Folks,
For starters, my apologies for being a day late with this one. We had a domestic crisis yesterday that took all my time and energy to fix, and even today, I am a bit preoccupied with it.
Next, a statutory warning. This piece has been written mostly in a satirical vein, tongue firmly in cheek. Please do keep that in mind as you read it, and do not take me to task for anything!
Now for the title. I, to my longstanding regret, am not a swimmer, my efforts to start learning after I turned 40 having resulted only in my swallowing excessive quantities of chlorinated water😉. Still, I did learn what treading water means. During the last week, Mahakumbh was, for the most part, treading water. The tale hardly moved forward, while at the same striving mightily to produce an impression of progress by agitating the water.
Large chunks of the telecast time were taken up with, in that order:
-Rudra mooning around the Mahakumbh camp - by now he must be as familiar with every nook and cranny of the place as a London cabbie with every cul de sac in that city😉 - and, when he tires of the exercise, lying down in the sand for a long nap.
Perhaps he was expecting that as once before, Maimuyi would resurface in his dreams, especially since she had told him she would be back. I do not blame Rudra for sleeping in hope, for I myself am by now desperate for Maimuyi to turn up once more. But perhaps Chandrabhan is making up for all that lost time😉, so no such luck!
Thus all we got was a brief flashback of Maimuyi, Siddharth (whom I miss almost as much as I miss her. His talent is hardly being properly exploited in Ashoka, highlighting the cardinal importance of the script and the director for even the best of actors), and the bhindi ki sabzi , before the camera switched back to, what else, a weepy Rudra with his hum (s)mashan ko saath leke chalte hain and sab mujhe chod ke chale jaate hain line.
The irony of his having found such an ever indulgent Daadi, with a ready shoulder for her pota's tears even as he was bemoaning his losses, clearly escapes both Rudra and Utkarsh, or whoever is it writes these lines for Rudra!
I adore Daadi, with her queenly self-assurance and her wonderfully mobile face, for all that she sets my teeth on edge periodically. She is like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland: A word means what I say it means, no more and no less!! And that goes for aastha, seva, paramarth, amar.. the list is a long one! 😉And I am very fond of Rudra, for all that he has been driving me up the wall this last fortnight with his Devdas obsession. But when they get together, which they did twice this last week, the net result is exasperating.
When she is not lamenting his man ka bojh, which is like a patthar ki bori, she is pronouncing non sequiters such as Jab tak sukhaant nahin hota, tab tak kahani ka anth nahin hota. She has clearly never heard of Laila-Majnun or Shirin-Farhad,even if one leaves Romeo-Juliet aside! 😉
Nor could I quite understand what she meant by Rudra and Maya being linked together by a karm ka bandhan, which was stronger than a prem ka bandhan. Though I must say that I sat up when she actually said that she agreed with Shivanand on this last, and I love her occasionally natty one liners, such as Agar door jaane se hi mukti mil jaati, to saare bhanware (bhagode? If that is correct, apologies, and thanks to Shubha!) mukti paa jaate!
-Maya doing seva, in tiny bytes, in the Kalpataru Seva Ashram. During this lo..ong segment, Maya seemed to be on the lookout for shawls to be adjusted, patients to be made to lie down, a jhadoo to be deployed till the asli jhadoowali rushed up to reclaim it, photos to be picked up and restored to, as it turned out Rudra' mother (I protest formally at this point: why was there no roll of drums to herald her resurrection?) , kids to be given sweets, food packets+bottled water to be handed out to any unwary passerby😉. And finally, errands to run for anyone standing around, in this last case Rudra's mom again, who promptly launched into a mini-pravachan about how all that she wanted would be found at this Mahakumbh.
When none of the aforesaid was ready at hand, Maya coped by gazing at Rudra, his lost-little-boy-yearning-for-something-in- the-candy- store look firmly in place, out of the corner of her eye. At times it even looked as though she had eyes at the back of her head! She kept this up till Rudra remembered her Maimuyi ki kasam, and ambled away, just in time for her to spot another shawl to be adjusted!😉
It all looked very far from convincing. By Thursday night, I was so fed up with this ersatz amar prem kahani that the precap came as a great relief ! Because there, standing besides Maya in kaan pakadna mode in front of Rudra, Daadi (who has a lot riding on Rudra's obsession with Maya overriding the counterpull of Shivanand's mission) intoned solemnly : Rudra ke jeevan mein aur koyi saath de ya na de (surely she is not counting herself in here?) lekin tumhara aur uska rishta uske jeevan ke har naye purane rishte se kahin bada hoga...A roll of drums was needed to herald this momentous pronouncement, but it was not forthcoming😉.
Daadi cheered me up no end with this obiter dictum. At least now we need have no more of this moping and mooning around, I rejoiced. But then my heart sank as it hit me that in Mahakumbh, a precap is merely a statement of intent, which may materialize only a week or more down the road. Oh Lord, when will I stop harking back to Saras and Kumud (the wonderfully romantic lead pair of Saraswatichandra, in which Gautam Rode played Saras, whence the comparison) ?
- The Kaliyug ka Shravan Kumar, complete with the classic basket doli for a blind mother. He was actually only one quarter of the original Shravan Kumar, who carried both his blind parents on his shoulders, whereas this chap needs his brother to help carry just their mother.
The issue dealt with concerned a very sad facet of human nature, especially in today's materialistic existence. That some of us, mercifully a small minority, sink so far as to abandon those who gave us life, and nurtured us to adulthood with love and care, to misery, deprivation and death is horrible even to think about. So well deserved moral outrage among the viewers is guaranteed. But it was difficult to understand why so much time, over 8 minutes, was devoted to this disconnected segment, which did not seem to have any significance in terms of plot development. It was not even to bring Rudra to the Kalpataru Seva Ashram, for thanks to Charles and his Mission Maya, Rudra has already seen her there. So why??
A few stray advances: I say mostly treading water because there was some forward movement in a few areas:
- Rudra's mother resurfaces: As noted above, Rudra's unmissed (sic) mother (I have noted earlier how strange it is that Rudra, after learning from Daadi that she was not in the ashram when it was attacked in 1989, still makes no attempt to trace his mother) made a surprisingly low key reappearance. This was , even if only indirectly, courtesy Maya (Shruthi may take a bow for having explained this is advance). She did seem to be in fairly good shape, thus testifying to the strength of the social service network in Allahabad, which appears to have kept her safe for all of 24 years, as she apparently had no family.
She seems to make a habit of wandering around of a morning clutching her family photos, not in an album, but held loose😉. When Maya picks up a stray one and restores it to her, it is pointedly held up for the camera, so that we can get confirmation of who the lady with the photos is (not that we needed it, for Shruti Ulfat looks exactly the same as in 1989). But Maya also carefully avoids looking at it. But why? She has not seen any baby photo of Rudra's and she would hardly recognize him from this photo!
-The Saraswati tracker: Prof. Rao has got hold of a "state of the art"gizmo to track the vilupt Saraswati, and has coaxed Shivanand to use it under the Saraswati Kund. As he puts it somewhat mystifyingly: Hum Saraswati Kund ke zameen ke neeche paani ke jeevan ka ansh dhoondenge. Agar wo humein milta hai, phir dhoondenge pani ka sroth kya hai, aur uska Sector 53 se kya talluk hai.
NB: The mystery of Sector 53: a recap: The problem sector for the Project Ganga is Sector 53, the one which was allocated to Professor Rao, an allocation that was then ferociously opposed by Balivesh, clearly ignorant of the strength of the Rao-DM Tiwari connection. Now , Prof. Rao tells the DM to organise that sector, and use the funds that will soon be available for the Project Ganga, for their own secret work in that sector. Which he proceeds to do, for when Shivanand calls him to check whether it was not Tiwari in the Brahma Nisht Panth tent (where his Garuda Locator has spotted 2 garuds with Rudra), he is actually holding a meeting in Sector 53, in Daraganj.
That is also the sector about which Balivesh is still pressurising Tiwari, to give it to the Sri Santh Panth. Before his conversation with Rudra, he was telling a sidekick to tell the DM that the permission was needed immediately, and if it was not forthcoming, he would go to the DM's office not with an anurodh, but with an aagnya!
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Professor Rao, citing a highly confidential ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) survey report on the course of the river Saraswati, notes that it arose from the Himalayas, traversed Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat, to end up in the Gulf of Kutch. I did not know that the ISRO spends valuable satellite survey time on such esoteric pursuits, but I am sure the good professor has a devoted past student, another Tiwari, tucked away there as well😉. He moves in the top official circles, does our professor; note that he got that gizmo thru a Lieutenant General!
Now Prof. Rao wants to make sure that this vilupt Saraswati has migrated to where he needs her, at the Triveni Sangam in Prayag, in time for this once in 144 years Mahakumbh. Whence his pep talk to an unwilling Shivanand, who, unsurprisingly, wants to concentrate on his hunt for the missing garudas. An of course on his struggle to put some merudand into the recalcitrant garuda pramukh, ie Rudra, who right now seems to have spaghetti in place of the aforesaid body part. 😉
Rao manages to bring Shivanand round, it is not for nothing that his ex-students adore him and touch his feet without fail every time they meet him!
Shivanand's deep set eyes now gleam at the wonderful prospect: Ab Saraswati Kund phir se jeevit ho uthega.7 garud bhi ek honge.Aur amrit bhi humein hi milega.
Clearly, he has not yet thought of what would happen to him when he is actually digging underneath the Saraswati Kund in the ruined Brahma Nisht Panth ashram, and is caught red-handed by his mother. That is a prospect too fearful to contemplate!😉
No amrit grab by Rao-Shivanand in the works : Now, I am not one of those who, after hearing such comments from Prof. Rao and Shivanand, seem to have started harboring dark suspicions that the duo are after an amrit grab. The mission of the sapta garudas is to keep the amrit from being seized by evil forces who will misuse it horrendously. How best can this be done?Why, by getting it themselves, and hiding it in an ultra safe place where it will be protected from the dark forces out to get it. That is what Rao and Shivanand mean, and we need not tie ourselves in knots with unwarranted worries! At least this is what I feel.
-The Dark Garuda. Aka Kill Bill Katherine, the Greek girl at No. 23 in Interpol's list of suspects to be watched at the Mahakumbh, and the only one of those not yet investigated satisfactorily.
She clearly is a Garuda, for Rudra sees her garuda chinna in his vision. But what could be called a Dark Garuda for now, since one presumes she does not yet know exactly what the elaborate sign on her lower back signifies and implies, for all that she asserts rebelliously to Greyerson, when he suggests that she should she should tell Shivanand her secret, ie that she is also a garuda: That was not part of the plan..There is a reason why I am the chosen one. I will not do this.Rebellion that is instantly squashed by Greyeron with a veiled threat Yaad karo kaun hai tumhare swami (presumably His Eminence the Cardinal)..I will not give this gyaan again..Kuch bhi ho sakta hai.
As and when she does get to learn all about the unique mission of a garuda, she might turn, and become a garuda mole in the Greyerson camp.
Incidentally, the way in which she was sticking spycams into the straw of the roof and the walls was also very funny. They could fall out in a strong wind, or if a passing cow took a fancy to the straw and decided to brunch off it!😉😉 Morever, they were all facing inwards into the room she was occupying!
She is one tough girl, is our Katherine. I loved her sassiness and her almost off hand putting down of the Veshes. And true to type, Naanu did not resent that, unlike the angry MCP Balivesh, but actually praised her for her rann neeti.
Round and round: So now we have an odd scenario: Katharine keeping an eye on Shivanand and trying to win his confidence on the one hand, and on the other, Shivanand planning to do the same with her. Not only because Prof. Rao asks him to do so, fearing that she might be a danger to the garudas, but also because Katharine par nazar rakhne ke liye hamare pas ek aur wajah bhi hai. But what other reason can he have?
The merudand fiasco: There is no Take 5 this time, but just a Take 1, and it was good enough for at least 3 standard issue scenes, if not 5! This is the one in Shivanand's underground retreat, to which he takes Rudra after a moving conversation in the mela grounds.
That conversation, by the way, put paid to any feeling that Shivanand is not a loving father. He lays his heart bare to his son: 24 varsh apnon se door raha. Ekaant vaas mein kayi yatanayen sahin, par toote nahin, kyonki tumse milne ki ummeed abhi baaki thi. Vishwas tha ki is Mahakumbh mein tumse avashya milenge, aur 24 saal ke ghaav ek hi kshan mein bhar jayenge.
And he feels so much for Rudra's sufferings during these years that he says Yahan aakar tumse milkar jaana ki humse bade hain ghaav tumhare.
Even when he seeks Rudra's help in his mission, he is not authoritarian, he explains and requests. Humari kuch apekshayen hain jinhein keval tum poorna kar sakte ho. .Is kshan keval itna socho beta,ki tumhein apne uddeshya ki or badna hai,Kayi varsh humne is din ki pratiksha mein bitaye ki tum apne is pita ki varshon ki pratignya ko poorna karne mein sahayata karoge.
To Shivanand's delight, Rudra responds: Ji, Baba. Alas, he cannot keep this word of his.
To begin with, Rudra who, outside at the mela campgrounds, did not even ask his father where he had been held prisoner for 24 years, is barely interested in the fascinating celestial display put up inside Shiva's lab. Anyone else would have peppered Shiva with questions, but not Rudra. He is still marooned in the midst of an ocean of misery.
I was more in despair than Shivanand when Rudra barely responds to Shivanand's pep talk: Panchi ko udna aur sher ke bachche ko shikar sikhana nahin padta (clearly Shivanand has never seen any of David Attenborough's marvellous wild life films!)..Tumhare bheetar wo gyan sanchit hai jiska tumhein anumaan nahin hai...Samay aa gaya hai ki tum apne sanchit karma ko apna prarabdha karma, yani apna bhagya bana lo..
The sole exception, and that too involuntary, came when Shivanand tells him that the chinna that he sees within the cloud floating overhead is wo satya jise moorkh nahin dekh sakte, wo hi dekh sakte hain jinke pas gyaan drishti ho.. Vimoodha na pashyanti.. When Rudra involuntarily completes the quote with a sudden Pashyanti gyaanachakshushaha, Shivanand looks down at his son with pride and quiet triumph.
But this does not last. Having gazed with only mild curiosity at the celestial display, Rudra is more alarmed than captivated by his father's exhortations: Apni smritiyon ki bhulakar bas rakshakon par dhyan do..Satya dekhne ke liye tumhein maya ke pare dekhna hoga..Maya mithya hai, jhoot hai..Satya ko pehchaano..
Clinging to his sole obsession these days, Maya, he declares that maya is not, as Shivanand asserts, mithya, jhoot, but hamare liye sabse bada sach. He does not understand that when referring to Maya, he and his father were both talking of different things.
Like a skittish colt that is afraid of the bridle, Rudra jibs and refuses - Humse nahin hoga - and, finally, bolts. To cap it all, he leaves the secret entrance to the underground refuge open.😡
In Shivanand's place I would have been tearing my hair and climbing the wall, but he merely sighs and takes a long look around his room. His lament, however, reflects the deep despair that is beginning to haunt him: Jab tak tumhein ekagrata nahin aati, Rudra, baki sab (garuds) ek nahin ho paayenge.Aur agar hum ek nahin ho paye, to pralay aa jaayega..
No wonder that when he next meets his guru, Prof. Rao, Shivanand voices his fears about the tendency towards emotional weakness that has always affected the performance of the garudas , and which was now crippling his son, and thus the mission where he is the garuda pramukh. For the first time ever, this iron man betrays, with this bout of depression, that he is all too human.
The stark difference between the outlooks of the father and the son was never more clearly brought out than when Rudra pleads later with his father: Apne parivaar ki raksha ke liye, daadi ki ichcha ka maan rakh lijiye naa! Shivanand's response - Parivaron ke rakshak hote hain, rakshakon k parivaar nahin hote - is a classic of its kind. Thus does a soldier think and act, for the greater cause, not that of his own family. If not, he could never go to war to protect his country. And here, what is at stake is the future of all of humanity.
But this is what neither Rudra nor his Daadi can grasp.
Incidentally, Rudra's plea put paid to the argument advanced here after he sided openly with Daadi against his father, that it was merely a tactic that he had adopted in order to effect a reconciliation between Daadi and his Baba. It was clearly no such thing. Rudra is on the same page as Daadi, and he has, as of now, no stomach for or interest in his father's mission.
I suppose another dozen episodes, if not more, will be consumed in getting Rudra to swivel by 180 degrees on this issue, for the pace is far too slow and has been so all this week. That will bring us to near the mid-point of 60 episodes.
A mental block: Coming back to Daadi - whose ultra erect carriage would have delighted Miss Marple - entirely by chance, I stumbled on her exhortations to Shiva in his youth, as a voiceover when Shivanand is wandering over their ruined ashram (in Episode 32). I had not paid as much attention to it when I watched that episode. Her lines are very revealing as to her relationship with him, which, it is clear, depends on how far he is prepared to fit in with the Brahma Nisht Panth tradition of nishkaama seva, and to follow strictly in the footsteps of his forefathers.
She wants him to remember that he is the next uttaradhikari of the Brahma Nisht Panth, with the duty to protect and serve all those who seek their help. You are working too hard, she adds with unexpected solicitude, you should look after yourself as well (so that the seva can be done without any break).
Then there is the bit about the need for him, and for his children after him, to keep the Saraswati Kund flowing, akshunna. In this context, your interpretation that by ek boond of amrit, she means Rudra, is very interesting and imaginative.
Unsaid, but implied in all this relatively gentle and almost affectionate monologue (for there is no indication of any response from Shivanand, at least as far as he remembers the scene) is that he has to adhere to the age old traditions and beliefs on his ancestors, and carry on their good work without any break, or any questioning of its rationale.
But of course he does not comply, and so Daadi's attitude goes to the other extreme, of sarcastic disapproval, almost hostility, and public snubs and putdowns. Above all, she exerts herself to distance Rudra from his father, and his father's "dangerous" ideas.
Given this mental block, she cannot understand that just because they and their Panth want time to stand still, it will not do so. And if they do not recognise the mortal danger threatening all of mankind, not just their Panth, and move fast to checkmate it, there will be no Panth and no traditions to be maintained either. That is pure ostrich-like behaviour, and she wants to make a baby ostrich out of her morose, clueless pota as well.
So folks, this is it. I am leaving out Charles, who is getting less irritating and more appealing by the episode, and DM Tiwari as well. As for Naanu, the pity is that he left himself out, bar that scene of the dressing down from Katharine!😉
Shyamala B.Cowsik
PS: Something I forgot. There is some surprise in the forum about Charles calling Rudra Mahabali. This was the title Charles gave the teenage Rudra after he won that impossibly tough bout against the champion in the akhada. He has simply revived the title now.
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