Kool's Commentary : Dec 11 PR - Page 10

Shyamala dearest, thanks for you response.

I agree with you that romantic love is very much over-rated these days and for a marriage to work, more than anything the couple needs to share respect, mutual understanding and the ability to compromise. Actually, I have said so myself many times in the forum

But when everyone complains and tells that how bad is Ovi is in the relationship, and she seems to be a bad mother, no one points out the fact how miserably Arjun has failed to to make his marriage work too. In fact, it is a merit that Arjun still loves Purvi and can't seem to move on. In essence his living in the past is an example of true love, but if Ovi complains as she has done that Purvi is an invisible being in their relationships, Ovi becomes a bad girl - she can't compromise or use her pregnancy to her advantage or she should know that Arjun never promised to love her. I am really confused why such a different scale is being used when measuring these 2 characters and no one points out Arjun's flaw in their relationship.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

My dear Kalapi,

As far as I could make out, he wanted to make a go of the relationship, but that need not mean love, and especially in his case, I am sure it did not mean love.

On the other hand, it could perfectly well have meant mutual respect, understanding, caring, and loyalty. I did not see any indication in PR, as I have seen it till now, that he promised to love Ovi, and in any case, one cannot fall in love with another person to order. If Ovi thought he was going to fall in love with her, she was foolish. I once wrote that she had bought a house with a mortgage on it, and all she could hope for was that over time, the mortgage would be paid off, but if it never was, she would just have to live with that.

In any case, I think romantic love is a highly overrated sentiment, and is much less common, even in the West, than the poets make it out to be. In India, where arranged marriages are still substantially the norm, no one thinks of love in the romantic sense, though this is not to say it cannot happen between a husband and a wife. What they aim for is a sold relationship based on the aspects I had mentioned above, plus a sense of belonging together and with their children. Hundreds of thousands of marriages the world over thrive on these foundations, and they are none the worse for the spouses not being 'in love'.

On the other hand, what Ovi could and should have done, if she wanted Arjun to care for her a lot, was to use the child, about whom he is now obviously hung up, to keep him close and involved with her. However, the way she is behaving now is calculated to produce exactly the opposite effect.

Moreover, as a mother myself, I think very poorly of any woman who cares so little for her own child. A normal mother, even one abandoned by her husband, invariably strives hard to protect her child to the maximum she can. I have seen it even in very poor women who could barely make both ends meet by working all day. Some of them had highly abusive husbands to cope with as well.

When I think of them, and look at this spoilt, self-centred brat-woman, who does nothing but complain, does not care whether she poisons her unborn child with liquor or not, and who whines that she cannot stand the baby's kicking, she makes me sick. I have read your eloquent defence of her behaviour, seconded by Kools and Varsha, but I am afraid I am nowhere near sharing it , and I am still looking for that slipper!😉

Shyamala

Bips, I agree with you that the pregnancy track is only to glorify Purvi and shown Ovi as a bad mother...it is very amateurish in my POV and as you say very one dimensional, when Ovi's situation is much more layered than Purvi (as far we know). In fact today's baby kick seems to be like little Ronaldo, tired of mother's womb, kicking himself out for a Soccer match with his arch rival😉….if children kick like that, I think all mothers could complain😔

Shyamala dear, Ovi is behaving as such because she wants attention from Arjun, as Archana said herself today. Ovi has been shown a tad bit arrogant, but pardon me; I don't find it unnatural for a supermodel, raised in a country where blowing your own trumpet is taught early in life. In fact, Indians who migrate to this great country, fails quite a bit because of their inability to do just that. We are taught more humility than is needed for our success here, where cut throat competition takes many form. To me as I have said many time, Ovi turn to be a more real characters than the leads of the show.

Anyway, no one knows if Ovi could turn around if she gets the attention that she so desperately want (except Cv) She has been rejected a lot and has ended up being the second best. That could drive any girl mad. Of course, Cvs are trying hard to destroy her character, but they have never showed her to drink before nor being cruel or a bad human being. Even though she was rude with Archana before, but who couldn't, knowing that her mother walked out on them. She needs to be the priority in Archana and Arjun's now and she could turn around a different leaf(of course, Cvs could even kill her character, who knows). Her behavior towards her own child doesn't match up simply because Teju said that she missed their mother more than anything. A child, who missed her mother so much, can't be a bad mother herself. Of course, the whole track is to simply to glorify Purvi and show a contrast even if it distasteful and unbelievable.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Kalapi my dear,

Of course Arjun is to blame too. As I wrote to bips, he should have stopped talking to his laptop, even if he never meant Ovi to hear that. He realises this now, as we could see from the way he was talking to himself at Kalighat.

But the fact is that if I was a man, and had a wife behaving like Ovi does, my first instinct would be to run away, or, failing that to shut her out by withdrawing into a shell. One sees many men like that, with shrill, acid tongued wives. Incidentally, Ovi has developed a positive flair for barbs, and some of them would be worthy of Oscar Wilde or Evelyn Waugh!

I have a feeling that even if Arjun now tries very hard to build a relationship with Ovi, she will not let it prosper, for she cares nothing for the baby. In fact, she sees it as a nuisance, not as something that she can love and who will love her back unconditionally, as bips points out. Instead, she seems to think of the baby as Arjun's weak point , and when she is enraged with him, she uses it to hit back at him and hurt him.

Do you remember Medea in the Greek tale of the Golden Fleece? She is so vengeful against her unfaithful husband Jason that she murders both their sons to get back at him. Of course Ovi is not quite up there with Medea, who was a terrible and awe-inspiring in her devilishness, but the principle of the thing is the same.

And it is not because she is 21 or 22. I think she would be the same at 40. There are any number of women who do not want children because they are afraid their figure will be spoilt! You and I would never be able to comprehend that mindset, but it exists, and I think Ovi is like that.

As for Arjun and Purvi, that is in a cul de sac, and I see no way they can get out of it. I personally feel that Purvi should stay put with Onir. Incidentally, today's scene between the two of them was very sweet, and there was a marked comfort level, especially when she laughs at him, asking him what he would be doing when another doctor would be handling her delivery, and he hems and haws. Incidentally, she calls him Onir.

I know that almost everyone (not yet me,however) believes that her baby is Arjun's , but watching them today, I found it difficult to believe that it was not their baby; the sense of shared involvement was so evident. Plus both of them refer, during the Durga Puja , to hamara bachcha.

Maybe it is wishful thinking,but Purvi is really incredibly lucky, and I think she will be much better off with Dr Onir than trying to patch up the old relationship with Arjun.Besides the point that it would be rank ingratitude if she were to summarily abandon Onir for Arjun. Not that she seems to be wanting to meet Arjun at all, quite the opposite, seeing what all she remembers after hearing his voice during her phone call with Archana.

Warm regards.

Shyamala