Agree. mala's characterization is not being revealed properly and causing this angst. From what we see so far, I am not a fan of her behavior or choices...something is missing in the characterization of mala
a woman who decided to end the marriage because it was meaningless , choose to be happy , choose to mother a random girl can either be a and self centered manipulator or a nice souleither ways she cant be clueless , she cant be this weakshe can be either a go getter (then there shouldnt be any self pity )or she is as nice as paro believes her to be (then she should gather by now any attempts of paro to mend her relationship is putting both paro and rudra into captive situation like you mentioned)feeling guilty for leaving rudra i understand , but this doesnt explain mala behavior completely , i see a flaw here in writting the character of mala , she is neither positive or negative as of now
RR seems to be showing this to us it seems (or atleast I hope) :-)