Anant ko gussa kyon aata hai?

We all have been quite disturbed by Anant and his behaviour over the past few episodes. Some of us have enjoyed his jealousy, anger and wanted him to be possessive. Some of us have felt that he has no reason to be jealous and angry and he should trust his girlfriend. We have said that he is being kiddish and immature when he sulked and stopped talking to Navya. My mother has said that Navya should not marry a guy who has a tendency to be suspicious and jealous, her life will be very difficult. Some of us have felt that Navya is at fault and that she should take his calls, talk to him and communicate clearly. Some of us have said that Navya's office and her boss is the source of the problems and so this office track should come to a close and the much awaited, marriage track should start with a lot of fan fare. All of us have wanted A and N to talk out their problems, become AnYa again, and finish the MUs. I, too, have shared similar thoughts at various points of time.

But, after the beginning of the reconciliation, in yesterday's episode, which calmed my heart and mind, I began to see Anant's point of view and since I have shared my anger and frustration on the forum, I thought I should share these musings as well. So here goes:

1. Why is Anant insecure? : as he said, it has to do with the transition from college life to work life. I have seen this happening with so many people and affecting so many relationships. In college, you are used to spending 4-5 hours in a day with your partner/friend and you do almost everything together – attending classes, canteen, library, spending time with other friends. Most importantly you share the same context, the same frame of reference – both of you experience the same things and you share these experiences – teachers, exams, projects and assignments. But once you join separate jobs, three aspects of your relationship are immediately affected – one, you are not spending as much time together; two your daily routine becomes different – one person's office may get over at a particular time, the other person may finish at a different time and three, your frame of reference becomes completely different. You have different bosses and colleagues, your area of work becomes different and you no longer share experiences. So it is completely understandable for one person to feel very left out of the other person's life, which in turn may lead to insecurities because the relationship is no longer being experienced in the same way. So it is perfectly acceptable for you to become concerned that if the activities that signified the relationship are changing, whether the relationship itself is changing?

2. Why is Anant jealous of Amar sir? : this is an easy one. Anant is a 20 (21) year old guy who has just started working. College is over and now he has the pressure to become a man – competing in the world, earning money and providing for his family. He has to compete with other men in terms of social status, success, money and material possessions and earn their respect, be considered one of the gang of MEN. He is yet to prove himself. In all this, a successful, rich, older man who is the CEO of an organisation, knows the ways of the world, is confident and sophisticated starts giving special attention to his girlfriend. His girlfriend also admires this man, who is her boss and her conversation has several references to him. It is but natural that with the terms of his relationship with Navya in flux and the introduction of this rich successful man in her life, whom she admires, Anant is jealous.

For For Anant, this jealousy is not easy to explain because as we all feel and have expressed, Navya does not do anything that could justify the jealousy –as in she does not love this man and has only an official relationship with him. Somewhere Anant knows that, but he does feel inferior to this man with whom Navya spends most of her day and whom she admires and who is 'better' than himself in worldly ways.

3. Why did Anant drink at the party? : During the party, besides showing obvious affection and dancing around her flamboyantly on stage, Amar Sir took charge and started organising Navya's evening – asking her to stay for some more time, calling her father and taking permission for her to stay till later and reassuring her family that he will take care of her - Anant began to feel like the wallpaper in the room! Ignored and of no importance. On top of that, when Amar Sir offered him a drink and Navya refused on his behalf, both Amar and Navya made him feel like a little boy who is still too young to be a man. So as a part of asserting himself, he had a drink. I can completely understand how this happened.

Actually, I would like to appreciate the CVs for exploring these very subtle aspects of a relationship – the pressures of change and growing up, rather than a one-dimensional story in which two people meet, fall in love, get married and live happily ever after. This makes the story more realistic and relatable.

Only I wish that they had done it in a much better way without OTT love compatibility tests, and singing and dancing by Anant. He could simply have become drunk, realised that he was not invited, walked out and confronted Navya. Instead the CVs made Anant appear like a fool in front of the entire staff of Navya's office and Amar sir – adding to the insult and humiliation. Of course and how I wish we could have been spared the retro theme, polka dots and the kaka- mumu act which was all OTT and cringe-worthy.

This is not to take back any accusations about Anant un-necessarily being shown to be immature and kiddish. Those still stand for bed jumping, dancing about the balcony, blaming Navya for noodle eating and then taking her to a horror house to make up !!! (will never understand nor forgive this one) – hugging her in the mall to which they had come with his family (very irresponsible!!) and not supporting her as much as possible to make a good impression on his family but one can at least understand the jealousy, insecurity and drinking.

Of course, there is a Navya side of the story as well but I shall leave that for another post.