Hi all. The steam engine has finally caught up and with this post I'm done and hopefully will be able to write an analysis tonight for today's episode and not for one that was telecast heaven knows when!
Ok i'd heard a lot about this episode before i actually saw it and that i am sure influenced some of my reactions to the situation. A simple example of this is that when i saw that the cadets break Abhimanyu's musical instruments, my very first (i'm being completely honest here) reaction was 'thats it?... the big crisis that was referred to is that they break his musical instruments?'... but then immediately after it, this thought came into my mind 'what if someone were to destroy my collection of books?'... and i knew just how personal it would feel... even before watching the episode, i knew the different emotional registers simply from my reaction to the idea of my books being destroyed... i would feel a blinding rage, the kind i rarely get into, a cold hard rage... at the same time, there would a fervent desire to undo the whole thing... i would not be able to believe that this has happened... i would want to get my books back to the way they used to be... i'd feel an acute sense of helplessness and the futility of it all.... a 'this cannot have happened' kind of feeling and 'this has to go back to being right' then followed by the realisation that 'i will not get them back ever again'.... at that moment, if anyone were to tell me that my books were replacable, i'd probably give them the dirtiest look they ever got in their life and then ignore them.... more than pain, there would be hurt... the pain would come later when i unconsiously were to reach for a particular book and remember all over again that they'd been taken away from me... but immediately there would be hurt.... and shock that someone felt so malvolently and personally against me that they hurt me in this manner.... because thats what it feels... personal.
I guess one has to be passionate about something to feel this way... for instance, i've always lost money or things with a certain degree of equaniminity... which i realise is also because my environment has ensured that i'm not desperately in need of either.... but when something defines you in a certain way, it no longer remains a trivial issue for one... and i can see why Abhimanyu does not want to remain in the academy any longer... its not about forgiveness or the lack of it, its not about how much pain he should feel or shouldnt, is Abhimanyu taking it in the right spirit or not.... this is like shooting my father while he was buying apples, you do not get away with this one!
Anyway, all of this was in my mind before i sat down to watch the episode in my comp, so for this episode i was not doing my usual thing of 'this is what gaurav conveyed'... here i was sitting with certain emotions, reactions, a certain framework in mind.... and i wanted to see how he would then interpret this scene, which emotional register he would emphasise more and which less... must say i enjoy this kind of analysis more, makes me feel like a writer or a director who then gets to see what the actor brings to the table... i think i should miss episodes on a regular basis, read everything about them and then watch them ... i'm off to make more trips!
So i will now finally get down to watching the show... before i go to Gaurav's scene, must say that the stunts in the scene when Capt Rajveer is with the goons were bad... I'm not an expert on action, but i think the scene where Capt Rajveer and Aalekh shake hands while two goons come up from behind was slow, in the sense that their reaction was late... the rest of the action was quite filmy and i dont mind that... but again could have been executed better... i've seen better action on tv before.
Our hero appears for a brief minute before he heads to the music room... giving orders seems to come so naturally to him... i would love to see him play a role that shows him as someone underconfident, unsure of himself, (not in the 'usually at ease with himself guy who is unsure of himself in a romantic situation' moment, which appeared in some parts of adhm).... now that would be a challenge!
OK so here i am at the scene i was waiting for... Firstly, the scene was shorter than i expected, did not get the kind of time it deserved... the anger was less than i expected, the sense of pain, hurt and loss was there, the sense of shock was there too... the thing that Gaurav brought to the scene was the way he put his hands to his head... it conveyed pain, hurt and loss... it also was a familiar gesture to those who have been following his work... as Shweta has mentioned in her analysis, it reminded one immediately of Aisa Des Hai Mera and the scenes of Samay's physical pain during the brain tumour... i dont think it was deliberately done to evoke memories of the same.... i think it was a vestige of Samay that came up unconsciously in a moment of pain, of conveying distress.... its something that Gaurav will actually have to eliminate... he cannot do this everytime he has to convey pain... becuase then it might lose his effectivenes... though it worked here for me, more so because, as i said earlier, it was what he brought to the scene beyond what i had thought of...
I also liked the way he starts straightening the furniture and putting things in place and fingering the broken pieces and is then not able to go on straightening things.... it conveyed that 'i want this to go back to the way it used to be' and then 'this cannot go back the way it used to be'.... also, when i had visualised myself with my destroyed books around me (sob), that was one of the things i had seen myself doing... straightening things up, picking them from the pile and then giving up the whole effort... yes i had visualised the whole thing, i am officially the most vella person on earth. đ And since we always assume that what we do is the most natural thing to do under the circumstances, this again looked very natural to me.
So what jarred?... for one, the relative absence of anger... i know it will come in the podium scene, but could have come later in this scene as well.... and the dialogues... i thought they were not worth it... the 'you shouldnt have done it' was ok, but the 'yeh insturments aapke dost hai', to me, didnt hit the right note (pun absolutely intended!)... i would have gone on muttering you shouldnt have done this and kept shaking my head.... or gone completely, menacingly silent. Perhaps Abhimanyu feels it important to explain why these instruments mean so much... Anyway, there was also a cut bang in the middle of the scene... which meant that the hair was different from one line to the next... minor error though and hardly comparable to the other errors of the show!
I'm going to jump right to the podium scene, if i start talking about the cadets, the rebellion or their lines, i'll be lashing out till kingdom come against the people who write the show.
Finally i saw the anger i had been missing in the previous scene.... the lines were to the point... i know Anu that you feel that all Abhimanyu does is lecture the students and that is not going to change them... but i do not see what else can he do under the circumstances.... especially given the facts that a) he has no proof to actually punish any student b) someone like Abhimanyu will not think of punishment as the best way of changing people, nor will it undo what has been done so far and c) sometimes speaking your mind is the only thing you can do, becuase you are still trying to explain why what happened was so important, how it was invasive... it may feel like banging one's head against a wall but one still goes ahead and does it, if only to convey all that one has experienced something and the ways in which the people around are entirely blind to the situation you are living in.
There was an interesting line in this scene... where he says that 'you have violated a teacher's personal space'.... i find it interesting because i had not thought of the situation like that... to some extent i still cant... i think boundaries of personal space differ from individual to individual and to me the impact of the offence comes more from the malvolence and hostility it suggests, from the fact that the people who did it didnt get what i was about at all, than from the invasion of my space... in a conflict, i do expect my space to be invaded and that would perhaps surprise me less... whereas for Abhimanyu the invasion of space is also equally important... i think this may also be because Abhimanyu is, as i had once written, both persona and person... when one is publicly available in certain ways, personal space gets all the more luxurious... whereas to those who are always used to having it, its luxury disappears in the everydayness of it.
I really liked the speech... though it was a bit abrupt... when he says 'Hum aap logon se kehna chahte hai ki' and then follows it up with 'garv hona chahiye aapko khudpar', it was abrupt and seemed broken...
However, what i am most angry about is that it should not have been tied up with the announcement that Capt Rajveer was missing.... that was irrelevant to what he had been saying and completely shifted the focus of the scene.... because then the scene became about the disappearance of Capt Rajveer, his re appearance and the subsequent imposed setting right of things... and from being about a particular character, the scene became a plot mover... which lessened the impact it would other have had. Uffffffffffffffff ....... kya karte ho? I got really irritated by that.
And finally... technically, who is in charge of this academy?... please tell me... Nair is the principal and Abhimanyu the vice pincipal (principal of all the vices, ya ya i still remember stupid school jokes!)... so what authority does BC have to make these random proclamations from time to time?...And who is who to issue forgiveness?... that lies with those officially in charge.... that too in a military set up, where if you dont have official authority, then you have no rights at all. I know it must be difficult for the writers.... they need a temporary truce in the conflict but they cannot show Nair as being the one to forgiven and they've completely complicated Ahimanyu's character... but could they not have shown that Nair orders an end to the rebellion and an end to Capt Rajveer's punishment because Gehlot asks him too... Gehlot needs Capt Rajveer to be free since he needs to use him for whatever it is that he is planning right now... and therefore Nair acts out of character on his orders.... and conflict ends temporarily though everyone thinks that Nair has something else up his sleeve. Thoda sa soch lete toh kya tax bharna padta?!
And in this scene i realised that the wall of fame too is a tacky yellow... why is the background so yellow and bright and satiny?
Finally, i will not write a separate analysis for the 26th... Gaurav had only one scene... where he congratulated Alekh... it is the look of a person who is leaving... he is happy for him but thats it... whatever has happened has ensured that he is no longer interested in this world or its day to day dynamics... while he may still be true to his individual relationships and therefore say and do all the right things, the mental switch is off... I think Gaurav has got the pitch and tone of this feeling just right... will talk more about it vis-a-vis the upcoming episode.
My last vishesh tipaani.... why is it always the sari which is the object of fantasy for the Indian male? As someone who loves wearing it, i'm very irritated by the dominant reactions: its assumed that i'm a docile, obedient person (ha!). At the same time, i've been eve-teased the most in a sari... so you'll both 'respect' me and objectify me.... for the same costume. How much more convoluted can it get?
On that note, i end this interminable post. Adios!
