Folks,
On Friday last, I sat, or rather endured thru 24 :08 minutes of mind-numbing nonsense watching a heedless, self-centred youngster drive his mother to tears and his father to near despair as he insisted on making a bali ka bakra of himself to save his criminal foster brother from his well deserved punishment. I did it in the faint hope that there might, just might be salvation in the end, and this time, I was rewarded.
The 5:46 minutes of Alexander (which is par for the course for him, for as I noted in my last thread, he gets only about 20% of the telecast time, less than is given to Puru's wavy locks and slo mo strides) that rounded off the episode were manna from Heaven!
As those who read my post A hatchet job on Alexander? , would remember, I was afraid that with the baby killing scene, the demonization of Porus' antagonist had begun. It now seems that I was wrong, at least for now.
Alexander's revulsion at Olympias having used black magic to fuddle Arridaeus's brains was instant and strong, and he had made this quite plain to his mother in a manner that I had then felt was too harsh. It did not matter then to Alexander that Arridaeus had made an attempt on his life; he would not stoop to such underhand methods.
Innate nobility
The Friday closing segment made it clear that this display of an innate nobility was no flash in the pan. It is an integral part of Alexander's mental make up. He still feels guilty about what had been done to Arridaeus. Pehle hi Arridaeus ki zindagi barbad ho chuki, jiski wajah main hoon. Which other king would make such a confession?
His sharp warning that there should not, in the future, be even a kharonch (scratch) on Arridaeus, could not have been more blunt: Sab gaur se sunein...Agar kisi ne bhi...- and his eyes rake the assemblage, lingering just an instant longer on Olympias - aur kisi ka matlab kisi ne bhi, mere hukum ki nafarmani ki, to use mere sile (?) ka saamna karna padega.
At one stroke, he makes it abundantly clear who is master, and Olympias stands warned against attempts at backseat driving. More to the point, all those present too realise that this young man is no pushover, that he can neither be manipulated nor conned into doing anything against his will, and that he will brook no flouting of his orders.
And yet all this is done with a silken deftness that would have made a seasoned diplomat proud. Alexander does not give any indication that he realises it was his mother who had ordered Arridaeus killed, and he sweeps the whole issue aside with a self-assured skill that exposes no faultlines that outsiders could exploit.
The high priestess of the Delphic Oracle seems disturbed when the sunlight fades after Alexander announces his intention to conquer Bharat, but not he, now raring to teach rebellious Thebes and Athens the lesson of their lives. As the episode ends on a close up shot of Alexander, his golden hair slicked back and confined by his coronet, the sharp planes of his face making it look narrower than usual, the eyes glowing at the prospect of the battles ahead, he looks for all the world like a noble bird of prey, a king eagle about to take flight.
The casting director should get a solid round of applause, for he or she has found the perfect Alexander in Rohit Purohit.
Porus: a heedless martyr
I have no desire to relive those 24 :08 minutes, which set my teeth on edge, so I shall just post a few questions that occurred to me. Many or all of them might have occurred to you too.
Q1: How is it that Puru thinks only of his Baba Ripudaman, and what he owes to him, and not at all of his mother, or, more important, of what would happen to his beloved mathrubhoomi if he were to be executed in order to save Hasti? Yes, he will realise this last tonight, like a tubelight with a faulty choke😡, and of course he will somehow escape his capital sentence, for the titular hero cannot die in Episode 91! Hamari show ke itne bhi bure din nahin aaye hain.😉
Q2: How come all and sundry troop after Bamni into Kanishka's sickroom? Not only Puru and Anasuya, which can be understood, but Darius and Barsine, and even Hasti and Pritha!!! It was exactly like the drawing room scenes in any Ekta Kapoor soap, where every member of the cast squeezes himself or herself into the shot regardless of propriety.
Q3: How come an outsider, Darius, is allowed to take and hold centre stage in what is, all said and done, a family affair for the Paurav royals?
Q4. Most important of all, how come Anasuya does not resort to the time-honoured ploy beloved of the script writers of our soaps, the mere sar ki saugandh, to force Puru to tell the truth? All she had to do was to grab his hand, put it on her head, which is at a conveniently lower height😉, and demand that he fess up. He would have been cornered. But the foolish woman does no such thing.
Q5: Finally, a prahar is about three hours. Assuming a 12 hour night, this would mean 4 prahars. 50 lashes per prahar would mean 200 lashes at the very least. Most able bodied men cannot stand even a 100 lashes. Puru would have been dead at the end of 200 lashes. But there he is the next morning, looking as fresh as a daisy, bar an artistically placed streak of blood on the right side of his mouth.How come?
I liked it that Bamni held out to the bitter end, and fought hard to make Puru back off. He seemed to have hardly listened to that long, vicious harangue from Darius, for at the end of it he again asks Puru Kya tum ab bhi kahoge ki Rajkumar Kanishk ke praan lene ka prayaas tumne kiya hai ?, and shuts Kanishka up bluntly when he protests. But his despairing attempts founder on the rock of his son's bullheadedness, as Hasti smirks in the background and Pritha looks curiously disturbed. Maybe, just maybe, she will crack up and tell the truth, though I would not bet on it.
If you happen to read this post and enjoy it, do hit the Like button. I always want to know my readers! Also, please do not mind if I do not respond to any comments at once. This post has taken a toll on my arthritic fingers, and they need a rest. But I will get around to them as soon as I can.
Shyamala Aunty (for most of you, or whatever else you prefer)
Channel V Dil Dosti Dance
