Some reflections on a few episodes - Page 4

Originally posted by: whynot

Hi there. I was thinking about this conversation between you and me and came back to it precisely because i realised that my very enthusiastic posts might have given the impression that i think that Catch 22 and Arms and the Man are 'great works' by 'great authors' whereas lrl is just a tv show therefore not worthy of comparison..... and it is an impression that i never wanted to give at all..... i think this entire idea of greatness is a relative one... and that a lot of prejudices decide what is considered great and what not.... as someone who enjoys indian television as much as Homer, i would never consider one form of art superior or inferior to another.... they are different, thats it. However, when i love something, be it a film, a book or music, i just cannot stop talking about it 😊.... which is why i'm on this forum, i guess 😊....

Well you are right that greatness can be relative but what is great is sort of standard. Catch-22 is a cult today whoever has read it will believe it. Even TV shows can be great like "Oprah Show" or discovery programs-see they can be great works but within the category its relative. No one can say works of Picasso are not great. But comparing with say Von Gogh can be relative.Actually greatness is derived I suppose. Liking something is acquired taste and thats relative-wuld you watch DD however great it maybe ?😆

So yesterday i just went on and on about these two texts, one a play and one a novel.... and a play is closer to a serial than a novel in certain ways.... and i guess some of my irritation with lrl showed in the way i talked about it.... but that was irritation with what is happening in lrl right now.... its was definitely not 'how can you compare a serial to a book'.... if i truly thought popular, everyday culture was not worthy of respect, i would not spend all my time, effort and enegry in watching it and discussing it!! 😊

The play and book are excellent works in themselves in their theme and portrayal of characters. All i was trying was putting across that there are shortcomings in Army. The ridiculuous scenes/story somewhere reminded me of Catch-22😆 and that triggered Arms.... There was no conscious effort to bring it forth.

Sweetie shabdon ke nahi simple absent mindedness ke 😆.... i read my post again... i had meant to write 'if i had to choose between Samay and Abhimanyu, i would choose Abhimanyu any day'.... galti se Gaurav likh diya.... a slip of the finger, a slip of mind and definitely a Freudian slip 😆 😆

did you say freuduian slip😉🤣

Yes Bluntschli's first choice is survival.... and i love him for that. Yes i would enjoy seeing Bluntschli in Abhimanyu but I do not think the lrl makers will do that however.... for one, they do not have a war in the show.... and Arms and the Man is situation driven.... so the authors would have to show a similar situation to create similar effect and similar character.

great somewhere you do agree😃, situation nahi it was more of war time or period in Bulgaria( i guess) they selected but since its a drama they needed the stationary confines.

Ok.... your list is completely crazy... just like the book 😆 😆.... tum bilkul paagal ho gayi ho!!! 😆 😆

but the charac are worth it😆 remember hungry joe loosely or vaguely similar to huda

Hmmmm.... so ma'am has been out of school for a long time?!! Just kidding.... you must have been a child prodigy to have read Catch-22 in school 😊

Aab dont pull it too much. Catch 22 sometime around passing school. Its not a tough narrative to follow. Child prodigy 😆(pulling my legs huh) ho sakta hai i was, but you werent my teacher 😭 to recongise or I would have been a celebrity today😆. I find Ludlum tough to this day😕. See the narrative has to encaptivate me thats all. read excerpts of spy princess its good.

Originally posted by: anujkpjk

well i have written so many posts abt abhi in your absence. still i would like to say something here.
abhi never wanted to join the army. he belongs to a royal family and he is a skilled swordsman and a good soldier and has been taught a lot even before entering the army. but then abhi being a prince lost out to that streak of obedience in him and joined the army on his father's request. but since he is from an influential royal family i guess the defence ministry did not give him a chance to actually fight on the battlefield and neither did abhi take up the matter seriously since he avoids violence. he stuck to music and philosophy and being intelligent chose to do detective work i guess. but i guess his insecurites which were hidden in him since a long time surfaced when the cadets compared him to raj. he thinks he did not try enough to be the best.
so now he's trying to be one but that's not going to make him happy because he will end up losing a lot of things in the process. sooner or later he will realise it is determination and a diehard spirit that counts more than winning tests. as a member has mentioned rajveer is on the path of self-awareness and abhi on the path of self-realisation. i still hope he does not turn villain.

Thanks for writing posts on Abhi!...

I agree with almost all that you are saying about Abhi, though i really do not understand the fine line of difference between self-awareness and self-realisation.

As for turning villain, as long as he acts well, i really do not care whether he plays villain or hero.... i do feel however that lrl will need some hero after Rajeev leaves, so ideally they should use Gaurav's potential to play the hero to the fullest...

Good to read your response! Great to be back!

Originally posted by: spian

Well you are right that greatness can be relative but what is great is sort of standard. Catch-22 is a cult today whoever has read it will believe it. Even TV shows can be great like "Oprah Show" or discovery programs-see they can be great works but within the category its relative. No one can say works of Picasso are not great. But comparing with say Von Gogh can be relative.Actually greatness is derived I suppose. Liking something is acquired taste and thats relative-wuld you watch DD however great it maybe ?😆

Yes i agree that there are standards by which works are judged.... but these standards are frequently constructed ones and reflect popular opinion, prejudice, ideology etc. If i think ABC is a great movie/actor/serial, this preference will say a lot about me.... as much about me as about the moive/actor/serial in question. Thats why i agree completely that liking something is an acquired taste....

did you say freuduian slip😉🤣

Completely Freudian slip 😉 😆..... yes i do admit that!

great somewhere you do agree😃, situation nahi it was more of war time or period in Bulgaria( i guess) they selected but since its a drama they needed the stationary confines.

I agree that they needed stationary confines being a play.... but Lrl will find it difficult to incorporate Bluntschli without a war-like situation.... thats what i meant.

but the charac are worth it😆 remember hungry joe loosely or vaguely similar to huda

😆 😆 Yes the characters are definitely worth it!

Aab dont pull it too much. Catch 22 sometime around passing school. Its not a tough narrative to follow. Child prodigy 😆(pulling my legs huh) ho sakta hai i was, but you werent my teacher 😭 to recongise or I would have been a celebrity today😆. I find Ludlum tough to this day😕. See the narrative has to encaptivate me thats all. read excerpts of spy princess its good.

Ya if i'd been your teacher, prodigy, you may not have been on the path to celebrityhood but would definitely have been on the path to studying literature 😆 😆.... havent read spy princess.... whats it about?

Originally posted by: vinnu-gaurav

OMG...OMG...
How much i've missed on...since the time i joined India forums and JUST VISITED CFC...of course Gaurav's only!!
Now i realise that all the "intellectual action has been here"!! 🤢
Great piece of work , 👏 i must say, it made me question my credibility too, as a real (am I??) fan of Gaurav!!
Being blindly in love with him, I dont get so judgemental on the characters he plays and WHY they appeal to me!! Now, i realise that the fact that Gaurav becomes Abhimanyu 😊 ,rather than that he plays Abhimanyu, makes fans like us , defend even characters like ARC. 😃
I believe now that no one else cud have been more suitable , as an ARTIST to have sketched out such characterisation, than Gaurav!!

Hi. First of all, welcome to all the 'intellectual action' 😆 😆

But one clarification: I do not defend Abhimanyu because Gaurav plays him.... i like making sense of characters..... why they do what they do, how does it shape them, what are the various ways in which they respond to the events happening in their world etc.... and that is what i do in my posts here. I honestly do not care if Abhimanyu is a hero or a villain as long as he is an interesting character to watch and analyse.

So does Gaurav contribute in any way: Yes he does.... because he is a good actor, he makes certain thoughts visible... which is essential to good acting (of course, truly brilliant acting is making thoughts, reactions etc invisible and therefore visible and arresting.... but thats the Western conception of acting).... by making the things going on in a character's mind visible, Gaurav becomes an exciting actor... becuase then i am able to analyse the character at length and in detail, at more than one level, because Gaurav is playing him at more than one level. Thats why i end up analysing characters played by Gaurav....

Usually, especially on Indian television, people do not get complex characters to perform.... if they do, sometimes they underperform, by exploring just one or two aspects of that character.... sometimes, people make things more complex than they should be.... I like the way Gaurav usually pitches his role, he doesnt overperform when not required.... though with Abhimanyu the pitch has varied quite a bit.

You know am very very tempted to use an example here from Aisa Des Hai Mera.... but lirh will kill me if i do that.... so will use an example from lrl instead.

Start counting:

a) Abhimanyu is a prince who is not comfortable with his heritage and who has joined the army to please his father.

b) He loves music and used to believe in non violence, which means that he is always somewhat of an outsider in the army.

c) He had come to KMA to discover who killed Naveen... he found it was Captain Rajveer who did that and after an initial phase of anger and emotional upheaval, he tried to see things from his point of view and managed to do that. He even showed Naina Captain Rajveer's point of view. At the same time, there must be the sense of having failed in his mission.... of still not knowing anything further about Naveen's death, of not clearing Naveen's name, of reaching a dead end without really coming any closer to punishing the spies who framed Naveen.... so an uncomfortable sense of closure as far as this issue is concerned.

d) His complicated relationship with Captain Rajveer... he loves and respects him.... at the same time he makes Capt. Rajveer the standard by which he will judge his own self.... (which is also the biggest compliment you can pay someone, by the way).... the unmentioned past with the ghost of Nandini hovering somewhere.... the sense of insecurity and jealousy alongwith an ability to appreciate the person who makes you insecure and jealous.... thus its a complicated relationship.

e) Finally, his relationship with his own self is so complicated right now... he had made some choices and decisions in life, all of which he is questioning right now... he has to now make new choices, new decisions.... will he stay true to the person he always was or will he become a different person, meaner, edgier, more ruthless?

These are just five layers to the character of Abhimanyu that i have outlined above....very few characters on tv have five layers, most have one or two.... but in lrl almost all the characters have multiple layers to them..... to come back to Abhimanyu, these layers make him interesting.... thats why i write posts on him. 😊

And each and every one of these layers is visible because Gaurav is a good actor....and the little i have come to know him through his posts at IF have convinced me that he is a good actor because he puts thought into his acting.... in his case its not spontaneous or removed from thought, as it may be in the case of other good actors.... anyway he does his job well and thats why i write posts on him. 😊

As simple as that... I'm not blindly in love.... neither with Abhimanyu nor with Gaurav. 😊 But yes i do agree with you that another actor may not have done justice to the character of Abhimanyu 😊

Originally posted by: superbike

Wow Shvetal !!!! you became IF-dazzler 😊 .... dun forget to check your name in top 100 IF addicts... 😉.... Long live Gaurav Chopraa, India Forums and summer vacations... 😊

Haan haan Teena main bhi IF dazzler ban gayi!!! Yahi toh life ke achievements hote hai 😆 😆 Tum bilkul sahi kah rahi ho....

Long live India Forums... otherwise where would i write all these unbearably long posts!

Long live summer vacations.... jisse mornings aur afternoon mein bhi tumhe mujhse koi chutkaara nahi mila!

Long live Gaurav Chopraa.... for sustaining an initial and random interest on my part by consistently performing well and therefore ensuring that i kepr writing tomes on IF!

Originally posted by: superbike

Wow Shvetal !!!! you became IF-dazzler 😊 .... dun forget to check your name in top 100 IF addicts... 😉.... Long live Gaurav Chopraa, India Forums and summer vacations... 😊

Teena i checked my name in the top 100 IF addicts.... and my name isnt there 😛....

So you see abhi toh bahut manzilen baaki hai 😆.... have 'miles to write before i sleep' 😆