Dear Janhvi,
I was in two minds whether to respond to your (as usual) beautifully argued and written piece, or not. Maybe it would have been better not, but in any case here I am.
I think this sort of Arjun-bashing is rather a waste of your remarkable facility with both ideas and language. It is too easy, for Arjun offers such a tempting target – at first for being a richie rich young man, so arrogant and overbearing and, now that he has been reformed by love, for being persistent to excess, and prone to blunders whenever he gets the chance.
It does not matter that he is honourable to a fault, far more gentle and far more caring in love than one would ever expect any young man, of his background or otherwise, to be. It does not matter that his love is both unselfish and undemanding, and that he is prepared to quit and retreat, whatever the emotional toll on him, just so that Purvi can live in peace. It does not matter that having blundered at the engagement function, at the first opportunity he gets, he tells the truth to his formidable and intimidating father with no varnish on it, bluntly and categorically. He leaves no option for DK but to agree to what he wants, and he manages to do it without alienating his father as well. None of this matters when one wants to put Arjun in the pillory, and I must say that you have done it exceedingly well. I loved it from the aesthetic point of view, but not from the heart.
One could, and I am sure you can do it effortlessly, do the same kind of hatchet job on Purvi. I like her a lot, as she is a rare specimen in the world of TV soaps, a bright, ruthlessly capable and committed woman professional (the 'ruthless' streak was in evidence when she exposed Punni's boss), and I greatly admire her simplicity and her straightforwardness.
But I have never been blind to her faults, and a lack of compassion is one of them. I was so angry with the way in which she treated Arjun after he spends the night in front of her house that I wrote "What she displays is a total lack of concern for the feelings of a person who has, once he changed his ways, always shown her special consideration. She carries on as though she was the Queen of Sheba getting rid of an importunate suitor, whereas the fact is that she is only a stupidly obstinate, emotionally stunted, lower middle class girl, and normally the likes of Arjun Kirloskar would never come pleading to her door. If I was Arjun I would have told her to get lost and pushed off. Her good luck is that Arjun is so obsessed with her that he does not give up even in the face of such rudeness".
The interesting thing was that quite a number of people then jumped to Purvi's defence and were quite vocal in the process. I do not now see a single person speaking up for Arjun in response to your latest (and I must say very plausible) broadside. They all agree with you. It only goes to show that the majority of the forum are Purvi-philes to a remarkable degree, and if they like Arjun, it is not for himself, but only because he loves Purvi so deeply.
I beg to differ. I like Arjun for himself, He is a very rich, capable and powerful young man who could easily have become an irresponsible wastrel, living on the fruits of his father's talent and hard work, and/or a Casanova with no respect for the women he exploits. He is quite the opposite in both respects. Even more striking is that he is prepared to change himself completely for the sake of his love, and to totally suppress his ego where she is concerned. All this is so refreshing that I am quite prepared to forgive him a lot, and to empathise with him as he suffers - and no one can dispute how much he suffers - for his various acts of omission and commission.
My heart went out to the poor boy when he stood at Purvi's door that evening trying to explain the famous 'kiss', and was shooed away like a pariah by Sulochana ( if Archana had been present, things would have been quite different). lf they had let him sort things out with Purvi that evening, or if Purvi had not driven him to desperation by rejecting all his calls, there would have been no need for him to turn up on a rainy night and do all of the undesirable things you have cited so correctly.
I did not, as you would remember, approve of what Arjun did at the engagement party, but you can make a case for it nonetheless. Moreover, once her initial (and entirely justified) rage had cooled down, any girl with perception and good sense would, since she had seen how he looked throughout the ceremony, have realised that something had gone horrbily wrong, and that what happened was not intentional on Arjun's part. The next logical step would be to accept his call and see what he had to say, and also how best to proceed from there. She of course does none of this, and instead sheds endless tears like the typical soap heroine.
After his major blunder at the engagement function, the main point in Arjun's favour is that he tries hard to recover lost ground, even if he is not quite there yet. In the end, he suffers more than Purvi, as he has to cope with Ovi as well whereas Purvi at least has no importunate suitor round her neck, and can cry her heart out in peace.
I have already written about why I think it was a good thing he was NOT able to bring Ovi up to date in his office yesterday, so I shall not repeat myself here. But it is evident that it is unhappiness, tension and acute restlessness, made worse by Purvi's determined refusal to let him talk to her, that makes him disregard his father's express injunction and try to tell all to Ovi in his office.
In any case, even if he had told Ovi in advance and thus headed off the 'surprise' party, the end result as far as Purvi is concerned would have been the same, tyaag and all. This is because Ovi, on getting that clarification call from Arjun, would have caught the first flight to India and would have generally raised hell. By the time the dust settled, Purvi would have realised that this was her aayi's real daughter, and then it would be but one step to the grand sacrifice.
It would have been exactly the same if he had told Purvi in advance, for she would have insisted on knowing who the girl in Canada was. Nothing could have saved poor Arjun!
I apologise for repeating myself, but it is worth noting that Arjun is now like a very tightly stretched wire, and he is going to crack up very soon under the intolerable strain. He is prone to this sort of thing, and when he really flips, he will throw all caution and propriety to the winds. So Purvi would be well advised to let him talk to her and thus head off this explosion.
As for Purvi, it will again bear repeating that she has to rise above the overpowering misery that weighs her down now, and realize that running away from or cold-shouldering Arjun is not going to help either of them. She can see how acutely miserable he is as well, and if she really loves him (and I have my doubts about how much she loves him), she would feel his suffering as acutely as her own. She would want to get him out of this slough of despond no matter how she herself feels. She has to let him talk to her at some point, and this is better done outside the office, both for privacy and for both to be able to talk their hearts out instead of having to suppress their emotions and preserve a stoic front for public consumption.
As I have said often earlier, in every relationship, there is one who loves and one who is loved. In this one, it is Purvi who is loved.
This said, one has also to remember that she is new to the ways of love (but then so is Arjun!), and is perhaps not a romantic at heart , like Arjun has proved to be in his new avatar. She has a mental straight jacket of family - with her aai-baba in front - work, responsibilities, etc. in which she is most comfortable. When she ran to the airport and cried bitterly, she was being dragged out of her comfort zone by a new and unsettling force. She was at her best in her confession scene and those that followed, but she is not of the melting in love kind at all. The realist in her - fears of what people would say, etc. - will always win out, not to speak of the penchant for Great Renunciations.
One can be quite sure that if Arjun were ever to ask her to elope with him and get married in a mandir, her refusal would be instantaneous. She is no Juliet, our dear Purvi, but we love her nonetheless! But she has to get cracking, and it is not contracts with Sehgal & Sons that will solve her (and Arjun's ) problems.
None of the above is meant to detract in any from the praise due to your post for the language, the lucidity and the cohesiveness. But then, one expects all this of you!
Shyamala
PS: I noted, with dismay, that my response is twice as long as your post. But then, being a student of literature, you must be familiar with dissertations on, say, Pride and Prejudice, that are twice as long as the book, and I am sure you will excuse me!
Originally posted by: soapwatcher1
The question is about Purvi's izzat. Is it real or mere middle class tomfoolery?
Arjun, you have another girl's ring on your finger, not just any other girl's but her sister's, yet with all pained naivete (note, I did not say nerve or audacity) you asked Purvi today, "why are you doing this to me?" We do feel for you, Arjun, we do know you are hurting but do you seriously expect Purvi to fall into your arms like a ripe plum every opportunity she gets just because you have declared undying love for her? Are you expecting her to say, "Dear Arjun, since you have promised to be mine for the next seven janams (maybe six as this janam is still up for grabs between Ovi and I), we can happily continue with our midnight trysts in the rain while you strut around with that band on your finger. In fact this can continue indefinitely until your dad chooses to return, whenever, from Australia to talk to my baba and you find the opportune moment to tell your childhood obsessed-about-you friend that you can no longer marry her. In the meantime, the girl whose ring you flaunt can drape herself all over you in front of me, I really do not mind as I know heart of hearts that you belong only to me."
Arjun, you would be ecstatic if Purvi did say this for who cares about izzat and all that mohallawalla middle class nonsense. You are Arjun, the first time in love guy, so unreasonably and completely in love, such a die-hard romantic that you truly cannot see anything beyond your love. That is a tad selfish, my lad. If you do get caught with Purvi on one of your masala pav eating jaunts, it is she who will be blamed as heart breaker and home wrecker. Ah, but we should not forget your incredulous question when she asked you on the night of the party about her izzat, "You didn't think that I would let your reputation be besmirched, did you?" Of course not, Arjun, she didn't forget that, neither did we, but you are the one that seems to have forgotten. You were the one that piled her high with those expensive gifts when she was on the verge of being engaged to someone else, so expensive and unwarranted that her fiance-to-be suspected something fishy was going on between her and you. You didn't realize that the world was watching when you asked her to come work with you all night (the MMS fiasco) or when you parked outside her house in the rain, blinking your lights for all the mohallawallas to see. Really, who cares about izzat? What a mundane, ugly word when you are flying high, intoxicated with your newly discovered love!
Yet, the night of the engagement, you had an awakening, you suddenly understood that word "izzat" in reference to your dad and to Ovi, what it would do to their reputations as the world was watching. Yes, we do understand that you love Purvi and you are under the misapprehension that two days of swearing up and down of love everlasting has built insurmountable trust between you (years of love have not done that for her parents) and that you have every right to ask her to abide by your judgement. Just like you expected her to trust your judgement before.
A bit dense, perhaps, on your part?
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