Rishbala - Through the prism of ep 16th March 2013

The ep Saturday, 16th March 2013 (ep.#221) was a very good ep overall, with the Rishbala scenes compensating for any lacks.😳

Madhu arrived home understandably upset by the Radha scene which had followed on her confronting RK.

She vented her own confused feelings a little to her mother Padmini, but managed to ensure that on a point of pride and strength, Padmini would permit her to continue on the path she was on in RK's direction albeit tangentially.

One wonders if Padmini not making so clear her very adverse reaction for her daughter's decisions might have ensured that Madhu would have confided in her mother more openly and without tailoring her statements to avoid conflicting with her mother where her own emotions hold sway against all other considerations.

Madhu's concern is not having her mother feel anguish because of her child such as she just saw Radha express with so much emotion.

(And Madhu may never realize the difference between the stellar Padmini who expresses less emotionally but is unfaltering, and Radha who expresses very emotionally but will prioritize nothing above herself and never losing her son, regardless of his interests).

Madhu ended up prevaricating perhaps unwittingly in the flow of conversation that she would be honest with her mother.

But two lies - one by omission and the other deliberate - still remain between them, both Madhu's vis-a-vis RK.

The night she spent at his home in his bed albeit platonically (as far as has been revealed to us so far), and the fact that Sultan has twice coerced her not with a general threat to her family but a specific threat of harm to RK while he was in the vicinity.

Getting a bit perturbed by just how much Madhu is getting into RK's habit of covering one's feelings with everyone, and presenting people with a situational context that will ensure their actions and reactions are what one would prefer.

The Dipali-Sikki scene was a good way of filling the screentime, with very competent performances and good dialogues.

But as a step in Sikki's characterization, it was a disappointment.

Finally getting clued in to his wife's inclination, he decided to get his career a new lease of life?

Dipali should persuade RK to give Sikki a role? It felt vastly disillusioning in any hopes for a smidgen of selfrespect in Sikki.

Even more distressing was the revelation that Radha would be leaving alone, and *her* stepson and his wife would be remaining to continue to live off her son's expense.

There went the hopes of at least a few episodes without Radha and Dipali.

And Radha - even in her leaving plans - was very much the grand lady.

Business-class ticket? Was it being paid for by the principled lady's husband or stepson, since she stated so forthrightly that she couldn't stand to remain with her horrid son?

RK knows his mother well enough in these matters that he did not worry the previous night about her leaving-plans, and instead remained focussed in his thoughts on Madhu.

If Radha had truly intended a permanent estrangement from her son, she would not have been leaving her Bhatia stepson and Bhatia bahu behind in her Kundra son's home.

And if RK truly wanted to terrify his mother into cancelling her leaving plans while utterly wrecking her position of command in front of the servants, he would have told her that she needed to take Sikki and Dipali along since he had had quite enough of her second family living off his expense.

Neither mother nor son had any actual desire for the matter to head for a permanent break.

And just beginning to wonder if Madhu will ever see past her mother-in-law's facade and realize that nothing RK does will ever be important enough for Radha to be willing to lose her son?

He impugned his wife's virtue, and Radha reacted in Madhu's presence by slapping him, dragging his deceased father into her dialogues, and saying she could not remain with him.

All those reactions upset Madhu terribly, for the shattering effect the mother had so obviously suffered by the son's actions.

But all it needed for Radha was her son to insist she was not to leave, tell her that he would be completely alone if she left, and she melted.

He needed her and was willing to acknowledge her importance. She didn't need to leave Sikki and Dipali to hold her place in the house to keep open options of returning.

The only thing Radha has ever wanted has been for her son to acknowledge her importance in his life.

It is a truly excellently sketched and complex characterization of a mother, quite apart from how frightening I find it that she can manipulate Madhu and RK to varying degrees simply to ensure her 'happy family' domestic felicity without considering the couple's hurts.

And the moment she started to state her condition for remaining, RK forestalled her by stating it himself.

An apology to Madhu. A simple apology for having implied that she was spending her nights with another man (which *was* true on such a laughable technicality that one wonders if this 'twist'-aftermath track will leave us with any wit.)

And the confounding thing was that Radha was aware that a genuine apology from her son would suffice as atonement for her daughter-in-law for the slur.

And RK's willingness to apologize so readily was yet further a clear indicator that while his accusation against Madhu might be technically accurate, he had no doubts about his wife's constancy despite the viciously engineered estrangement.

If he had not wanted to apologize, he could have applied sophistry and shaken Radha's belief in her bahu thoroughly. But he has no wish to have his mother turn against Madhu.

A moment of humour was at the sets where two crew-members were praying there would be no upset at least that day.

RK arrived and promptly headed for Madhu to apologize.

Presumably, having massacred RK's characterization with a 'revenge' twist that has a lot of viewers secondguessing every development in the story for the 'fake' quotient, the CVs may now have decided to put in some effort and not have him apologize - for anything - except *entirely* of his own volition.

So with him genuinely wanting to apologize without any sort of delay, first Madhu is - extremely understandably - in no mood to listen.

Then, when he finally pushes for her to hear him out, his abrasive tenderness invoking memories causes Madhu to turn away to hide the sudden onset of tears.

When he induces her to face him, her magnificent eyes speak of love and hurt, and her tears make him feel wretched with more unintended effectiveness than any taunt or jibe.

They may each make all the claims about not loving the other or being reined in by other emotions, but their behaviour proves repeatedly that their most basic reflexes broadcast their absolute unreasoning love to each other and everyone else in the vicinity.😳

Why oh why did the CVs have the brainwave of turning RK into the kind of idiot that everyone including Madhu knows he loves her but he staunchly refuses to accept it?😕😳

RK tenderly wipes away her tears while the female version of 'Hum *hai* deewane' plays in the background.

But before that exquisitely magical moment can advance further, Bittuji performs his once very frequent office - of interrupting moments when the couple might be drawing closer.😳

Sultan in a very bewildering move decided - after threatening Madhu not to reveal anything about him to RK - to come himself to RK's set, smash RK's car's windshield, leave a letter that is not even remotely as full of self-praise as RK can manage with embarrassing ease, and then left.

One can readily understand that he was infuriated by the misapprehension from RK's unknowing threat to the little boy.

But if it was a matter of smashing a windshield or even more damaging measures, surely he could have sent his goons to do it.

First he refuses to participate in the drug trade when his son stands as an available hostage to be harmed to coerce a change of decision.

Now, personally coming just to deliver a letter when his remaining concealed was worth threatening Madhu into silence?

On just how many fronts are the CVs planning to skip logic?

Anyway, RK coming and seeing the windshield and the letter infuriated him into abandoning his genuine desire to apologize to Madhu.

And it had assuredly been genuine.

Quite apart from being a means of keeping his mother from leaving, he had absolute faith in Madhu's virtue that impugning it was unwarranted.

And having used it as a failed ploy to have Madhu reveal the identity of the unknown man, he knew a very remorseful apology was unreservedly merited by her from him.

But the letter implied nothing about Madhu's virtue (which RK would have reacted very differently to) but rather implied that it was from the individual she had been laughing and chatting with on the phone.

Which brought the implied point that a windshield being smashed would be in retaliation for something that *had* been broken. And that would be Madhu's cellphone.

That she had sought refuge in someone else from him was an unthinkable thing - actually it would have been unthinkable for Madhu as well.

They both tend to confront each other with and without cause.

One wonders from the precap whether Madhu will at least now feel that Sultan has become an overt threat to RK contrary to his assurance that he would not so long as she told RK nothing.

She needs to remember that RK had dealt with Balraj and his goons singlehandedly to save her until the arrival of the police.

He may at least be informed of the peril from her new acquaintance and trusted to better defend himself and assuredly her as well than if he remains in ignorance of the situation.

She does not need to keep him in the dark and herself in a messy situation simply to protect him.

At the very least, she can say that she has befriended a little boy and he was the one she was talking to over the phone.

But that would make for a great deal more safety and less coercion, danger and plotdevice jealousy.

From the precap, it seems rather more likely she will continue to remain silent about the situation to RK, and may seek to tackle the situation herself.

Will Madhu go against the grain of serial formulae, and tell RK the truth, be it in anger, to clarify or with whatever emotion?

Or will she act in the generally expected manner of serial characters - especially the female leads - who are required by the storyline to remain silent until an issue snowballs into a mess that getting out of is a nightmarish headache.