Folks,
I had a queer feeling as I watched today's episode. It was like a patchwork quilt, bits and pieces of unconnected segments sewn together without even any attempt to make a pattern. Worse, it seemed to have been left in a state of suspension (not suspense), like Trishanku, so that one cannot even guess whether it will go up from here or down.
Ovi: The 'attempt' at suicide ends up like a cracker that fails to ignite. There is not even the mandatory hospital scene, with an operation thrown in for good measure, and the doctor declaring in solemn tones that there had been a lot of loss of blood. I felt quite cheated when Teju patched her up out of the first aid box. Nothing more, not even Savita berating Archana for having precipitated this wrist cutting by her 'insensitivity and selfishness'. A little later, Ovi cuts off Punni in the middle of her attempt to persuade Ovi to go in for Round 2, and tells her to stay off.
Now where does this get us? There is none of the impact of an Ovi suicide attempt on Purvi, and perhaps even on the Arjun-Purvi marriage, that we had expected and feared. Nor do we have any hint that Ovi has decided to move on in her life, so that we can cross her off our threat list for Arjun-Purvi. She is still there, neither in nor out.
Arjun-Purvi: Next, take the Arjun-Purvi scenes - the restaurant, the dance and the shopping.
The first was an anticlimax. In that sense, the precap yesterday was pure and simple cheating, for the look on Purvi's face in it was so abstracted and glazed over that it almost promised something of a crisis ahead. And what actually happened? Nothing more than the gender equality version of Arjun saying, in every other scene of theirs, that having her come into his life was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, and that because of her, and her alone, he had met this 'other Arjun'. So now Purvi says, for all the world like a little girl repeating a well learnt line in a school play, that she feels so happy when he is with her that she cannot find the words to describe it. Arjun does not even look suitably elated at this rare encomium from his affianced bride-to-be.
The dance was very nice, but (a) it was too short (b) there was none of the charming and disarming chat they had during the Pune dance and (c) Purvi still seems to be very stiff and not at all like an accredited fiancee.
She is, to start with, incomprehensibly reluctant to dance, almost as if he was suggesting something disreputable. Then she does not move towards him at all, and Arjun has to place her hand on his shoulder and all the rest. It was more like a reluctant debutante than a girl in love. Poor Arjun has got his work cut out for him before he gets her round to dancing cheek to cheek with him !
If they decided to throw in a dance, why not make a good job of it? There is no romantic tension between them now as there was in the Pune dance, so there should have been at least a little more of action on the dance floor. This one was so slow it looked arthritic. After all, this was not the Senior Citizens Night Out (though I am sure I could do a lot better than this any day) ! A few nifty moves from his JDJ repertoire (Arjun Kirloskar could surely have taken a few dancing lessons, could he not?), and at least a bit of swirling around would not have come amiss.
Then again, they are now engaged and going to be married very soon, and they love each other a lot. So why are they still not easy and openly affectionate with each other? They do not whisper to each other, or hold hands (unless Arjun is dragging her along), and she never clings to his arm or leans on his shoulder. A little PDA would have been appropriate (I am sure Trish would approve this time!), but their body language is like something out of 1950, not 2012. If only Laurie could have a go at them!
The shopping expedition is a downmarket washout. What is it with that cheap pale yellow saree? I would not have touched it with a barge pole at any age, and this is for a bride at a pre-wedding function? Has AK never seen a top end Kanjeevaram saree or a zardozi outfit ? I could not see any point in the trip to the mall at all, except for Arjun to declare, in a tone reminiscent of the old AK, that as Purvi was going to become the wife of Arjun Kirloskar, and she could wear a new saree every day. (No, there was a more important point, I forgot the inhouse advt for the shop, Max, which I think they showed in the Pune episode as well. I was only surprised that they both did not drink green tea in the restaurant, seeing that is the latest in the endorsement list for Balaji!)
Yes, and Purvi wears that magenta and blue-green lunch-with-Vishnu outfit for the 36th time, cross my heart.
So, except for one's spirit soaring with the unexpected revival of Dil kyon ye mera shor kare just when we were expecting Hai Rabba or Aahatein, there was nothing at all either new or of substance, positive or negative, between our boy and girl, though they took up over 60% of the running time. It almost seems as if the CVs did not know quite what to do with them while they decided their subsequent fate, and so they made them jump thru all these familiar hoops.
At the end of this episode, which should have been a curtain-raiser for high drama in all the three strands of PR – the divorce, the kidnapping case, and the Arjun-Purvi wedding – there was not the slightest hint of what to expect. And it looked less like suspense, and more like confusion at the top of the PR set up.
We still have no idea if Purvi has listened to Archana and her mother talking about Ovi's offer to Archana, and if so, how that is going to affect her behaviour next week. We do not know if she has really given up on trying to stop the divorce, and what, if anything, she plans to do on Monday when the divorce hearing comes up, for she does not discuss any of that with Arjun in terms of tactics. Just as we have no idea how or if she is going to follow up on her advocacy of Vishnu as an 'achcha bachcha', who was 'like one of us'. Nor of how, or even if, that is going to be translated into any action by her in the court. In any case, they have forgotten about Vishnu and his entourage for the last 2 episodes.
Archana-Manav: This segment is less of a rehash but more of a irritant.It gets on one's nerves to see these endless efforts by Archana (and Purvi) to rope Manav into 'one big happy family' at the Arjun-Purvi wedding. It is pointless and insensitive, but they keep at it regardless.This time Archana presses him to attend at least one function even if he does not do the kanyadaan. Manav sets her right on all counts,without rancour but with a gentle finality that is dignified and definitive. He does not criticize her for the unnecessary town hall meeting for handing over the wedding invitation, but it is clear what he thinks of it and of its consequences.
This segment and the precap are meant to lead up to the divorce hearing on Monday (already? 15 days seem to have shrunk to 3; perhaps the CVs have a different calendar that shrinks and expands to suit them!). When we know so little about what lies ahead under the other 2 heads, one can hardly complain about the opaqueness wrt the divorce.
My take, for what it is worth, is that the divorce will go thru, and as and when PR if winding up and all is sweetness and light, they will simply get married again. For one thing, it would be third time lucky, and then there can be a Mahaepisode for it!
See what I meant by a patchwork and Trishanku? I suspect that the final lines for all three segments for the next 2 weeks have not yet been decided by the top bosses – they would have shot alternative tracks - and so this Friday they opted for a confusing, and probably misleading filler episode, which leaves us no wiser on any count but a good deal more exasperated.
Just one thing, I too, like Archana and Jyothi (if we could be the Three Musketeers, they would be Aramis and Porthos to my Athos) and Laurie as well, cannot bring myself to believe that the wedding will actually take place next week or immediately thereafter. This would not only sideline our lovebirds, which would be bad for us but, more important for the CVs, it would also remove a major plot device that could have been used to prolong the life of PR. I thus expect a last minute hitch to derail the event for a while, but hopefully not permanently. So we still might have Hai Rabba and Aahatein after all!
Shyamala B.Cowsik.
Arjun
