Posted:
episode 289
"chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails."
~~~ clarence darrow ~~~
"... ooka kidnap hui gawa..."
with this dramatic declaration by mami ji started the episode that would go into the revelation of kidnap and in fact, intent to murder, before the raizada family.
i watched the episode quite fascinated i have to say. i knew what had bothered me by the end of the three episode sequence where asr never spoke. but on the first day, the structure seemed interesting.
looking at the placing of people in the frame... the movements of various persons or their staying in fixed positions, the parallel with chess has come up again and again.
i don't much understand the game, though i have played it a couple of times. but the sense of game... a game where moves will matter like hell, and the board can turn swiftly and disconcertingly did come through.
what it all most reminded me of was the hindi movie court room drama, if i may guffaw and add, wigs and blind lady justice included. only that the lady was more blind than just and all too human in the end.
khushi and shyam were like the two lawyers holding their brief, she the prosecutor, he the defence guy. they were fighting their own case. anjali was the one they both homed in on to convince of the details of the case. in a way, she was the judge.
the others were the spectators and jury both, and though we don't have the jury system in our courts... there was that element here. their opinion counted.
two witnesses really...
the first was the prosecution witness who turned... my sweet manorama. at last i understood why they made khushi come up with the goofy plan of asking shyam to divorce anjali. mami, already feeling distanced and shut out, would see this game through her binoculars, somehow through those she never sees the truth, does she. and she will stop trusting khsuhi entirely.
the second was the witness named after the ultimate game player... nand kishore, nk... in his clean guileless "sakha" form. he will remain true.
and there was asr, a bit away from it all, even maybe a bit above. the silent one who watched the proceedings, who perhaps doesn't want to be perceived as taking sides, knowing the two most important people in his life are involved and this denouement could be catastrophic for both or one of them.
what intrigued me about how it was all told:
the girl who had convinced the skeptic that the issue is not about rational truth or falsehood, it's a matter of vishwas or faith... life brought her to a point where she she had to grapple with truth... sach. she had to prove it. everything in fact depended on it.
perhaps khushi has come to the end of her tether. i think everything went haywire in her when she realised the plan was to kill asr. kidnap she could maybe still deal with, but the death of arnav ji? if i see it from that angle, i can understand her needing to bring all of it out finally. and sanaya looked tired, almost hysterical, hellbent on getting the culprit exposed. something natural in that.
she confirmed it was a kidnap, she said it wasn't for ransom, she revealed the terrible plan... they meant to kill arnav ji. during the course of the episode she also explained, the whole thing was about property.
suddenly, khushi who had kept so many things hidden, seemed absolutely desperate to have everything out in the open. can't blame her. two crazy weeks and actually watching someone contemplate burning your husband down can take anyone to the edge where you break free of social norms and checks and say, enough!
as many questions flew around and asr realised his sister needed to be calmed down, the basic design of the "trial" got going. khushi spoke... mami created little hurdles while shyam played the slimy lawyer to the hilt, rendering all evidence inadmissible on some pretext or the other.
today, asr might have let things be, but not khushi...
"haan, di, yeh sach hai," yes, di, this is true, with that khushi brought up sach/truth for the first time that day.
shyam was the one to say jhoot/lie and saboot/proof first.
she knew whom the truth would effect the most, so on halting yet determined steps she moved straight to anjali and held her hand, and she said,
di, hum jaantey hain ki hamrai sach kahne se aapko bahut dukh hoga
bahut taqleef bhi hogi
lekin ab humse aur bardasht nahin hota
humey aapko sach batana hi hoga
aur...
aur ss...ssach yeh hai ke...
her tongue trembled on the sach... it was so difficult to actually reveal the truth.
mami butted in. don't start another ramayan, phatti saree. ramayan, hmmm... i had to think, so the silent one is playing a ram perhpas? holding aloof and letting sita go through her agni pariksha alone? not good. not asr.
khushi still refused to let go. today her eye is trained on the target with that singular focus of arjuna. now that i think... in the last two episodes, again and again she has collapsed and said she can't do this thing any more, ghin ati hai... and nk has counselled her... told her she is doing it all for her husband. this is her duty. reminds one of the first chapters of gita... krishna telling the bereft arjuna, lift your gandiva. do your duty. no matter how hard and harsh it may seem.
there are actually parts of gita i find hard to digest, and then there are these absolutely beautiful and stunning things.
among my favourites of course, yada yada hi dhramasya... whenever evil comes and tries to overrun the world, i will come myself to vanquish wrong... sambhavami yuge yuge. nah, it is not by chance that nk is called that, nor that he is chosen as khushi's counsel. and the way he appears suddenly out of the blue, just as the evil strikes at the righteous with one more slaying of her evidence... nice.
"woh insaan yahin hai," that person is here, khushi avered.
"iss kamre mein..." in this room.
"sabke saamne..." in front of everyone.
all along shyam had tried in very slimy lawyer vein to stay out of the way of any litigation. he just watched to see which way it all went. he looked shocked when mami said she knew. i wondered why... mami and khushi had gone to rocky's place together and later to the godown. anyway, khushi was relentless and in a rather hindi movieishly written way, she finally turned and faced him and said...
"hai na, shyam ji?"
isn't that so, shyam ji?
of course, shyam realised there was no escape now, he had to defend himself and so rushed over to his raanisahiba.
"aaj sabke saamne hum aapka parda phash karenge," today in front of everyone i'll expose you said khushi, assertive and determined. arjuna, who has gotten up and is now ready for battle.
while shyam, the duryodhan of this story, laid his chakravyuh by sowing doubt, ridiculing, challenging every word and asking for material evidence, then throwing that away as invalid. he even alleged the warrior had transgressed her limits by entering his and his raanisahiba's private chambers. all along he clung to his wife and tried to gauge the mood, swing it in his favour. the jury was so important here.
or so ha ha he thought.
di freaked. asr watched. shyam took advantage of anything he could.
anjali said to khushi what she had said to mami, "aapko koi bhram hua hoga..." you are imagining things. her illusion would not be shattered.
and the baat sach ya jhoot girl became desperate to prove sach...
"jhoot hai yeh, bakwas hai bilkul..." countered shyam, and asked for proof.
i am glad in all this, khushi said plainly, she had made asr sign the papers.
of course, her phone was gone with all the pictures of the will and the voice recording; and the blood on shyam's shoes could have belonged to anyone.
in the middle of all this came nk. and after a mysterious serial type pause, he readily said, khushi was speaking the truth.
his spontaneous hug to nannav and the you did it! to khushi were sweet and infectious. something pristine about this character. hard to imagine he belongs to a serial. though they did make him pause and say nothing for no reason today.
the courtroom drama would have been interesting if they had found a way to let asr beat shyam to a pulp the moment he started saying filthy things about khushi. but i think again and again, the creatives fell in love with form over content. and what seemed very clever started becoming rather empty and lost connection with the viewer.
and...
~ would have been nice if someone offered the man who came home after g knows how long, in a vest with cuts, bruises and filth all over, a glass of water, the use of the loo, a little rest and food, before starting off the commotion.
~ shyam had a cut on the cheek just like asr? whom should i get assassinated for this, c'mons tells me.
~ just about where they stand now and have this trial, and khushi's character is challenged, in episode 67 khushi had had a loopy dream/nightmare about her chief culprit asr. she was the judge. it was a lovely light piece. but there too the defendant had been aggressive and threatened her... she had quaked but held on. we are going to see another rendition of that here. only now it's a real life nightmare.
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
267