REBLAST 1 Episode 1 - 5 - Page 37

Originally posted by: indi52

episode 11

back to: whimsical and touching little scene between sisters about their champagnia dreams... no one is going to work, we'll just get married and sit in our own homes, all dressed up and perfect wives, me watching tv after woh goes to work, you all happy tending to your saas. alas, that's not to be. 

^^^

hi rhea,

haw how come you don't remember this scene then? middil kilass ladkis they are and with a vengeance too, chane, choti, saas fantasy, tv sheevee and all. pilleejh do see, the two were deadly in this one. and you are corrrectly ji, they never meddled with the inner soul of k and p. in fact, my poor mano darling had to changiya her character to give her bahuriya some saas save scope. and how hard kamlesh worked for kkgsr, really.

in the middle of song and dance at about 17:45, a girl dressed like a star of the nineties, all done up in cobalt blue and white stone dazzle, exactly as the actress had been in a popular movie and also in the colours of the ocean, did something only a girl like her could do. she hit on arnav singh raizada.

well, what else would you call that marigold aimed and chucked straight at laad governor's face with a glint of extreme mischief in your eyes, khushi.

he had been watching her transfixed ever since she burst onto the stage with her hwihwihwihwi hawa hawai number... then she was sri devi promising lightning strike. to be fair to her, she gave him ample warning... bijlee girane main hoon aayi... i've come to strike with lightning she sang as she smoothly swiveled and swayed through the moves. funny, on the beat, graceful, who could blame him for looking a bit glassy eyed stunned.

he practically didn't move through her routine. and she swung straight into her next ishara... ek do teen chaar paanch chai... tera karoon din gin gin ke intezaar... one two three four five six... i am counting the days and waiting for you. see? khushi said it all. i guess shatir asr was too stupefied to get the message.

sanaya danced so fabulously and that lightness and skim and grin of khushi, a room full of people were mesmerized, i kept thinking she's way better than the original dancers. yeah, there was a playful grace and a svelte sexiness that got me...

khushi meant to win and she had given this whole business much thought. in her darti hai par karti hai way, she may have quaked but she had prepared prepared and prepared some more.

as she had warned him, she knew so much about pratiyogita he couldn't even begin to imagine.

he couldn't. he really thought money would get the job done. primarily i guess because arnav singh raizada does not spend his precious time planning strategies to win homey challenges that typically assail us at shadi times. he thinks of strategies that make billions of dollars, okay millions... but deal, win, strategy, competition are in his being, so when he starts experiencing this thing, no name for it, it's not yet faraq mind you, for this crazy girl, he expresses his unsettling yet insistent feelings through this baiting and challenging.

he stalks her practically from the moment he sees her looking ravishing in her maroon velvet... threatening, saturnine, most nasty.

khushi tum theek toh ho na... khushi, are you okay? he asked her at the beginning of episode after he'd walked in on her and nk having a chat. he glowered at nk, obviously this cosying up to khushi not pleasing him one bit. in fact, khushi's friendly vibe with nk riling him further. poor chap, i thought, this happy easy friendship, he's possibly never had it with anyone. always having to be grown up, take responsibility.

there were layers in that thing i have often called "jealousy" vis a vis nk and khushi's relationship. i don't think nk was the point, it was more about khushi in a man woman exchange with anyone other than him... and being a guy he could clearly sense nk was interested in kkg but kkg had no clue of course. there was also a little yearning perhaps for that chummy feeling between the two.

when khushi looked at him, quite perturbed by now with all the talk of competition and also his nearness, though she wouldn't thing so consciously, he probed...

"tumhari aankhen..." your eyes. his tone was low, intimate almost. khushi hyperventilated. who wouldn't.

"ank... hen?" ey-es? she said tremulous and fazed.

"tumhari aankhen... inme mujhe tumhara dar nazar aa raha hai!" your eyes, in them your fear is visible, said the laad governor smoothly, all set to take that point in this deadly challenge which is always on, stage or no stage.

khushi recovered quickly, she got the point... she gave it back to him, if that's what it looks like to you, go get your eyes examined, this is "lalkaar" a call to come and battle.

the beauty of it all was of course that palpable attraction. that neither would acknowledge yet that drove them both to do all that they did.

as khushi danced and asr sat unable to look away, it became clear that a little more than money was needed to win certain games. and i enjoyed the contrast between the ever moving girl and the completely still man. was as though he sat in one place just surrounded by khushi. khushi leaping, khushi shimmying, khushi posing, khushi flinging her arms, khushi batting her eyelids, khushi walking up, khushi doing signature backward steps, khushi thrusting her hips, khushi pouting, khushi laughing.

storytelling was smart this episode.

we started slow and easy with a bit of asr baiting kkg and some competition angst, shyam chased scorpion adding a slightly macabre but mostly funny note (though i wanted to box him on the face when he looked at kkg, lost a la asr and said, when is she not pretty. enough mirroring, storyteller). garima ji sweetly said, don't let khushi hear this but, payaliya, your saasu ma danced rather well. the trepidation of a middle class woman vis a vis her daughter's ma in law so visible there. touches of the real in a most filmi episode. mami refused to let khoon bhari... payal give her water and said several things in an arch note about trying to impress ma in law. does this happen in the real world? all the time. sometimes ma in law is dressed just as bizarrely too and spewing that engleesiya.

the episode was literally filmi as well, as four well known dance numbers were adapted for screenplay. karan g did a wonderful job with desi boy. i stared at our desi boy looking totally pleased with his candidate. that slight air of arrogance gathering. sigh.

and then khushi took over the floor.

but even as he sat staring fixedly did he for a moment think she might do what she did next?

tempo had been calibrated and raised gradually. then that hit.
tempo careened. seat belt! someone seemed to shout out.
a man looked shocked then angry. a girl lost her smile, then fear came into her eyes, she backed away and bumped into a brown...

"arre yeh toh bilkul..." she looks exactly... a guest exclaimed.

"bilkul mere jaise lag rahi hai," exactly like me... completed a gobsmacked asr.

not even in his wildest had he imagined that she would pull this trick. screenplay deftly turned the original song and scenario around and instead of the boy being the diwana, the girl became the assertive, happy, unstoppable attention seeking absolute and utter flirt.

yes, khushi... you were flirting, that's what it was. not only had you observed him kareeb se as he'd point out, you wanted to be observed by this man.

with that hit of the flower and then the audacious parody based on a man in a brown suit, khushi told him exactly how good she was at assessing competition and having an ace up her sleeve. and throwing it on the table just as you think you've got the game.

i had a feeling her audacity thrilled him. her gumption. he is excited by spirit, by a fight back. he doesn't need a woman to be docile and doormat for him to feel good about himself. be all of arnav singh raizada.

khushi's won't give in attitude had already become fairly precious to him. when she had said she couldn't take it any more at the hospital it had almost physically hurt him. later, she had thrown him totally off kilter at diwali and he had done all he could to break her, but she hadn't broken. in fact, she had bounced back happy giggly and planning kuchh alag kuchh dhamakedar with him for payal and akash, their siblings.

this streak in her had his respect i got the feeling. he called her "pagal" when she did these khushiesque things but there was a respect for a fighter and one who had her own individualistic way.

wasn't he too exactly that?

in a culture where women are always asked to be a bit less, tone down, not think much of themselves, blend... where men need women to follow them and not stand out, arnav singh raizada is a fabulous creature really.

he admires guts, courage, deal making instincts and a definite nahiiin to breaking down or backing out in a woman. in this woman it absolutely excites him.

he also knows that this dance is a clear sign of her interest in him. he can feel the flirt. just look at her leaping all over him, touching him, yanking him, putting  a garland of money on him, getting him engaged to the laptop. (well he might be thinking of a slightly different laptop in that context.) and oh the intimacy of her being him, mimicking, it almost reaches out and caresses the mimicked one.

huh, why khushi, why are you so interested in his marriage plans. the lyrics are funny and terribly personal in a way. a man woman thing to it all the way. khushi possibly was just looking for a lethal strike to take the enemy down, her "kuchh alag, dhamakedar" to vanquish the laad governor. but did she realise what her choice said? where her mind led her?

the last four minutes were only about the two of them and despite a roomful of people i saw just them and their love making. she teased and baited and hassled him, she danced for him, her body was free and happy and reveling in a feeling of triumph. she felt delighted i thought to dance for him.

and he just got completely blown away by her overt happy hit, something so physical in it, by all the innuendo and conjecture, the khushi wink, the touching, the rambunctious hip bumps, the smile that was pure sunshine with a promise of moonbeam.

he put his head down. and his sister thought his famous gussa was about to peak at seventh heaven (awful translation) as in he'll be furious.

instead. he laughed.

from his heart. with his heart.

that flower had found the spot.

and not just for the second time as his sis said, but for the third time or maybe more, a girl made a man who'd lost his laughter, jo hasna bhi na jaane as the song said, laugh and carry on smiling. of course good story telling demanded that he laugh on the doesn't know how to laugh song.

not all love making happens on a bed. not all lovers need to physically touch to be completely ignited by each other. and sometimes a climax is a heartfelt laugh and a smile that just won't go away.

laptop se inki kar do sagai

kaante se hai ye khate parathae...

what the kah ke ji hume roz darate

gusse ke yeh dhoonde bahane

kya kare yeh hasna bhi na jaane

get him engaged to the laptop (yes yes do)
eats his paratha with a fork (did he smile a bit at that?)

scares me with his what the every day (so it's all about you and him)
looks for some excuse to get angry (and you provide them so happily)
what to do, he doesn't know how to laugh (but you know he doesn't look at all like laad governor when he laughs, so are you out to do something here, miss kkg?)

Edited by indi52 - 8 years ago

Here I'm sitting in heathrow again, and what do I get as a treat?!! That was a marvelous read, Indi di. I don't mind sounding like a broken record, but there are a few episodes in the 140s, which you have done combined. Hope you would do individual takes of those too😆

hi kizh,

great to see you. heathrow ek baar phir? rani ji's terminaliya? so glad you had fun reading 168. i will do the 140s i have combined, and shall plague you with pms too. currently very intrigued by the first twenty and wondering how to cut down number of words.

hope journey back good. see you anon.
Edited by indi52 - 8 years ago

Thank you soo much for making this and making ipk alive again
Ipk will and always be alive within us
Miss ipk arshi a lot

what if it wasn't a "blooper" as we keep thinking it was. that was my first thought when episode opened and khushi wore the pink of ek do teen instead of the blue of didi tera jeth ji...

i had a strong feeling 168 had seen a rearrangement of the dances after shooting, after the editing, when it became amply clear just how powerful the didi tera sequence had turned out. perhaps editor said to director, just look at that. and director gazed rapt, scratched his head and knew instinctively right then that this sequence had to be at the end... the high note, the climax.

and so we saw jeth ji being struck by a marigold (quite a wedding time flower that in delhi, usually seen at prayers and nuptials only) in dance number three and not two. i could be totally wrong. but surely an entire episode could not have been planned in the wrong dress for the lead.

the thing that struck me about this episode was its elegance. two mirroring sequences hit the right note. at the poolside, two men accosted a woman who had walked into their lives quite by chance and without meaning to turned their lives upside down.

without meaning to. that was key. khushi never plotted and planned to get the attention of either of these men. by now she knew one had a thing for her and it was really despicable the way he went about expressing it. she also sensed perhaps the other's interest, but it was confusing, unsettling and awoke a response in her she hardly knew how to handle.

this is a young girl in the midst of a man woman thing for the very first time and suddenly there are two men in her life doing utterly bizarre things. i feel a little bad for her really. the man who ripped her dori and was aggressive beyond belief when they met is the one that she started feeling things for. completely confounding that must have been. and the one who she thought was a decent gentle man turned out to be a rascal.

today, when asr caught her at the doorway (again an important conversation in front of a door, i wonder why the creatives did that all the time, maybe some symbolism, i am no good at deciphering, or maybe it's just that hrishikesh gandhi and lalit mohan/arshad khan have a penchant for doors...) he was intimidating and yet it was all about getting close to her.

jeth ji, despite his aggressiveness, was really in disarray. he couldn't get over the fact she had done what she had. he even asked her why she hadn't acted as him since she knew him so well. of course, he had to throw her off guard with the threatening tone, that guttural recall of the lines, making her stammer and choke. he had to get under her skin with the i had no idea you observe me so closely, etc. he did his walking forward, she had to step back... but then she fought back right and proper. such delightful signatures these, i can see this happening at their fiftieth wedding anniversary, suddenly out of the blue, and both feeling the dhakdhak, a smile slanting rakishly, a pair of hazel eyes looking scared then charged and triumphant.

neither had any idea but the tango had already started and it was totally sensuous.

there was a heat in that exchange and it had to go straight to internal organs, the very working places of a human being... dil and dimaag. they both reached out and touched the place which hold these organs, buzzing and beating in us. a need to touch? a feeling they had the right to? there was a part of us never mentioned but it was always at play... the gut. they were already present in each other's basic gut instinct, the often mentioned vibe between the two actors had a huge role in getting that across... totally tastefully, no cringe factor in it too.

both were completely wound up and yet the meeting was tightly conceived, poised. a density in it.

the other scene exactly at that spot was with shyam of course. that mirror. if asr looks at her lost, shyam looks at her smitten. if asr has found and caught up with her here, shyam too must do some catching up.

in this instance, shyam was not seeking her deliberately as asr had, it was that lost scorpion (sorry, creatives, that whole thing was ridiculous, you don't play with a scorpion like that and if indeed it was sitting in khushi's green saree, by now she'd be in hospital... this whole thing reminded me of those hindi movies where they have hero/heroine tied to the chair, an electric wire ends exposed close by meant to blow up something or the other and then the switch is turned on, and we see electricity move slowly along the wire... yes yes this has happened, my memory says, check).

when shyam reaches her, all he wants to do is save her. he whips away the saree and watches horrified and worried... then the scorpion leaves.

by then though, khushi has misread this whole thing and starts berating him. suddenly, all that he's been witness to, that flirting with saaley saab which he no doubt has picked on, as also his inability to reach the object of his obsession, all of it gets to him and reflecting her anger, he lets his ire surge, from terrified for her (he only means to kill his wife, and in his eyes that is perfectly valid, he's doing it for love) he gets nasty as hell, gripping her arm, threatening her, being aggressive. pushing her back against a wall, literally and metaphorically.

what really can khushi do?

well i believe she could have done much. but for reasons she thought were valid, she did not reveal his truth. at this moment thought all that is unimportant, this is about a beautiful young woman who met two men that treated her in ways unfathomable and the hurricane that set up in her.

i feel her vulnerability. all the actors were brill i thought. even abhaas. sometimes he made me feel the heart of shyam... a confused, amoral, totally selfish heart, but in it, in his weird reprehensible way, he did have a very soft corner for this woman. story will make his character become utterly destructive toward her too one day. had the middle part been told well, even that would be understandable. sick obsession grows in unpredictable ways. funnily, so does true, beautiful, edifying love.

we saw bits of both on that poolside i think.

predictably, but not off puttingly, frame showed all three players together during the plundering of an innocent girl by a sick man, but the man who loved her, who she observed so closely, who couldn't stop looking at her, was turned away and too engrossed in his work to notice.

when he did look at her, he instantly realised she was in pain, beautiful shot of reflection, another ipk staple, talking reflections. but he misunderstood. she heard him say she was pretending, incredulous. already tired from all the tussle and wrangle, her arm hurting from the mauling by shyam, her heart disturbed by both the men, trying to find the mind to go back on stage again, she drew away from him, gathered her strength, and walked away.

beautiful.

he knew perhaps then, he'd got it wrong. but too late. damn. (please say that under your breath, through slightly clenched teeth, head bent at an angle and completely disturbed look in eyes.)


in the meantime bua ji stalked mami ji, who ran madly around. while bua ji claimed she had started with three but now she saw fifty krishnas, abhi pachaas nand kissore. mami ji might consider selling this whatever it is she mixed in bua's orange joooice, she'd be a tycoon in her own right.

bhatiji kaunki hai sanka devi, whose nice is crazy khushi, bua took the credit for khushi's smash hit dance too. she who was forever on about khushi not being their own. sweet, typical family, chaotic aunt.

nk was horrified to hear masi ji had cheated. this character is a beauty, nothing dark touches it and his innocence is utterly unlined. in that innocence perhaps sits the sense of the eternal. hai re nand kissore.


Edited by indi52 - 8 years ago

Originally posted by: Swearshina09

Thank you soo much for making this and making ipk alive again
Ipk will and always be alive within us
Miss ipk arshi a lot

thanks, swearshina,

always great to see ipk and then chat about it. yeah, miss them.

^^^

she did dance rather fabulously, didn't she. as for him... i am desperate to find some terrible fault so i can survive intact. Edited by indi52 - 8 years ago