Originally posted by: sashashyam
Folks,
All viewers of cinema, on the big screen or on TV, are familiar with triangles of the usual kind. That is, of 2 boys and a girl, or 2 girls and a boy, with all the ensuing complications and sound and fury. But I cannot remember this crucial triangle - here clearly slated to be the pivot on which the whole of Mahakumbh will turn - ever being that of a grandmother, a son and a grandson, with the first two fighting for the soul and the allegiance of the third. But that is what it is here, for this tale decidedly hatke.
...Their confrontation is sharpened, and its gripping power enhanced by the fact that both Daadi and Shivanand are played by exceptionally talented actors in top form.
We all have our different takes on the motives and the actions of the two adversaries and of their target. Without prejudice to any views at variance with mine, let me summarise my own take on this tug of war.
-Daadi: I called her a delightful ostrich in my last. I still stick to the noun, but I am no longer sure of the adjective...
For Daadi is like a cross between an Old Testament prophet and a stern Victorian martinet. Her motto seems to be It is my way or the highway! They were no softies, those Victorian matrons, and like them, Daadi has no qualms about rejecting a son - and no matter if she is seeing him after 24 long years - whose activities she is convinced (of course without bothering to talk to him and discuss his mission) have led to the 1989 attack on the Brahma Nisht Panth and the destruction of their family.
Unbending Panth pramukh: For Daadi, Shiva and his ideas were, and are, dangerous in the extreme, like the Ebola virus, and thus need to be contained. Also, for her, the Brahma Nisht Panth comes first and above all else, and she needs a committed lieutenant for the present, and a successor for the future, to preserve the Panth and its seva dharma.
This can be none other than Rudra, Mahakaal ka prasad. She is thus clear that she cannot permit Rudra to be persuaded by his father into joining him in his benighted and destructive activities. It is thus necessary for her to drive a wedge between Rudra and his father, so that, if it were to come down to a choice, why Rudra must choose his Daadi, and none else!
Unfeeling mother: Worse, Daadi seems to presume that her son wants the amrit in order to achieve personal immortality. Paramaarthi banne se pehle nisswaarthi banna padta hai..Amrit hamara apna parivaar hai, amrit hamare Panth ki pratishtha hai.. Ek boond bacha hai, use chhod do. Usme Mahakumbh tal jayega! How can she believe that of her son if she at all knows him?
...So, if Shivanand has to win his shreshtatam garuda over to lead his Mission Save Amrit, he now has his work cut out for him, thanks to his obstinate, uninformed and uninformable (sic) roadblock of a mother....
Shivanand: These days, it is he who stays with me long past 8:30 pm. He is the prototype of a misunderstood prophet-cum dauntless warrior, ready to stake everything, including himself and his loved ones, for the greatest of all causes, to save the world...
Shivanand is as still and stoic as his son is excitable and prone to mood swings. He takes his mother's open snubs with patient calm, never failing to show the utmost respect for her regardless of how she responds. I never admired Shivanand more than when he told the confused Rudra, after listening to his facile remarks and looking at him with weary patience: Yeh yudh apnon aur parayon se bahut bada hai. .. Shatru kaun hai na hi tum jaante ho, aur na hi tum samajh paa rahe ho.., touched his dangerously obstinate mother's feet, and went away without another word, his back ramrod stiff as he ascended the stairs...
But of course Shivanand is also a general in the war against evil to protect the amrit, and for a general, it is winning the war that comes first. So for him, Rudra is to be the true destroyer of evil in the titanic battle that lies ahead, and it is this that he values the most about Rudra. It is but natural...
Shivanand has immense internal resources, spiritual and mental, and they instil in him a rock hard conviction in his own destiny that simply will not let him give way to despair even in the direst circumstances. He is going to need all of this and more as he struggles to keep his son, who is the antithesis of his father in all these respects, on the right path and to save him from self-destructive despair and the consequent loss of focus.
...Charles: Less of an irritant: I am beginning to get used to Charles, his wacky ways, and his genuine fondness for Rudra, for whom he will be a much needed morale booster. His bickerings with Tiwari are now acquiring a comfortingly familiar quality, and they seem to be developing an edgy kind of tolerance for each other...
Thappadiya Mai: strange prophetess: Now she is another person who is beginning to grow on me, her incessant narak ke keede line notwithstanding . She is an original, and so feisty that every scenes she is in crackles with her infectious energy.
And yet she has the instinctive empathy and understanding to be able to console a distraught Maya earlier, and now to help her find the path to peace of mind and paapmukti. The way she puts it a little later to Rudra is remarkably perceptive: Maya khudh se bhaagi bhaagi phir rahi hai..Apne ko apne aap se chipana bahut badi takleef hoti hai..
...
Maya: determined penitent: The one scene where Maya really came alive was the one with Balivesh, when she is all trussed up. Her eyes were full of searing contempt as she looked up at him, and it was that, and her total fearlessness, that must have enraged him so. ...
Pot pourri: 1)The Sholay fixation. Earlier, there was Charles doing a Veeru and pretending that the Ganapati idol was speaking to Katherine. Now we had the Yeh dosti take off with the mobike-cum sidecar, with Thappadiya Mai as the third wheel.😉 I loved that nod to Sholay - it places Charles-Rudr dosti in a "heroic" mould 😊
2) What does the Brahm Nisht Panth do in between the Purna/Mahakumbhs? Daadi only refers to their serving the kalpavaasis. Do they continue the same services for the regular inhabitants in between? And where did they find the resources for that grand punarsthapana of the Panth? I suspect Dadi had lots of seva to do even outside of Mahakumbh - the FB looked like she ws running a clinic administering Saraswatikund droplets as a cure-all...
3) For the DM to bend and touch Daadi's feet twice, at what was an official meeting, was strange and not at all plausible. He is an IAS officer, and quite a senior one, and he would have never have done any such thing in public, no matter how high his regard for her and her Panth might be. He would have reserved any such paanv padna for a private meeting, like the one when he was calling on his guru Prof. Rao. DM saab seems to be an unusually cultured individual... and he addressed her as Dadi when he has actually never met before! Btw the actor is quietly impressive - he appeared as Dronacharya in Star Plus's Mahabharat last year and was quite the sensation!
4) Daadi's account of her husband's death raising the interesting question of how she came to do the Sleeping Beauty act down there where Rudra found her. Did she go and lie down there on her own and slip off into a 24 year long yoganidra? Intriguing, as also the companion question of whether the 'Veshes knew that she has survived, and where she was all these years. It has indeed been puzzling to watch Siva & Dadi & Rudr roam around so freely while Balivesh/Grierson sit on their hands...
5)Given that Naanu & Co. were doing 24 saal ka tap for the amrit, and Balivesh has had his eye out for Rudra since 1989, it follows that they knew of some connection between him and the amrit. But not about the garuds, nor about the amrit being real and emerging at this once in 144 years Mahakumbh, judging from Balivesh's reaction to Greyerson's revelations about their researches. Nor about Shivanand being, or having, the key to the whole arcane mystery, for otherwise, Balivesh would never have handed him over to the Cardinal. It is all very confusing right now, what Naanu and Balivesh knew, and what they know now. Really this has been left most unclear - I guess no story to begin with if Siav had not been handed over to the international conspirators (in exchange for cash?) Shows the ignorant thuggishness of the SSP clan
6) Why has it become accepted wisdom that Pandey killed Udiya Baba? Now Naanu is also, as I had noted in earlier posts, taking the "credit" for having got Pandey to do that. Whereas, the fact is that Pandey was targeting only Rudra, and Udiya Baba got killed trying to save him. And for targeting Rudra, Pandey lost one eye. Overkill by Nanu... He was taunting Maya with additional doses of truth to relay to Rudr... and took some extra liberties with the truth to make his criminal CV more impressive
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