Why bashing Dhara? - Page 6

Originally posted by: TeluguAmmayi

Dhara Making Raavi and Shiva get married - Sexist.

Dhara beating Shiva and Krish - Physocal violence

Shiva Pushing Raavi (etc) - Domestic Violence and Man handling (using physical power on a woman)

Suman Threatening / insulting her DILs - domestic Violence

Shiva and Krish’s prank - Emotional Torture

All these are v wrong in real world but it’s a everyday drama in reel world.

I understand your point of view that these are fictional characters but I do believe in critiquing fictional characters /bad writing especially when it normalizes bad actions or there are no consequences shown when a fictional character does bad thing. Reel world has real word consequences. An Indian man in Australia literally blamed Bollywood for stalking and avoided jail time. There are other instances such as increase in acid attacks after depiction in Hindi movies in 80's. There is more research coming out and I believe studies done on gender in Indian movies and TV. Please note these issues also persist in Western media but they are more vocal about critiquing it and it has led to some positive changes recently. Also, you can critique art and still enjoy it. I love K-pop and dramas have literally spent money to go see my faves concert but I can still critique the negative aspects of Kpop culture and Korean entertainment industry. I think because people like the actors and characters in this show, they are critiquing it since we know what actors are capable of delivering. All anyone wants is better writing just like the Tamil original.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jan/29/security-guard-avoids-jail-by-blaming-bollywood-for-stalking-habit

I normally don't like to engage in such polarizing topics- partly because I'm usually late catching up, and partly because the cynical me doesn't believe it makes a differences. But I have a lot of time today...so, I thought I'd post.

Everyone's already brought up some really excellent points and perspectives. I've also read lot of other stuff on other platforms, and I think that the major difference between Dhara supporters and critics - I won't use the word hater as that's too strong - is that we fail to differentiate between INTENTIONS and ACTIONS.

For Dhara supporters, her intentions and love are pure and so her actions are justified. Sorry, but I don't believe in this. Imo, it's her actions that matter. Yea, she is Bhabhi maa and has the "parental" haq to discipline them. I'll even buy the reasoning ke spare the rod and spare the child. However, slapping in anger a couple times is one thing; itna maarna ke danda toot jaye.. danda gir gaya, toh use uthane ka order deke aur maarna.. is plain cruelty.

Besides, what did it accomplish? Everyone is TOLERATING each other; they are in no way building loving relationships with each other. No matter what relationship, it is always time, communication, honest efforts at understanding that are needed for it to survive. If the subsequent consequences are also disastrous, how do you even justify the actions?

Think if the genders were reversed...would the society excuse a father hitting his daughter in the name of discipline? He could say that it's for the girl's good.. to learn discipline...would we buy it? I'd like to think not...Its more likely that we would see a stronger man exercising his power over the weaker girl. Why aren't we seeing the same thing here? Dhara does hold POWER over them and is exercising it to the point of misuse. Yea, its a different form of power; but the actions and the resultant consequences are the same. So how and why do we excuse her actions?

IRL, society, and the legal system too, judges an individual for their actions. Maybe comparing this with murder may be too much, but jitna maara tha, a serious injury like a broken arm/ back is very much possible. If this happened in the real world, would we want to excuse the maa by saying ke bacho ke liye acha tha? I'll go even a step further to say that it's only the CURRENT actions that matter when judgement is declared. Just because she is a "great" person and has done a lot for the family, it does not excuse her current actions.

What's worse is that she doesn't realize her mistake at all and how much damage she is causing with the batwara. Instead, she is suffering from confirmation bias that her actions are right. She is actively tuning out other opinions and is continuing with her delusions. Yea, you can justify this aspect (only this, not her beatings) as a flawed character trait. But someone needs to snap her out of that to address the main issue that her tareeka is disastrously wrong.

Forget the gender and legal aspect, how are her actions with the beating morally right? Maar maar ke khaal utar dungi wasn't just a dialogue...she actually did it. Sure, Dhara can have good intentions. But her ACTIONS with the beatings can only be described as abuse, and there is no amount of justification for it. Be it IRL or ITV, It needs to be at least acknowledged, if not completely called out.

Originally posted by: TeluguAmmayi

Dhara Making Raavi and Shiva get married - Sexist.

Dhara beating Shiva and Krish - Physocal violence

Shiva Pushing Raavi (etc) - Domestic Violence and Man handling (using physical power on a woman)

Suman Threatening / insulting her DILs - domestic Violence

Shiva and Krish’s prank - Emotional Torture

All these are v wrong in real world but it’s a everyday drama in reel world.

they are people who love and enjoy the above mentioned things too. They are people who don’t like them and complain too.

Regarding Dev - Rishta’s marriage nonsense - Lol most of the characters know Dev loves Ristha.

So much drama happened. No body spoke anything about it. No body thought about informing Raavi. Poor girl!

Regarding Dev marrying Ristha over Raavi - what should we expect from him when Ristha does a scene at Mandap. Maybe talk to both the girls and not make a choice there and then. Maybe he should have done that before.

regarding Raavi suicide attempt - spineless Oh, excuse me! Do you know how much courage it takes you to kill yourself? When a person commits or tries to commit suicide, it doesn't mean that that person is spineless. It means that that person just had too much of pain and hurt and can't handle any more! Raavi's life had been like that, all her dreams and hope were then attached to Dev and he crashed everything! That's why she did what she did!

regarding shiva agreeing to marry Raavi whom he dislike - Stupid Bhabhi ke bhakt hain ji! Whatever Bhabhi said they would do🤪

regarding Rishta insulting family members - Bratty and bad brought up

regarding Dev not apologising to Raavi - Spineless, uncompassionate and Stupid

regarding Dhara putting her nose in every issue - Useless!

Note: Dev dint plan with Ristha to hurt Raavi at the mandap and make her attempt suicide. Shiva planned with Krish to torture Ristha. There is a difference between known mistake and a unknown mistake. Shiva enjoyed rishtas pain, Dev dint enjoy Raavi pain. Just because Dev didn't plan it, then it becomes less of a crime? Wow!👏 Next time someone kills someone and says galati se ho gaya, plan nahi kiya thha. Then that should also not be treated as crime. It's a genuine, "unknown" mistake!😊

Anyways, I am done! They have messed up all the characters in this version.

Dhanam, Kathir, Jeeva, Mulla were a lot better than This version.

only character which I like compared to original murthy Character.

I dislike him in the original 🤪 such an idiot he is!!

I loved dhara and gombi. Everything was perfect uptil that beating with the danda happened. I can ignore anything but this. Shiva is a grown up married man ..abs nothing justifies the beating, be it motherly love or good intentions or dharas past sacrifices.

Everyone summed up beautifully What their issues are with dhara ..she must be criticized for the makers to know that wrong actions need to be condemned. By the audience and in the show..

Yadon ki baarat will never be the same for me unless they redeem dhara..and that doesn't mean she tells gombi "OK I realized you were right and I was wrong ". I want the apology in actions. I want a proper conversation with Shiva raavi and devta. I want her to apologize to krish and explain him how wrong he was...I want her to distance herself from raavi and shiva , they are certainly more mature than devta and can handle their relationship without dharas support. she needs to distance herself from her "kids" for them to appreciate appreciate wives....She needs to stop cooking for all of them and involve their wives in this activity. Or let one bahu cook everyday. I want the whole family to decide what would be the best way to address everybody's grievances in the family specially rishita.

Forgetting and ignoring somebody's hurtful words is not giving respect to them. It's called bottling up of emotions. Till the time respect comes out of love , it's a waste. It's superficial and useless. Just bec dhara ignored sumans abuse and turned her around doesn't mean this is the correct way and everyone can do it. No. Raavi is her own person and so is rishita. They can't be fit into bhabhi mas mould. Their husbands r trying hard to do it hence its causing so much chaos. Someone explain them.

Originally posted by: bhavna101

@bold - I will just ask you one simple question -

Who would be that insane to bring a newborn into such a mess?

Aren't we aware of what was the condition of Pandyas at the time of GauRa marriage? They were dealing with Suman's illness, the store issues, the financial issue, and those three brothers-in-law of Dhara were kids themselves. All the responsibilities naturally fell on GauRa. Now, when they are so deep in trouble why would anyone want to have a baby? Think about this in a practical way, please!

Babies raise your expenses and at that time GauRa were in no condition to handle that extra set of responsibilities! Bringing a newborn baby into that would be an injustice to the baby, to Dhara, and to the rest of the family as well. That wasn't a sacrifice! That was the sanest, wise, and practical choice that Dhara made at that time considering their family's situation. So no, definitely not a sacrifice!

This world doesn't live and feed on emotions and emotions alone. You have to make practical decisions too which again should not be called a sacrifice!

Dhara became a mother to those three, and yes, if she can love them, she has the right to punish them. But it is also her responsibility to not be biased! Why in the world did she not punish Dev for what he did with Raavi? What Shiva and Krish did was a prank, something that ended up bad but what Dev did, that was a crime!

No matter whatever his reasons were, he played with somebody's feelings, lead her to the wedding mandap, and then just left her there because Rishita arrived?! Raavi was about to kill herself, she was played! So shouldn't Dev be punished for this?

The situation with Raavi could have easily prevented, if and only if, Raavi as told the truth! And every member of the Pandya family decided to hide that truth, so all of them are at fault! They all should also get punished for this, shouldn't they?!

@italic - would it have hurt her in any way to communicate with Raavi too?

Now, coming back to the Dhara beating Shiva and Krish. Dude, physical abuse is abuse, no matter what. Matlab parents hain toh kuch bhi karenge? Parents hain toh hamesha sahi honge? That wasn't Dhara punishing Shiva and Krish for their mistake! That was her letting out all her frustrations regarding the problems going on in the family on Shiva and Krish alone because they became the reason for her to let it all out. The pressure cooker promo is very descriptive about this on its own. All this pressure was building inside Dhara and it found escape in Shiva and Krish!

@underline - and that just makes it all better no? Oh, they are our parents whom we are taught to think nothing less than the Gods. Everything that they do is for our benefit. Even if they hit us, that is because we must have made a mistake and not them. Oh, they are the Gods, how can they even make a mistake ever! This mentality sucks! This is not punishing your children for their mistakes, this is called ABUSE, PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL ABUSE!

If this was Dhara's style of punishment, then Dev should be punished this way too. Get him beaten up like this and I will stop thrashing Dhara.😃

💯💯

I would also like to add on to how it was well, thought out, conscious decision and her choice vs it being a sacrifice. Dhara never made a choice to not have kids. She said she will wait till they are older. The age gap between her and BIL is 7-10 years.

Though it may seem like they waited 10 years, it's important to note she was only 19 when she got married. She was very well aware, she had time on her side. Even with all responsibilities aside who in today age wants to have kids at 19? (Excluding teen/accidental pregnancies). No one that I'm aware of. It's usually mid-late 20s. Being pregnant at 29 is very normal and non risky. It becomes risky after 35. So I'm with Bhavi here, that it was a wise decision and not a sacrifice. Yes, she had to endure taunts, but you know what? She called that on herself. How hard is it for you to say that "we're waiting to start a family because we aren't ready" or 'waiting for the right time"? If she doesn't want to tell that she didn't have kids to raise BILs, then she doesn't need to. If she shot it down the first time when these questions were asked, then no one would have dared to continuously taunt her. But they need to make drama out of this too.

About other aspects on abuse and our criticism of Dhara, I think everyone else has articulated it well already. I don't have anything to add. It would just be redundent.

There is no reason to justify abuse. It's a crime, irrespective of who the perpetrator is.

Originally posted by: Shivikaishkara

And I also disagree that Dhara had no fault in the marriage fiasco. Raavi has shown how much she trusted Dhara. They seemed to have a good rapport and communication pre-marriage.

Yet when the push came to shove, Dhara first approached Janardhan (a known goon) on the same day when Raavi's Sangeet was taking place, to ask for Rishita's hand in marriage. What an incredibly shitty thing to do. Ethically speaking, she should've approached Raavi and told the truth to her, before taking Dev's rishta for Rishita. Also "kasam" as reason to not tell Raavi only goes so far. If she can, despite Gaumbi's kasam, go to Janardhan, she should've approached Raavi first.

i loved everything u wrote and its true

@bold this never occurred to me...... its indeed shitty that instead of raavi she went to meet janardan.....what she had in mind? if janardan accepts, to raavi will understand coz she will tell her to?

Originally posted by: maanmeet1

i loved everything u wrote and its true

@bold this never occurred to me...... its indeed shitty that instead of raavi she went to meet janardan.....what she had in mind? if janardan accepts, to raavi will understand coz she will tell her to?

I genuinely believe that the entire family treated Raavi as a backup plan in this scenario. Janardhan maan jaaye toh Rishita se shaadi karva do, varna Raavi toh hai hi it's the moment I lost respect for GauRa.

Originally posted by: Shivikaishkara

I genuinely believe that the entire family treated Raavi as a backup plan in this scenario. Janardhan maan jaaye toh Rishita se shaadi karva do, varna Raavi toh hai hi it's the moment I lost respect for GauRa.

i had the same thought....backup😡.....and her being mad at dem was justified........they ruined her life.....and no action against dev-rishita? y so partial?

A little late to comment but I went through all the posts and you guys have already beautifully summarized where Dhara went wrong and the reasons why she is receiving all the criticism!

Just my two cents

Violence in any form shouldn’t be tolerated. It doesn’t matter if its your parents, friends or enemies. Its not because of the physical pain that comes with violence but the mental trauma that it brings. Physical wounds heal with time but mental wounds stay with you forever! What Dhara did was wrong. Period. There is no defending her actions and justifying them saying that she has raised the kids so she has full rights to treat them the way she likes. Nothing in the world gives you the entitlement to abuse someone. There are so many cases where people who faced violence as kids grew up to be perpetrators. Dhara is getting bashed because what she did was wrong, whatever the reason is! She may have done it for all the good reasons in the world but her actions were too harsh and uncalled for! Whatever mistakes Shiva and Krish made, there are 1000 better ways to deal with them, beating someone to the extent that they are scarred for life is definitely not one of them!!

Everyone had wonderful points, and I'm glad we can discuss opposing views without it turning into hating & bashing. I just wanted to add a few things - excuse the ranting LOL - even though I'm late to this topic, because I can't ever keep up with the EDTs to express my thoughts lol:

I think the criticism stems is from Dhara clearly going overboard with the abuse. Even as a bhabhi and not a bhabhimaa, she has always had the right to call out Shiva + Krish on their wrong behavior. However, no parent or elder, and especially a mother (although I don't acknowledge her as their mother, they practically do), would do that to their (adult) kid unless they had their own psychological issues (as others have mentioned - she is insecure in her role of Bhabhimaa and lack of her own children, abandonment issues, etc.).

Kudos to the actress, it really did look like (to me) Dhara was having an out of body moment of anger - a rage blackout - when she was punishing Shiva + Krish.

The issue is SP/Showrunners, etc., are making Dhara's actions seem right, despite it being hypocritical (where's Dev's, Gautum's and Dhara's beating for what they did to Raavi), when even in the ITV world of family politics, it's STILL clearly wrong. It was clear that Dhara had reached her limit and severely lashed out because she couldn't handle their pettiness anymore. They need her to acknowledge that to S + K for them to truly handle this maturely.

I grew up watching ITV from the KSBKBT days, and I have never seen that level of beating in a family show. Is her beating them with a wooden stick better or worse than being whipped with a belt? Better or worse than being burned by a cigarette? Kicked several times? Punched several times? What's going to be "adequate" physical punishment vs going overboard? Thats why showing or justifying any of that kind of abusive behavior, regardless of intent, is so dangerous. Where do we draw the line?

No one has told Dhara (by all means correct me if I'm wrong - I truly can't recall) that her physical punishment was overkill. Even Gautum hasn't adequately scolded Dhara as much about the physical abuse as he did about keeping everything a secret from Suman. It's normalizing her behavior in their ITV world and that's what everyone really has issues with. You hit your kid once, even twice, - ok, not good, but not surprising - that's the culture we all, more or less, grew up in (assuming we're all desi here). Severely beating adult children with a wooden stick is next level. I could barely watch that scene - it should've came with a trigger warning. Who gave a mother that much right over her children? If my mother did that to me, I could easily send her to jail over it. If a husband did that to their wife because she pulled a prank on his sister, would that be justified, too? Again, where is the line here? Who gave a mother the right to beat her children? Culture? Sure, but once again, where do we draw the line? If a mother starves her children because they did something wrong, is that also justified?

And even if this level of abuse occurs in real homes, why show it if they're not going to turn this into a teaching lesson + character development for Dhara? I support showing flaws and mistakes of characters but if there's no redemption + growth, what's the point? Right now it doesn't seem like this happened so Dhara could learn about her own insecurities and issues, I'm like 99.9999% sure they'll never make Dhara realize the actual beating was wrong and overboard. She felt guilty afterwards but it didn't lead to any change. She continues to emotionally manipulate everyone to doing what she thinks is right (I despised her "hurting" her hand so Raavi could help her with the prasad - that's clear manipulation because she knew how to make Raavi bend to her will).

It's frustrating because we know this is ITV and we know they're always going to paint her as right because her intentions were right and she's the FL. Even if she apologizes to S & K, they're going to stop her because they have that much respect for her. She won't ever be fully be able to redeem herself to her critics because the showrunners won't let her because she needs to fulfill the ITV FL stereotype (of always doing things for the right reasons so the ends justify the means). It sucks because the show didn't start off this way and I think that's also fueling a lot of the criticism not only around Dhara, but this entire haveli track too. Separation was bound to happen as a plot because its a show about a family but I wish they went about it in a better way. She could've accomplished all her goals just by doing the normal batwara and giving them silent treatment and subtly showing her anger. The beating did nothing but let her release her pent up aggression.