Rishbala - Through the prism of ep 13th March 2013

The ep Wednesday, 13th March 2013 (ep.#218) was excellent in the parts that featured both or either of the leads.⭐️

The rest of the ep may be chalked up to exigencies of track, need to fill out screentime, debut of a new character, and building the characterizations of the new characters.😊

The Rishbala scene - this couple could read a newspaper out loud repeatedly and still make a scene worth watching just for the chemistry and charisma. That's only slightly hyperbolic actually.😛😆😳

RK's parting warning to Madhu that she would regret her reaction carried a far more foreboding tone akin almost to a self-not-excluded baddua, which overrode any reassurance factor in Madhu's firm claim that she would not regret.

Also, Madhu is currently often saying things which she does not mean or cannot abide by.😕😳

Actually *both* leads are doing that, and providing us with a nice opportunity for headache which we would otherwise have greatly missed.😕 Thanks, CVs.

The difference is that ever since the 'twist', RK can usually be counted on to be confusing even in his solitary scenes.😕

Whereas Madhu is revealing of her actual feelings - though only in her conversations with Bittuji so far - that her later actions corroborate.😊

What she tells her mother, sister or RK is proven to be mostly or entirely chaff in the wind anytime thereafter.😕

And Madhu's scene with her mother and sister was damn good.👏

Padmini - after some recent either far too melodramatic or not particularly powerful scenes - got a truly fine scene today, and DD and Pallavi rocked it.⭐️

Was not happy with the slap to Madhu (though Padmini's maternal fear was very understandable). Felt it a bit too melodramatic, and unlikely to be any more or less effective than not slapping.

Madhu is resolutely obdurate in her inclinations, and is unlikely to listen more to her mother with a slap than without.

But Padmini's terror that her daughter had spent two nights at varying level of mercy to someone's threats may have been even greater than her anger at being lied to.

Both mother and daughter are strong women fiercely protective of those they love.

Unfortunately, Padmini's very desire to preserve her daughter from bitterness has ensured that Madhu knows to avoid candour vis-a-vis anything associated with RK, and instead now always tells her mother whatever will ensure Padmini does not oppose her choices too forcefully.

Just rather relieved that Madhu informed both her mother and sister of at least some of the activities of her formerly-implied-by-omission 'rescuer'.

Really wish she would have informed Bittuji as well, so that there would be less chance of a mess on another score.

It's hardly like she doesn't know that Bittuji won't tell RK something if it may be adequately dealt with without his 'Chief' knowing.

Though one can't be sure whether Madhu informed on the risking-potshots-at-one's-own-child variant, one may assume from Trishna's and Padmini's general non-personalized danger reaction that Madhu omitted that particular facet.

One has seen that Sultan does not have the deceased Balraj Singh Chaudhary's delight in dicing with his child's life, but considering the hysterical terror that memory invokes in both Trishna and Padmini, they might have been unable to readily make that distinction.

Another curious thing was that Madhu covered yet again for her feelings for RK by claiming that Sultan had threatened her family rather than the very clear threat to RK which had terrified her into complying on both occasions.

Had she told the true direction of the threat, Padmini might have been harder to persuade into silence.

But the combined tactic of "threatened my family" and "don't cause trouble for him for his innocent son's sake" ensured that Padmini and Trishna didn't make trouble for Sultan, and Sultan would therefore have no cause to fulfil his threat and strike at RK.

Madhu's plotdevice enforced attachment to Sultan's son is a cliched safe plotmeans of linking her into Sultan's world without directly linking her to Sultan.

If not for Aryan's presence, Madhu would have not even a remotely believable reason for the storyline to show her making repeated trips to Sultan's home, thereby ensuring RK's volatile reactions without her proactively seeking to cause such.

Madhu's fondness for the boy irregardless, Aryan would be the last person affected if Padmini and Trishna were to inform the police of Sultan (did Madhu tell them his name or just stick to nameless reference?).

RK would be targeted first in retaliation, and Madhu herself - though neither of them has ever shown greater concern for their own peril than for each other's.

(But considering the precap, Madhu might as well have gone and filed a police-complaint against Sultan for kidnapping her, for all the utility her covering for him is going to do in her aim to ensure RK's safety.)

RK's scene with the boxing-gloves and the punching-bag was a delight to see after ages, and so dearly missed. Along with the clay-sculpting, the bike, and in general the sleeveless vest scenes.😳

Anyway, the characterization and portrayal of the scene was as ambiguous as determinedly hopeful optimists like me can hold a thread of hope by.😳😊

And the scene with Bittuji was superbly nuanced as well.

Bittuji is doing an aweinspiring job of straddling the fence.

Both RK and Madhu know he is loyal to the other's interests as well, each feeling himself/herself to be the lesser priority.

And yet, both rely on Bittuji in certain matters to back them up against the other.

Madhu, who unselfconsciously told Bittuji of her fear that she might have revealed her feelings to RK while intoxicated, and felt reassured when Bittuji said RK remembered *nothing* of that night.

While technically Bittuji was stretching the truth, it inadvertently held a core of fact that RK has not remembered what Madhu fears he might remember.

Likewise, RK required Bittuji to find out who the man in Madhu's company had been.

Whether Bittuji finds out by directly asking his 'bhabhiji' or through other more usual channels of enquiry perhaps matters but less than the answer.

The episode after Madhu's and RK's scenes felt like a different serial altogether.

Have to admit to being unable to appreciate the Sultan character because the actor's previous pairing was one I liked very much, and having half of a loved pairing as the third angle in a pairing one adores may not be a unanimously recommended (or disliked, for that matter) experience.😳😕😆

Would also not have enjoyed DD in a similar role vis-a-vis that pairing (quite apart from the logistics of star- and series- popularity).😕

Was looking forward to the MEIEJ debut of the charismatic actor who would play 'Bhujang', but while his performance was as excellent as expected, the length of screentime consumed in scenes featuring neither of the leads was rather excessive.

Had previously griped about having one lead present in most of an ep, but the other lead in just a one-minute scene.

Today, *both* leads were absent for what seemed to be nearly half the ep.😲😕

And the plotdevice means to distinguish between the principled mobster and the evil one was transparent and not very sensible.

Sultan has at least one hostage to fortune in his son. How much he cares for the old man, no idea.

And for Sultan to not realize he was endangering his son more by his 'business'-decision in denying his subordinates an extremely profitable avenue, than even by staking Aryan out as bait...

Presumably, given Aryan's being still a child, he will survive his father's principles in crime rather better than the elder son of the old don in an iconic film, the son getting killed before his father gave in to participate in the detested avenue in return for his other son's safety.

Rather more terrified of barely 22-year-old Madhu landing as Aryan's mother-figure one way or the other. Perhaps more so since Avinesh's previous role had the lead couple adopt a girl even older than Aryan. But at least there, the female lead was a housewife with no career aspirations in the storyline.

A star Madhu may become later, but is it supposed to make no difference to that career if she is in her personal life playing mother to a boy of Aryan's apparent age, even if it's clear to all that the relationship is foster?😕

The episode-precap was yet more plotdevice.

Madhu is from a family of movie-industry people, and with a mother who assumes when her call is not received that Madhu must be in a shoot and the phones off.

And yet, she was chatting away on the cellphone.

Yes, we know it was Aryan, and he's a child.

But would that have precluded her sensibly *insisting* to him that she will have to speak to him after a while as she can't talk right then?

It would not, but plotdevice required that RK see her all chirpily talking on the phone and get infuriated.

Plotdevice also required that rather than simply smash the phone, RK first paused in his temper to threaten the person on the other end of the call with a threat that had a very different implication given Aryan's infirmity.

Will plotdevice #3 involve Madhu *not* informing RK that it was a child, that it was a handicapped child, or at least getting to another phone at the earliest opportunity to talk Aryan - and incidentally Sultan - from unmerited assumptions?

Judging by Aryan's very helpfully not going silent (unlike his jungle-time with Madhu) and giving an even more unhelpful account of RK's threat and identity to his murderous father, all the plotdevices are going to come home to roost for Madhu and RK, and not necessarily in that order, regardless of whether or not Sultan doubt Madhu discounting his threat.😕

Love RK's dialogues⭐️, and the sure sign that he doesn't intend physical harm is if he gives a hyperbolic threat of physical harm.😊

Such specific threats were rather absent from RK (though melodramatic dialogues were overflowing not just from him but also from Madhu and everyone else) in dealing with Balraj and his goons while Madhu stood on a stool with a noose around her neck and at her psychopath biological father's mercy.😳

If only RK had killed Balraj then, how *much* more pleasant even the worst non-'twist' possible aftermath scenarios would have been vis-a-vis the Rishbala story rather than the all-encompassing 'semi-fake' sheen the CVs have liberally added retroactively to the storyline.😳

Now, his repeatedly almost getting killed and shrugging it off for love of Madhu counts as nothing to breaking her heart in the most wretchedly unbelievable 'twist' I've never even seen in saas-bahu serials.😳😕

And there's apparently no hurry for the stardom track, and Madhu's career graph is to be endured as a series of jolts.😕

But the movie-industry's links to the underworld seems a somewhat inadequate reason to have us watch what looked like a gangster saga for that much of an episode's screentime.

Look forward to every moment of either of the leads in each ep, so really never thought I'd say this. But if screentime needs to be filled in the leave-absence of the male lead without driving the female lead into an exhaustion point of extra scenes, and there's maybe not enough banked scenes...

The adage about 'too much of a good thing' is not always accurate, and if one is conflicted on the very calibre of genre-jarring in the entertainment 'good', small servings of variety would perhaps make for a more widely appreciable plate.

Hopefully, the next couple of weeks may have some more scenes of any and all supporting characters rather than turn so extended a stretch of any future episode into looking like a different serial altogether.

And even more hoping that VD's banked scenes do turn out to be reasonably adequate with spacing, and that there are good DVD scenes to tide through two weeks.😳

Is this becoming a pattern?😕 Two weeks of dubious enjoyment each month this year?😕

Two weeks that terminated the charismatic Balraj character in January, two weeks that commenced the 'twist' in February, and two weeks yet again.😕😆

The 'four' number in the MEIEJ storyline, and the two-weeks timespan in the serial's run in 2013.😛😕😊

Hopefully, the storyline will overcome hiccups and showcase ever more clarity and appeal in the forthcoming eps, to pull together fragmented aspects of track, story and characterization into a comprehensive whole reinforcing the lead pairing's absolutely fabulous screenpresence and sheer chemistry.😳😊