Posted:
episode 264
his hands tied behind back move. he looks like he is gone... but i have seen those hands. his abductors speak among themselves as he sits seemingly unconscious. suddenly the eyes open. rocky walks in... what's in asr's eyes. rocky answers his phone leaving him with special diabetes dawai... little eye movements... i feel alive.
eyelids go up just a tad and a gaze is fixed on the back of the kidnapper. rocky looks at asr and leaves. camera comes close and pans around. then it comes smoothly in, changing the feel of the whole scene, its the asr signature tune. a slight zany tilt to camera...
he works on the ropes, he has managed to cut them using some mysterious thing... i don't care what... look at that jawline. and that gussa in every cell look.
he's free... yes. didn't say a word... took the whole episode.
as i watched this powerful, concentrated performance of barun as asr, questions about the man himself rose in my mind.
wanted to just mull over something.
why asr said what he said. i have thoughts running in my head for a while.
on asia sat too i think his "khushi, i love you" was aired recently. i keep reading that he said what he did because of the uncertainty of the hour, perhaps because he knows he is close to death. i keep thinking, yes that, but really there was more and something very asr to it.
if i go back to the fight on the terrace and then the bridge and then the aftermath of it... there are two people greatly suffering. this is something abhorrent to him, having to actually speak of that judgment shattering, completely destructive scene on the terrace, that chap gaya hai dimag mein, mit nahin sakta moment that has torn him apart...
yet maybe that fight had to happen if this "khushi, i love you" had to be reached.
the bitterness coursing through him but bottled up more than a month had to erupt and flow out... free up a little space within. so he could think a bit more clearly, feel something.
for too long his being has been in the grip of a sadness, a betrayal that has created a break between him and life... it has untethered him from joy and happiness, sometimes from almost a sense of life itself. this world means nothing to him... as he tells his sister a couple of times... everything is about her. meri duniya toh aap ho.
he tries to focus every ounce of energy on creating an impregnable fortress of power and money that no one can destroy ever and throw their lives into free fall again.
arrogant and brusque he might seem, but as his sister notes, his eyes speak of someone else within, the one he hides from everyone. it is not easy being asr, but he is not looking for anyone's pity... or even understanding.
most of all, he is not asking for any personal happiness.
just the space to be who he is, live his own life.
and in the midst of this, one fine evening a girl falls into his arms. somehow from the word go the interaction is heightened... he tries to walk away from her... but that is not to happen... and things keep occurring till we arrive at that moment when he connects his heartbeat to her name...
"khushi..."
as soon as he realises what it is he is feeling, he does something absolutely like him. he sets out to pursue the matter. he makes sure he is the one going to khushi's house with things the next morning and oh that smile on his face when he sees her...
he is a guy who acts...when he realises something. not one to tarry at at all. a man of action.
and so, post terrace he acts again... this time racked with pain but yet unable to throw away that feeling he has for her. the feeling lodges itself in him now in the guise of hate... you can call an emotion anything... but it is what it is.
he forces her to marry him... he hurts her. but he can't sustain that for too long... that feeling has a way of staying alive, showing...
but at the same time the "chot" he can't speak of grows and chokes him. a difficult enough chot it would have been anyway, but how much more unbearable it is for one who had lived in pain for so long, who had never believed there could be happiness for him... a fairly austere grey brown black white world at a personal level and he is content with working hard and seeing his sister happy... but now he had dared to hope for happiness... for himself. oh maybe that's why he slowed down and prolonged the anticipation a bit, enjoying the delicious, delicate, heady feeling...
but before anything could happen, within less than a day in fact, it was all taken and twisted to something terrible.
how could he speak of this thing? and yet circumstances propelled him to the point where he did.
post which, he was almost beside himself with pain as was she. they both mean just too much to each other. so much that when he thinks she is a loose woman he must bridle her to him and when she hears what he thinks of her she can only think of his pain and how he must not think so badly of her... because baat aapki hai...
they spend a couple of really difficult days. and the one night together... he insists she sleep in the room, on the bed, and no arguments. he will not explain anything to her, he won't listen to her but he can't bear her rearranging his room again and taking all signs of herself away.
again in that action taking way of his, he is leaving for london in the midst of all this... perhaps he really can't bear the turmoil within. persistently, he is reminded of a khushi with joy in her, her usual sanka, her madness, he hates to see her down and listless.
then the airport scene. he smiles almost when he sees her... then tries to walk away, but can't... shayad mera dil tumhe pukarta hai?
twice he returns... and finally when nothing works he leaves, but before that he says perhaps kahin na kahin he had hoped she would be able to prove her innocence. he had wanted her to... that in itself is a huge thing for asr to say.
he was feeling churned and helpless in his own way maybe...
as he walked away from her and that air of finality all around... in that slow long walk through the airport his emotions didn't settle, he in a way couldn't walk away from his feelings... and then a simple question, kyun mujhe khushi se door jaane mein itni taqleef ho rahi hai... words to that affect. why is it hurting me so much to leave khushi and go away.
i think he stopped then... and began to turn around.
the precise moment when he was waylaid...
why do i get the feeling, asr had worked out a little conundrum there, he had realised that no matter what... even if she could not prove her innocence, he loved her.
and being asr, maybe he needed to act on that.
the phone call did not materialise at his bidding. circumstances forced shyam to get him to make a call to the family and reassure all. and maybe he decided somewhere that he would take the opportunity to tell her what he was now ready to.
the "khushi, i love you" was as much a result of that thing in asr to act as it is due to the spectre of mortality staring at him down a revolver's barrel. had he in fact reached london safe and sound, i have a feeling he'd still have found the quickest way to let her know he loved her.
because as he said much later to her, that is all that matters... that has matlab... that he loves her, dammit.
somehow i can't bring myself to believe had he not been kidnapped, he would have hung around doing sundry things while fully realising, why leaving khushi was giving his so much taqleef.
what he succumbed and submitted to was a feeling... his heart over his head.
and he reached out to her and in his way said that baat aapki hai had registered, that he was okay, he was fine, she must not cry... it was somehow all about her and his feelings for her, about reaching her, perhaps the way she had been trying to reach him... and he wanted to tell her what he had so longed to tell her once, now he was not going to let anything stop him, now that he knew even betrayal did not matter, only this did. yes, in all of this, rocky's swagger was useful but was it instrumental?
i may be quite unclear... but somehow an asr who speaks of his love only because he may not see her again and this could be it, does not sit well with me. not this man.
the rest of the episode had khushi taking risks and mami loving nephew and strategising. interestingly they showed a silhouette of shyam much like the one used in the teej "reveal" sequence. maybe this was another reveal of another face of shyam... i wondered if he had planned on khushi following him... he had noticed she was not quite herself... maybe she had guessed something... shyam wanted to get her off his back perhaps. but i am not sure really. khushi showed she had presence of mind when she went into offence is the best defence mode... and there was something ridiculous yet sinister in seeing a man who looked like a boring but harmless middle school geography teacher with a gun.
but really, nothing really cut any ice with me, other than two hands moving determinedly, freeing themselves.
his hands tied behind back move. he looks like he is gone... but i have seen those hands. his abductors speak among themselves as he sits seemingly unconscious. suddenly the eyes open. rocky walks in... what's in asr's eyes. rocky answers his phone leaving him with special diabetes dawai... little eye movements... i feel alive.
eyelids go up just a tad and a gaze is fixed on the back of the kidnapper. rocky looks at asr and leaves. camera comes close and pans around. then it comes smoothly in, changing the feel of the whole scene, its the asr signature tune. a slight zany tilt to camera...
he works on the ropes, he has managed to cut them using some mysterious thing... i don't care what... look at that jawline. and that gussa in every cell look.
he's free... yes. didn't say a word... took the whole episode.
as i watched this powerful, concentrated performance of barun as asr, questions about the man himself rose in my mind.
wanted to just mull over something.
why asr said what he said. i have thoughts running in my head for a while.
on asia sat too i think his "khushi, i love you" was aired recently. i keep reading that he said what he did because of the uncertainty of the hour, perhaps because he knows he is close to death. i keep thinking, yes that, but really there was more and something very asr to it.
if i go back to the fight on the terrace and then the bridge and then the aftermath of it... there are two people greatly suffering. this is something abhorrent to him, having to actually speak of that judgment shattering, completely destructive scene on the terrace, that chap gaya hai dimag mein, mit nahin sakta moment that has torn him apart...
yet maybe that fight had to happen if this "khushi, i love you" had to be reached.
the bitterness coursing through him but bottled up more than a month had to erupt and flow out... free up a little space within. so he could think a bit more clearly, feel something.
for too long his being has been in the grip of a sadness, a betrayal that has created a break between him and life... it has untethered him from joy and happiness, sometimes from almost a sense of life itself. this world means nothing to him... as he tells his sister a couple of times... everything is about her. meri duniya toh aap ho.
he tries to focus every ounce of energy on creating an impregnable fortress of power and money that no one can destroy ever and throw their lives into free fall again.
arrogant and brusque he might seem, but as his sister notes, his eyes speak of someone else within, the one he hides from everyone. it is not easy being asr, but he is not looking for anyone's pity... or even understanding.
most of all, he is not asking for any personal happiness.
just the space to be who he is, live his own life.
and in the midst of this, one fine evening a girl falls into his arms. somehow from the word go the interaction is heightened... he tries to walk away from her... but that is not to happen... and things keep occurring till we arrive at that moment when he connects his heartbeat to her name...
"khushi..."
as soon as he realises what it is he is feeling, he does something absolutely like him. he sets out to pursue the matter. he makes sure he is the one going to khushi's house with things the next morning and oh that smile on his face when he sees her...
he is a guy who acts...when he realises something. not one to tarry at at all. a man of action.
and so, post terrace he acts again... this time racked with pain but yet unable to throw away that feeling he has for her. the feeling lodges itself in him now in the guise of hate... you can call an emotion anything... but it is what it is.
he forces her to marry him... he hurts her. but he can't sustain that for too long... that feeling has a way of staying alive, showing...
but at the same time the "chot" he can't speak of grows and chokes him. a difficult enough chot it would have been anyway, but how much more unbearable it is for one who had lived in pain for so long, who had never believed there could be happiness for him... a fairly austere grey brown black white world at a personal level and he is content with working hard and seeing his sister happy... but now he had dared to hope for happiness... for himself. oh maybe that's why he slowed down and prolonged the anticipation a bit, enjoying the delicious, delicate, heady feeling...
but before anything could happen, within less than a day in fact, it was all taken and twisted to something terrible.
how could he speak of this thing? and yet circumstances propelled him to the point where he did.
post which, he was almost beside himself with pain as was she. they both mean just too much to each other. so much that when he thinks she is a loose woman he must bridle her to him and when she hears what he thinks of her she can only think of his pain and how he must not think so badly of her... because baat aapki hai...
they spend a couple of really difficult days. and the one night together... he insists she sleep in the room, on the bed, and no arguments. he will not explain anything to her, he won't listen to her but he can't bear her rearranging his room again and taking all signs of herself away.
again in that action taking way of his, he is leaving for london in the midst of all this... perhaps he really can't bear the turmoil within. persistently, he is reminded of a khushi with joy in her, her usual sanka, her madness, he hates to see her down and listless.
then the airport scene. he smiles almost when he sees her... then tries to walk away, but can't... shayad mera dil tumhe pukarta hai?
twice he returns... and finally when nothing works he leaves, but before that he says perhaps kahin na kahin he had hoped she would be able to prove her innocence. he had wanted her to... that in itself is a huge thing for asr to say.
he was feeling churned and helpless in his own way maybe...
as he walked away from her and that air of finality all around... in that slow long walk through the airport his emotions didn't settle, he in a way couldn't walk away from his feelings... and then a simple question, kyun mujhe khushi se door jaane mein itni taqleef ho rahi hai... words to that affect. why is it hurting me so much to leave khushi and go away.
i think he stopped then... and began to turn around.
the precise moment when he was waylaid...
why do i get the feeling, asr had worked out a little conundrum there, he had realised that no matter what... even if she could not prove her innocence, he loved her.
and being asr, maybe he needed to act on that.
the phone call did not materialise at his bidding. circumstances forced shyam to get him to make a call to the family and reassure all. and maybe he decided somewhere that he would take the opportunity to tell her what he was now ready to.
the "khushi, i love you" was as much a result of that thing in asr to act as it is due to the spectre of mortality staring at him down a revolver's barrel. had he in fact reached london safe and sound, i have a feeling he'd still have found the quickest way to let her know he loved her.
because as he said much later to her, that is all that matters... that has matlab... that he loves her, dammit.
somehow i can't bring myself to believe had he not been kidnapped, he would have hung around doing sundry things while fully realising, why leaving khushi was giving his so much taqleef.
what he succumbed and submitted to was a feeling... his heart over his head.
and he reached out to her and in his way said that baat aapki hai had registered, that he was okay, he was fine, she must not cry... it was somehow all about her and his feelings for her, about reaching her, perhaps the way she had been trying to reach him... and he wanted to tell her what he had so longed to tell her once, now he was not going to let anything stop him, now that he knew even betrayal did not matter, only this did. yes, in all of this, rocky's swagger was useful but was it instrumental?
i may be quite unclear... but somehow an asr who speaks of his love only because he may not see her again and this could be it, does not sit well with me. not this man.
the rest of the episode had khushi taking risks and mami loving nephew and strategising. interestingly they showed a silhouette of shyam much like the one used in the teej "reveal" sequence. maybe this was another reveal of another face of shyam... i wondered if he had planned on khushi following him... he had noticed she was not quite herself... maybe she had guessed something... shyam wanted to get her off his back perhaps. but i am not sure really. khushi showed she had presence of mind when she went into offence is the best defence mode... and there was something ridiculous yet sinister in seeing a man who looked like a boring but harmless middle school geography teacher with a gun.
but really, nothing really cut any ice with me, other than two hands moving determinedly, freeing themselves.
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