic throughout the ep, individually and together holding the screen in every scene.⭐️

But today's ep may also be marked for three other things.😊

Firstly, the new musical version of Madhu's version of the prayer-poem was *not* played in this ep.😃

The thought of hearing that song has become almost as unendurable in three playings as this 'twist' has become in a fortnight.

Secondly, Radha's and Bittuji's damn accurate insight into the intense and convoluted nature of RK's and Madhu's feelings for each other.😳

And thirdly, it was the second time since the landmark Ganesh-visarjan twist that the Lord has been directly appealed to make everything alright, with the scene designed to indicate a positive outcome to the appeal.😊

As to the lead couple's performance, in this past fortnight, from 9th Feb. 2013 (Saturday) onwards, while DD's performance has been heart-tuggingly overt with every emotion identifiable *and* connectible, VD had to play it a degree of ambiguous with only hints and glimpses to give an idea of his character's intent.⭐️

In this ep too, DD's magnificent eyes radiated every complex emotion Madhu feels through the spectrum, with and beyond the character's conscious comprehension.😃

But *also*, finally in this ep, two weeks into the 'twist', VD got to play *beyond* nuancing and brief moments that got covered or glossed over.⭐️😊

RK's scene in the makeup room seems to be the CVs' unveiling-commencement for the fortnight of suspense.😕😳😊

This time, he was not only alone for a protracted time, but he was alone with Madhu audibly anguished but out of sight.

He could permit his feelings to show without having to appear uncaring or mocking.😳

And those feelings were care and a wretched helpless torment at the knowledge that she was in pain, and not only could he do nothing to ease that pain, but that he had been the cause of it.😳

RK's insistence that Madhu play the body double had been a calculated move sure to reap the wanted dividend (Madhu backing out and quitting the job) at some point early or late.

But what he did not take into account were the depth and completely-out-of-the-ordinary nature of his and Madhu's feelings when it comes to each other.

Radha's and Bittuji's conversation summed it up best.

RK hurts Madhu, and yet cannot bear to see her hurt.

And Madhu lets him hurt her, and then draws herself back together again.

Padmini's foreboding about Madhu - and allowing herself to be dissuaded by Trishna - was a touch of normal, preceding the taut near-melodrama about to unfold at the sets.

RK wants Madhu to quit the job and leave his proximity.

Her indifference, if she were out of his sphere, would pain him but not be a challenge.

But her indifference while in proximity to him - even though only as regards the people and situations that don't actually matter to him emotionally (eg: the romantic dance with the heroine) - is intolerable beyond hurt he may feel, because it makes it more difficult for him to oust her without breaking the terms of their challenge.

He knows the folly of the point she is trying to prove - that she is not affected by being near him.

Presumably, Radha knew such a reasoning would never work on her cynical son.

So she expended it with tactical finesse on her naive trusting daughter-in-law instead.

RK knows very well that he is affected not just by Madhu's presence but even by her things.

He may or may not admit it openly, but his actions indicate he knows to be wary enough to keep a distance from anything associated with Madhu, so that he may better and sooner increase the gulf between them.

Madhu too *had* had this sensible understanding, until Radha manipulated her into the belief that facing RK down constantly was the way to show that she had moved on.

Radha knew - as her every conversation with Bittuji since then has revealed - that the course she has persuaded Madhu to choose would do rather the opposite of emphasizing or even maintaining the split between the couple.

Like Madhu herself, Radha and Bittuji too have not yet found the deed they truly cannot forgive RK for.

They all accept him with his deeds, his temperament and even the outrageousness, because they know and appreciate the intrinsic character of a man who does a favour in a manner calculated to utterly cloak the fact that it is a purely altruistic gesture.

Madhu and Radha are very fond of each other, Madhu *far* more so of Radha than the other way round.

And Madhu has proven incapable of ever being selfish *except* for RK's sake, whereas nicely packaged selfishness appears to invariably be Radha's default mode at the core.

But just as Madhu - with the knowledge that RK needed that time away with just her - would not pause in her decision to leave with RK for an indeterminate duration out of concern for Radha, Radha too will not hesitate to cause Madhu grief and hurt to benefit RK.

Neither woman wishes to cause the other hurt, and yet eclipsing all else has been their individual need to ensure the happiness as it encompasses them of the man who is son to one and beloved and husband to the other.

Radha's terror of having her son's restored filial gentleness towards her eroded by the return of bitterness in Madhu's absence is a driving motivation.

And the sure knowledge that Madhu still loves RK erases any concerns or qualms Radha might otherwise have had.

We may be thankful that RK's respect and attentiveness to his mother remains to keep Radha from a full state of panic.

If he had switched back to referring to her as 'janam denewaali aurat', the mind boggles at just what sort of fast-track Radha's plotting would have involved to get Madhu back into her son's life in immediate haste.

Bittuji considers Madhu his sister, but this girl who is younger to him is the wife of the man he worships.

His very regard for her stemmed from her devotion and love for his 'Chief', and his anger on her behalf was because RK had ousted the girl who had taught RK to live life fully again.

And it is that loyalty to RK's wellbeing and interests that trumps all else for Bittuji.

Fortunately, his loyalty does not have to face too divisive a choice between RK and Madhu, because he has confidence in the depth of the couple's adoration for each other.

If his 'Chief' does not realize the very obvious fact he loves 'bhabhiji', then he need only be made to realize it, and the two will be a blissfully happy couple again, albeit after a few hiccups.

It may be considered a tribute to RK's acting prowess that neither Radha nor Bittuji doubt that RK himself is unaware of his love for Madhu.

And one of RK's own blind spots is his mother.

He had known to worry that *Bittuji* might seek to engineer a reconciliation.

But he has perhaps not even now realized that his own *mother* is spearheading the ruthless plotting.

And it is thanks to Radha's verbal sophistry that Madhu is with naive obduracy refusing to back down even where she has the option to do so strongly and firmly.

She could have refused to play the duplicate.

She could definitely have refused to wear the outfit she was uncomfortable in.

Wearing the stole was a possible implication that she would be having to bare her shoulders and upper back for the scene.

But still she came, as if forced to do so at gunpoint. Why?!

(And while she has looked even more of a vision on a few other occasions, the duplicate did assuredly look *way* better than the original. Fragile and very very lovely.)

This is the same sort of folly that had RK accept the challenge with her, rather than simply have her fired outright.

And had any other man tried to lay hands on her, she would have acted aggressively in her own defence at the very outset.

Instead, she submitted to RK removing the stole, only her silent tears testifying to the cumulative anguish.

When RK had placed his hands on her waist, he had already - in trying to mark emotional distance - hurt Madhu with his reminder that their relationship had been one-sided.

And when she raised no outcry or refusal even as he slowly started to remove the stole, he yielded the battle to her tears rather than forge ahead and hope she would back down at a further point in the shoot.

Even in giving in, he had to cover the actual emotion. He was aided in this by Madhu keeping her eyes shut.

Bittuji saw RK's expression when her tears fell on his hand. Madhu did not.

She heard only the insulting reasoning RK gave for not doing the scene.

She had been made to feel discomfited, vulnerable, and hurt beyond her ability to fake stoicism, and the differently lyricized new version of 'Hum *thhey* (not 'hai') deewane' did an apt task of expressing her feelings.

Bittuji, reassured by RK's willingness to back down for Madhu's tears, hurriedly conferred with Radha.

And then, a moment which - in MEIEJ-verse - has indisputable worth.

Radha appealed to Bappa, and the CVs were at pains to show the TRP-audience that they might expect a positive outcome to that appeal.

The last such appeal was by Madhu when RK's life hung in the balance.

This time, both Madhu's and RK's lives, happiness and peace of mind (that last applies to quite a few of us viewers as well) are at stake.

Bittuji informed RK with several excuses that he would have to wait a while to leave, and then went off to secretly turn off the studio lights, with a prayer to Bappa to keep a benevolent eye.

Madhu, having changed out of the gown, was located for viewers' visual impact convenience in a make-up room on the other side of the wall from RK, so that he could hear her crying, recognize and react, and the actions and reactions could be seen separate and yet in the same frame.

Even more importantly, this being the last day of the 'two weeks' for the suspense to be ended, RK showed clearly and unmistakeably that he cared very much indeed.

His instinct was to comfort her.

And it was poignant when Madhu, sobbing in what she believed to be absolute privacy, hitched through line after line of her prayer-poem, but stumbled to a stop at the line about 'sahaare'.

And then she left her makeup room, the lights went off, and memory of her panic at darkness sent RK rushing out to find her.

Their scene was intense, with both of them at the end of their ropes.

Self-preservation and good sense have *always* been qualities that completely desert these two individuals when emotionally overset.

RK's instinct to see her safe was temporarily blocking out both his pretence and his sense as to the appearance of such overt caring from him for her.

And Madhu's rage and hurt were in ascendance.

The spark hit the dry tinder with RK's accidental tearing of Madhu's sleeve off her shoulder.

She had held her courage together for the seemingly everlasting recent few MEIEJ-verse days (translated into 12 episodes), forging ahead with a combination of bravado and stoicism.

But now she erupted.

The slap was a sign of rage and finally feeling herself unable to endure.

It would have been justified on several recent occasions, but she had either been in shock or trying to be indifferent.

Now the shock was gone, and indifference vanished like the mirage it was.

RK has never been physically violent with her that she might have feared a slap in return.

It is also certain that she was not thinking even remotely clearly enough to weigh or care about any such factors.

RK's reaction to the slap was rather belated, as if he had to remember that the angry "How dare you!" *should* be his reaction.

Perhaps because every time in the recent happy past that they were together, whenever Madhu had reacted in anger, his reaction had been to soothe, placate and cajole her.

But even that belated reaction opened another floodgate for Madhu.

She has not till now truly confronted him verbally.

As far as he has seen, she went from being in shock on the night of the mandap fiasco, to being calm and measured in the TV telecast of the press questioning her, to vulnerable and spirited on the sets.

She has not truly vented since the night she emerged from shock and broke down.

This time, she vented.

The timing was off, as she railed in the face of his concern.

But the target was perfect - the man who broke her heart.

And when she threw aside her dupatta and ragingly challenged him to do worse, it was another moment that underlined how very conservative both of them are at the core.

It was the reason why RK had thought she would back off if a stole were to be removed from her otherwise bare shoulders, even leaving her beautifully clad in an elegant gown.

Because that sort of elegance is not acceptable to her for herself.

In the precap, we see her dupatta inelegantly but securely draped around her, as RK pulls her along and then shuts himself away behind her.

(The area with the graffiti on a wall and a wire-grille window was the same where Bittuji had gone off to the side to turn off the electricity.)

It was a scene evocative of the night at the mandap when RK had dragged Madhu along, except that then she had been in shock and pliable, and this time she had been hostile and protesting.

But if one is to consider the two situations in relative comparison, then he dragged her away, left her in a comparatively less accidentprone-in-the-dark situation, and shut himself away.😊

And at the mandap, rather than leave her in that devastated and shocked mental state at the deserted venue, he had dragged her as harshly to his car and then delivered her to her maayka, where he had made himself the villain in the eyes of all her neighbours that might have wondered at her.😳

The CVs had assured us that their twist's suspense-denouement would happen in two weeks.😊

And on the very last ep of those two weeks, they have given us a substantial though yet uncertain indication of every assurance they had given for the validity of the storyline of the past several months.😊

Now, to wait into Monday, and hope that the reason for this fortnight upheaval is good enough and strong enough to turn quicksand into firm ground again.😊

Hopefully that reason is *not* that he's been trying to make her an actress.😕

It seems - as reasoning goes - ermmm... not sensible?😕

If RK could convince Madhu as quickly as he did to change her mind about her parents' relationship despite her blazing initial reaction, then he could most assuredly have convinced Madhu to step into a limelight position that she has avoided all her life - without a heartbreak pitstop along the way.😡😭

On the other hand, if the CVs' options presented to us are RK being idiotic now in the matter of the reason, or all of us alongside Madhu having been fooled for these many months with his unknowing or unknowing pretence for months... In that case, willing to accept any and all idiotic reasons in the now rather than the before.😳😊

A fortnight of suspense seems to have had a very stabilizing (numbing?) effect. Waiting a day or two - or more - for an explanation to be presented in the MEIEJ-verse now seems almost relaxing.😕

But still hoping that the CVs confound us this time as they have every time so far, and give us a progression in the storyline that may make two weeks of waiting worthwhile, and maintain characterization-, relationship-, tracks- and storyline- integrity.😳😊