Or is it the beginning of the end? At the exact midway point of what we have been told will be no more than 120 episodes, we could be either place, so you can take your pick.
Let us take stock of where everything stands at the end of Episode 60.
-The rakshaks: Terminal disarray. That is in fact a mild term.
Their brains trust, Shivanand, is back where he was 24 years ago, in enemy captivity. That means that all the knowledge locked up in his secret library, especially in the Second Book, is now shut away from the other 6 garuds, even from Rao and Tiwari. Nor is any of them equipped to get hold of the First Book, which is with Greyerson, and then collate the gyaan in both the books in order to ascertain where and when exactly the amrit will surface on the last day of the Mahakumbh. And without this critical knowledge, even with Thappadiya Mai and her Rithambhara pragnya, the garuds can hardly protect the amrit.
Frozen grey matter: Even before that, Shivanand seemed to have placed his abundant grey cells in cold storage. If not, after concluding, once Maya had been poisoned, that vish Mahakumbh aa gaya hai, to naga bhi aa gaye honge, he would not have been so criminally passive, nor would he have failed to take any preventive steps to protect Rudra, himself, and the others in his family. Not once did he discuss with DM Tiwari the vital need for special security for his family. Now, of course, it is far too late for that.
Nor would he have let Daadi ride roughshod over him and Rao and block their experiment to locate the exact location of the vilupt Saraswati and the amrit.
Instead, he seemed not just to have dumped the Saraswati-related work on the lap of niyati, but to be unable to think beyond the Rudra-Maya wedding. He has thus pushed the Mahakumbh mein karodon logon par mandarata nagon ka khatra, to the backburner. Which is precisely the choice I believed that he would NOT have made, not even temporarily.
When Shivanand exclaims to himself, while hiding from the nagas on the Sangam beach, Hamara sandeh sahi nikla, nag Mahakumbh mein pravesh kar chuke hain.. Us kitaab ko unke pahunch se door rakhna anivaarya hai.. I did not know whether to laugh or to weep. Surely anyone with an average IQ should have seen this coming as soon as the nagvish was found in Maya's blood?
Shivanand might not have been immersed in Maya ke pyaar ka moh, as Rudra was, but his moh for his son and the overweening desire to make Rudra happy took precedence over all else, even his mission. The results are there for all to see.
Rudra, the anointed garuda pramukh, is still in near complete ignorance of his father's mission thanks to his point blank refusal to get involved with it, preferring instead to follow his Daadi, and then Maya around like Mary's little lamb. When he should have been protecting his family from the nagas, he is engaged in baatein karna with his comatose wife, while outside, half of them are murdered in cold blood and his father is kidnapped.
Not even foresight: Rudra's gift of second sight - which let him "see", down to the last gory detail, what would happen to Maimuyi 12 years later, which more recently gave him a vision of the murderous attack on Maya by Balivesh's goons, and then again after she was found poisoned, a vision of the poisoner - fails him totally when it comes to his Daadi and his mother being murdered. Nor does Daadi's despairing cry of Rudraa.. after she has dragged Ganga's body some distance, get to him, not even as a faint echo, whereas Shivanand is clearly disturbed amidst his puja when she cries out for him on spotting Dansh and his cohorts.
Still busy playing Orestes (who brought his wife Eurydice back from Hades. I wanted a change from the eternal Savitri-Satyavan parallel, and at least here the gender is correct!😉 ), Rudra does not have even the slightest poorvabhaas or any sensation of things being so horribly wrong. Presumably his amar aur apaar prem for Maya has clouded both his senses and his intelligence. If not, once she was poisoned, he would have scented great danger close at hand and perhaps even made some plans to shield his family from it.
Not the man for a crisis:Even when Punnu stumbles in with the dire news, Charles reacts far more quickly and effectively than Mahabali Rudra. While he sensibly calls the DM (who should, if someone had been monitoring that huge bank of CCTV cameras, have had no need of such a wake up call😡), Rudra is staring at Punnu, his eyes glaring and his face distorted. and shaking him. It does not seem to occur to him that they should first rush Punnu to the emergency clinic. It is not until both Punnu and Thappadiya Mai prod him that he rushes outside.
And when he gets there, and first sights his mother, I would have expected him to feel her pulse, and immediately pick her up and rush her to the hospital, which cannot be too far away. He did this, from a far greater distance, when Maya was nearly drowned. But what does he do now? He caresses his mother's face and hands, and calls to her softly: Maa..!, lifts her hand and drops it. He does not seem to have a single thought in his head about getting her medical attention.
What would this chap do in a real crisis (one that did not involve Maya, of course!😉), where seconds can make a difference between life and death?
Next, the way in which Rudra continued to stare at a blood-drenched Daadi coming towards him - her hand pressed tight to her midriff and her body bent almost double in the effort to maintain that pressure - was as incomprehensible as it was appalling.
His look was not blank or uncomprehending, something which could have been understood for the first moment after he sights her. He looked curious, as if he was trying to unravel the puzzle of what was approaching him. Or as if he was an ornithologist spotting a new, unknown species of bird. And he held that look for what seem😲ed like ages before his eyes registered recognition, and then shock. It was surreal, and I simply could not understand WHAT the director had in mind for poor Gautam in that scene. 😲
I suppose that like Maimuyi's character certificate for Maya satisfied Rudra and altered his attitude towards her, so also Daadi's certificate for Shivanand, Bhool ki maine.. Avishwas kiya uspar.. Sahi tha Shiva.. clinched the matter for him vis a vis his Baba and his mission as well. So he leaves his Daadi and his mother where he found them , having covered them up (Daadi with his red and black checked shirt, of which more later).
Some might argue that Daadi has lost too much blood and Rudra could not have saved her anyway. But that is not the point. Just as he is quick to assure Daadi that his mother is beyond saving and he cannot do a Maya on her as she had hoped, he never even seems to think that Daadi could be saved. Utkarsh has declared these two dispensable henceforth, and his hero falls in line without demur!😉
So Rudra, following Daadi's dying instructions, proceeds to the Sangam beach in search of his father. Where , not finding him, he dramatically tears off his black undervest, throws his head and arches his body backwards, and screams out loud: BABAAA...!!!!
I was foolish when I asked then, Why the Salman stunt? Of course it is to show us the garuda chinna on his back glow red and orange, even as the skies growl with thunder and lightning flashes across the firmament!
The garuda pramukh, we are to understand, has arrived at long last! Hallelujah!!
But it will not be enough for Rudra to howl Baba!!! to the heavens. He has to regain the (then deceptive) Zen-like calm he displayed after Maya was poisoned, only this time he has to make it purposeful and focus on a much more threatening situation. He can roar and beat people up, but that is not going to work against guns.
As to how he is going to bridge his knowledge gap re: the mission and the whole host of allied matters, your guess is as good as mine!
Charles: Rudra's Lakshmana: He too is as ignorant as Rudra about Mission Amrit, and bar his street smartness, he has, so far as one knows, no other talent that will stand him and the garudas in good stead now. But he keeps his head in a crisis, and acts quickly and correctly, as when he immediately called the DM as soon as a badly wounded Punnu stumbled in.
When he is confronted by the row of shrouded corpses (yet another bow to Sholay) , Charles' reactions were superb. When he sights the red and black checked shirt used as a shroud, one can see cold fear gripping his heart: Is that Rudra? His hand trembles as he advances it to lift up the shirt, and the hesitation at the very end is palpable, as is the tension pervading his face and his eyes.
As he peels the shirt back ever so slowly, and Daadi's face, still in death, is revealed, his eyes widen in shock, and horror wipes out the underlying relief that it is not Rudra after all. The mouth half twists into a snarl of rage, but then he spots the dead Ganga, and the rage is wiped out in a fresh tide of sorrow.
It was a beautiful, controlled display of emotion, that lost none of its force and impact for being so controlled. I so wish they had let Rudra's reactions be played similarly, but that was not to be, alas!
Professor Rao: the Grey Eminence: He has seen fit to go off to Delhi to do "research" on the naga poison. A more bizarre move could hardly be imagined; when danger is near at hand at the Mahakumbh, and Rao knows this and talks about it to Shiva and Tiwari, what does he do? He withdraws from the battlefield for a purpose whose significance is a mystery to me.
In Shiva's absence, Professor Rao is the only one capable of briefing the remaining garuds about their identities and what is expected of them, anf then rally them to the cause. It remains to be seen how he absorbs the huge blow that the loss of Shivanand must be, and how soon he gets started on his task.
DM Tiwari: Overtaken by events: He is sharp and capable and unshakeably loyal to the mission and to his mentor Rao. But what can he do? He is a follower, of Rao and later of Shivanand. He is not a leader. Nor has he been shown to have any dramatic powers, though I suppose that being a garuda, he must be having some.
His knowing nothing of the mass killings till Charles calls him is both a mystery and an indictment of the surveillance system at the Mahakumbh, unless the nagas had somehow disabled the CCTV cameras around the killing zone.
Equally strange is the way in which he remarks, after watching the CCTV footage of the large naga coffin being loaded into the shav vahan, Sab ko khatam kar diya par Shivanand ko uthakar le gaye! Surely he should know that like Greyerson's boss 24 years ago, the nagas today would be just as eager to tap Shivanand's brains for the success of their mission to get the amrit?
Thappadiya Mai will be of no use in the coming battles, for her utility will come in only when the amrit is almost at hand.
Katharine is perhaps the best informed of the lot, especially about the plans, joint as well as individual, of Greyerson and Balivesh to collar the amrit. It is not clear if they, and thus she, knows about the advent of the nagas.
But which side is she on at this point? Apart from her horror at the poisoning of Maya, and the shock in her face as she sights the corpses of Daadi and Ganga. there has been no indication as yet that she has seen the light and is going to switch camps. But I see this coming very soon. When she does so, she will a huge plus for the garudas.But right now, she is no trump card against the brutal nagas, just as her martial arts skills would be no match for their armoury.
Bhairavi the game changer: All this dismal analysis leads us to only one conclusion. Maimuyi has to re-appear, and at once.
I devoutly hope that Bhairavi, the 7th garud, is Maimuyi in some sort of earthly remanifestation, and NOT a look alike twin lost in the 1941 Mahakumbh😉! For it is Bhairavi/Maimuyi who will have to take charge of Rudra, and guide him as she used to do for 24 years, so that he can counter Dansh and try and rescue Shivanand.
For without Shivanand, not all of Rudra's brawn, or Charles' cunning, or Katharine's karate stunts can help them get at the amrit and protect it from the nagas.
-Greyerson and Naanu-Balivesh: These folks seem right now to be drifting with the tide rather than trying to control it.
Naanu might well, much to Balivesh's exasperation, be waiting for Maya's chautha, which is steadily receding, before getting back to work on the amrit issue.
Greyerson's warning, to a presumably jubilant Balivesh rejoicing in the deaths of Daadi and Ganga, Celebration ka time nahin hai.. Rudra aur Shivanand donon missing hain.. hints at a certain uncertainty and caution on his part.
It also hints at something far more significant, that neither Greyerson nor Balivesh knows that Shivanand is in the hands of the nagas. Which means that Dansh is not as yet working in tandem with these other two. I am not surprised by this. Right now, he is on a roll, and I expect that he will continue to play a lone hand till he hits a roadblock and needs allies. In fact, what always puzzled me was how Naanu & Balivesh ever hoped to piggyback on the nagas to get at the amrit and then seize it all for themselves!
As for Greyerson, he must also be wondering about his last conversation with the Cardinal, and about what were the happenings at this Mahakumbh of which he had, according to His Eminence, no idea at all. I am wondering about that too, unless of course he meant the advent of the nagas.
-The nagas and the Naga Pramukh: The grand entry of the nagas, headed by their swaggering Naga Pramukh Dansh, could have been called Fiasco No.1.
After decanting themselves from the shav vahan with military precision, they proceeded straightaway to indulge in what looked like one of those insane mass shootings at US universities. The almost casual slaughter of the cooks had no discernible purpose other than to terrify the others, but where were the others? The whole area was bare of any human presence bar the victims, which was incomprehensible in the perennially teeming Mahakumbh complex.
As for the Look of the nagas, even a gangland boss from Chicago would have been ashamed of this dull lot, looking as if they had been picked to be all of identical height and then made to model for hoodies😉 . A far cry from the silky, elegantly sinister baddies I had been looking out for.
I wonder how the 1869 counterparts of the nagas managed without the high powered, silencer-fitted guns. Probably had to slither up to their victims and bite them in a plebeian fashion, poor things!😉
The naga pramukh ki muh dikhayi, for it was no less, was given as much bhav as the intro shots of Hrithik as Raj in KNPH. The ultra slomo moves, the glares, the designer watch, and the hair so thick and wavy that it would gladden the hearts of shampoo ad makers😉. The focus on his right profile. The sudden trick dissolves when he moves, and reappears farther away.
His designer couch, with its fancy seven headed naga emblem, reminded me of Count Dracula's coffin bed. And his boasting about hamara zeher tarakki par hai, since he had never before seen lips as white and skin as blue as Shivanand's were after a dose of it, was just so much hot air, for Shivanand, even in lingering close ups, looked much the same as ever. I think Dansh has mistaken his calling. He would make an excellent politician, being snaky (literally in his case) and given to tomtomming non-existent achievements.😉
Quite good-looking, this Rahil, who does not have blue eyes and is thus not the one who poisoned Maya. But he tries too hard to be deadly cool, literally so. As for the rest, methinks they plan to stay hooded and not plague us with their looks, except Mr.Blue Eyes, perhaps. As Arshi noted, with wicked relish, probably the budget would not stretch to cover 6 more actors, as distinct from extras😉!
Naga techniques far from smooth: And how did all the hooded characters get into the shav vaahan with all that armoury, which would have gladdened the heart of Arnie Schwarzenegger in Commando, minus only the rocket launchers?
If the DM, who is in charge of the whole of the Mahakumbh and who was telling Shiva that the place was on high alert, had spent less time hanging around his gurudev and a little more on the Mahakumbh arrangements, the nagas would not have had such a cake walk!😡
Veritaserum felt, on another thread, that the nagas might have had a high profile political overlord who could have facilitated their entry into the Mahakumbh grounds with all that hardware. I doubt if that is the explanation. I do not think a high profile political overlord, no matter how desperate to get the amrit and become all powerful ( a mithya if even there was one, but let that pass!), would operate like this, permitting a wholesale killing that would lead to a huge public outcry and lead to such tight security that the nagas would be either stopped or, of they tried to shoot their way in, exposed, and he along with them.
It would have been far more sensible for the nagas to pick up the family members one by one from dark corners, which would have been easy and quiet. Let us see if we get any explanation for this shockingly crude entry, or it is just slurred over. I personally think there will be no explanation, any more than there was for the daylight murder of Maimuyi in the heart of Varanasi. This is what is called a suspension of disbelief!😉
The general operating techniques of the nagas seemed equally clumsy. The way they were hunting for the Book (Dansh appears to know of only one Book, not of the Second Book) reminded me of Amitabh Bachchan's screen roles in his angry young man days. Even the Encyclopaedia Britannia might have been overlooked in the mess they created. 😉
And when they finally disable Shivanand, it is by an injection of their vish. I had been waiting to see Dansh or some other naga do a Mallika Sherawat (in Hisss...) 😉 and bite Shivanand. Nothing so dramatic happened, and in fact there was nothing to link these ISIS style thugs with snakes bar Dansh's curious tic of periodically raising his face to the sky, puckering up his lips and appearing to be whispering, or hissing, thru them.
It is now clear that Rudra's weak point, as also hinted at in the new promo, is going to be his father, who will be held hostage by the nagas, and not Maya, who seems to be hovering in a state between life and death. Curiously enough, Dansh, who was boasting to Daadi about the behatareen maut they had given Maya, seemed unaware of this.
Lone rangers: You would have noted that when Daadi asks Dansh if it was Balivesh who had sent him, his only response is a sarcastic laugh.
Even otherwise, in all this, there is no indication as yet of any joint planning by the nagas, Greyerson and Balivesh. I do not talk of execution - pun intended - because that was clearly an all naga affair.Balivesh's goons would in any case have been totally outclassed by the hoodie gang.
How the other two ever thought the nagas would hand the amrit over to them beats me. I had noted this earlier, but after seeing the nagas in operation, my scepticism has become rock hard.
The po*nography of violence: Too strong, do you think? Perhaps,and this is the first time I have ever used the word, which I thought of as a counterpoint to "the poetry of violence", which is very likely what the director thought he was dishing up. Ok, so let us tone it down a bit to "the obscenity of violence".
This is of course about the Wednesday episode No. 59. I do not know about the aficionadas of Game of Thrones and of the other show whose acronym seems to use up most of the alphabet. Or about the Rahil-philes, whose number, however, seems to have dwindled a lot after the first impression was overlaid by the second and the third.
It sickened me, the murder of Daadi. It was the sheer enjoyment that Dansh took in doing it, and the way the frail body rocked with every one of the four thrusts of his knife. Ghastly. I simply cannot see any reason for such scripting, on the lines of violent Western shows.
I tweeted Utkarsh: What has happened to you? Daadi's killing was so sadistic I almost threw up. Is it necessary to revel in murder most foul?
He has noted on his FB page that all these events were written long ago, and even as he was doing the writing he wished it could be changed. And that he was not planning to watch those episodes. What a cop out, after inflicting these horrors on his unsuspecting viewers!😡
I do not care about Sahadev, who was hardly there anyway, or even much about Punnu, who specialised in a pop-eyed look to depict shock and horror, and whose lo..ng, diabetes-inducing and totally filmy deathbed speech was a bit too much to take, for all that he is generally very appealing as a character. Or even about poor totally under-utilised Ganga, whose role made me wonder why a seasoned actress like Shruti Ulfat ever signed on for it.
But Daadi was different, and the leisurely, deliberate, inhuman manner of her killing was unbearable.
Extreme sadism: Today, I forced myself to watch the episode again, line by line, gesture by gesture, to spot what I had missed the first time around, and also to see if I could take it. The shock value had gone, of course, but the sense of revulsion was, if anything, greater than on Thursday.
Especially because of all the mock hand-kissing, the obeisance, the seeking of aashirwaad et al by Dansh that accompanied it. Aashirwaad tak nahin liya aapka when they killed the whole lot of the dead there. Hum par aapki kripa banaaye rakhiye, Daadi, upar se aashirwaad bhejiye.Hamara naam pataa yaad rakhiye.. Naag Pramukh Dansh.. and he almost hisses this last.
Dansh in fact looks more like a psycho serial killer than like a naga, whom one has generally associated with at least some noble characteristics. He is riled that unlike the terrified Ganga, Daadi does not satisfy his ego by being afraid of him. On the contrary, she looks fearlessly into his eyes, her own bright and hard, and demands Hatya karni hai to prateeksha kis baat ki? Kar do!
So he changes his mind about shooting her, and throws his gun back to one of his subordinate nagas in a showy gesture. And out comes a wicked looking, serrated knife. And the intimidation campaign begins.
Jo maut mein aapko dene ja raha hoon, uska trailer to aap dekh hi chuki hongi.. Maya ki maut, jo dheere dheere aati hai, aur har pal ke saath aur bhi dardnaak h o jaati hai (Dansh is not up to date, it seems, for he has no idea that Maya is still very much among the living!). Maya ko zeher hum logon ne hi diya tha. Jo behatareen maut uski thi, us se bhi behatar karke aapko maara jaayega..
As the knife plunges in, Daadi straightens herself, but she utters no sound. Her antaraatma calls out Shiva, Shiva!! Dansh senses it and he stabs her again.
As she calls out audibly to Rudra, the hateful, mocking voice continues: Rudra ki yaad aa rahi hai Daadi? Gawah hai tum sab log, jab tak Daadi upar jaakar settle hongi, hum Rudra ko bhi unke pas bhej denge. Rudra ko mar kar garudon se amrit hum naag cheenenge! Stab 3.
Daadi, pichli baar se is bar dard kuch kam hua na? Wo kya hai na, badan ko aadat si pad jaati hai..Dekha, kitna khyal rakhte hain hum aapka? Bilkul Rudra ki tarah.. Wo aapke dukh kar khyal rakhta hai aur hum aapke dard ka..Stab 4, and he finally lets her go. She sinks to the ground in a crumpled heap.
He goes on: Jis tarah 144 saal humne intezaar kiya, waise hi kuch intezaar aapko bhi karna padega aapki maut ka.
A famous victory: It was clear that Dansh's main aim in all this ugly violence was not just to mortally wound this old woman. It was rather to make her bend, to make her betray fear of him, perhaps even beg for mercy, and thus to rob her death of any dignity.
But Daadi lent her death every bit of the dignity of which Dansh sought to rob it . She looked him straight in the eyes from the first moment to the last. She did not scream or even moan, though the pain must have been horrendous. She did not collapse,or even bend over, and at the end, she simply went down in a heap on her side, as if she were sleeping.
Finally, when Dansh knelt by her side, wiped his knife on her shawl, picked up her bloody hand and placed it on his head: Aashirwaad bhejte rahna Daadi...Chalta hoon, Shiva Uncle se milna hai.. and then stood up and stared down at her, her eyes, already cloudy with the foretaste of death, stared coldly back at him.
This tiny, frail old woman, who looked as if any strong wind would blow her clean away, stood up to a remorseless, sadistic thug and bested him , for his unrelenting attempts to break her spirit all came to nothing in the end, and he knew it.
It was, as they said of Lord Nelson's defeating the French at Trafalgar in 1805, a famous victory. And he too died in that battle.
The Jatayu parallel: That was not all. Once Dansh had left, Daadi demonstrated how mind can prevail over matter. I got goose pimples watching her heave herself upright, almost like one rising from the dead, and summon up the last vestiges of her strength by tying her pallav and shawl firmly around her midriff to staunch the blood flow and postpone the inevitable blackout of her senses.
It reminded me of Jatayu holding his death at bay, as he waits for the arrival of Lord Rama. It was the same here, Daadi was waiting for Rudra, and to warn him about what had happened before letting go of her life.
Thru a superhuman effort of sheer will, she managed to drag the bodies of Ganga and Sahadev away from the killing ground, and even covered Sahadev with a blanket that she got out of a nearby tent. Perhaps she felt that it was dehumanizing and degrading for them to be left lying there, like animals that had been hunted down. Surekha Sikri's body language in all these scenes,with Daadi's unfailing will driving her failing body, was nothing short of awesome.
The despair in her voice when she tried to revive Ganga was heartbreaking, as was her assurance to (the dead) Ganga that Rudra would bring her back to the living as he had done with Maya.When Rudra finally gets to her, and he says that he cannot do this, her only thought is for him to find Shivanand and get them both away from this Mahakumbh, which had become Mahakaal ka tandav.
The gift of honesty: When Maya was hospitalized for poisoning, Daadi had displayed the gift of gratitude when she warmly thanked Dr. Rao for helping them so much despite their aapasi matbhed. Now she displays another gift, the gift of honesty. Though it is too late in the day to be of any use, she does concede, freely and without reservations: Bhool ki maine..Avishwas kiya uspar.. Sahi tha Shiva..
With her last breath, she speeds Rudra on his way to find his father. If only she could have brought them together much earlier, and enthused Rudra to stand by his father for the sake of humanity, how different, how very different things could have been!
As the poet would have it, Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are, it might have been...
Daadi was a woman of great inner strength. Inside that frail body was a will of steel, a rock on which even Dansh's sadism crashed and foundered. It was a great pity that this moral and psychological strength was not used where it could have gone great good, but was frittered away in harmful, purblind obstructionism vis a vis her son's mission. But regardless of her share of the blame for precipitating this disaster, and it was a large one, her integrity and her moral stature could never be denied even by those who disagreed with her the most.
Every mortal being has to pass on one day, and what matters in the manner of this passing. Of Surekha Sikri's Daadi can it truly be said that nothing in her life became her like the leaving of it.
The immediate future: It seems likely that more than hitherto, given that Shivanand is out of action for the present, the actor, ie Rudra, will take precedence over the story. Which has, in many ways, started floundering amidst inconsistencies and outright bloomers.
One of the worst of these was the total lack of any public reaction within the Mahakumbh to the mass killing of so many- Daadi, Ganga, Sahadev, Punnu, and over a dozen more. Or even any public presence. Not only was the killing area deserted from the beginning, when the nagas strode in, to the end, when DM Tiwari wsa making his nirikshan, but there was no one to be seen apart from the investigators and the remaining garuds. Which is simply impossible with millions of pilgrims teeming all over.
I hope that after the aimless floundering and lovesick babbling by Rudra for the past few weeks, we will not end up with the other extreme, a fire-breathing, revenge swearing, red-eyed crusader. Rudra needs to stay calm, husband his resources, and hone both his strategy and tactics. And the actor has to convince the director that when it comes to displaying strong emotion, less is more.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Arjun
Cricket
