Originally posted by: beagleboy
And yes, Sumo was a bit of a school bully - the types that we try and avoid. The ones that I tell my children to ignore and avoid.
By nature, Bully's have low self esteem and are full of insecurities. In order to camouflage this, they bully everyone in sight, in order to feel superior.
Coming to the serial, Sumo was outwardly a confident loud mouth. But, she was probably incredibly insecure and in order to hide her insecurities she became an insufferable loud mouth. And yes, she was insufferable. Any one who at 15, when you ought to know social rights and wrongs, who behaves the way she did is insufferable. Having said that EVERY school and every class in every country has its share of classroom and playground bullies.
The problem is that a bully may actually grow up to be a completely sorted person. Or not. Either he/she will allow a certain maturity to set in, or life in general will teach them to empathise. Suman at 15 was so self-absorbed that she did not see how her words and behaviour affected her best friend. She was too much in love with herself, or seemingly so, that she failed to see the love Shravan had for her. Shravan too was at fault- he did not stop Suman at any point during their interactions. He gave her the impression that it was ok with him to be treated the way he was. And when he could take no more, he left. For Suman, Shravan was a rock that she could lean on, but when he was around she kicked him around like a small pebble. When he left, the rock supporting her was not there and she stumbled and fell. And that fall brought in maturity and it dawned upon her that she was wrong. Yet, I do not think she saw or can see Shravan's innermost feelings- she was too blind then and does not have the information now to put two and two together.
She only remembers the good times and so when Shravan comes back all changed and different she cannot identify with him. They may as well be strangers on a lonely road - both alone, both changed with new and differing perspectives, and neither has a rock to lean on.
I may call Sumo loud, brash, immature but definitely not a bully. A bully is a very serious term and intimidation is definitely not bullying.
The first time she met Shravan she acted like one, but she never meant physical harm, she infact tried to learn cubing from that incident. Later, after becoming friends, when the lady in the market starts bashing Shravan, Sumo was the one to go to his rescue.
The fact that she decides to ignore Shravan does not make her bad or mean. She was clear about it all through... even during the prom dress checking she does tell him what she cares a lot about her image. Yes, she was shallow but that is exactly the person that Shravan fell in love with. Sad aspect is that Shravan changed and Sumo did not change along with him... he should probably have let her be... but he could not, this on the whole resulted in his sorrow. It is like trying to change a person who did not want to be changed. Shravan, wanted to push Sumo to accept him at school and that would not have gone well with her and things would have blown out of proportions. End of the day, be it a kid or an adult, we all want to be the way we are and learn from our mistakes... our mistakes are the best teachers in life.
There is no right or wrong her... school is a different territory and there is a lot of peer pressure that kids do succumb to and I simply cannot blame Sumo.
This is how I see it... Shravan was a privileged kid, who probably got everything he wanted. Sumo was from a middle class background, lost her parents at a very young age and learnt to fend for herself. So, when Shravan could not get what he wanted viz. public recognition in school with Sumo plus Sumo herself, he was upset... Sumo had no problem with Shravan in most places other than school.
Btw, since when was it a rule to attend prom night only with the best friend? Especially when she was not in love with him?
I would not say she kicked him around. He helped her with homework, she cooked for him. They played together, shopped together etc. Shravan is a well known to her family and Pushkar knows how close these 2 where... so where was this kicking around? Refusing to go out to guard one's image can be shallow... not the other things. Look at Powder Puff... she is a senior Sumo without the brains :)
Even now Shravan behaves like the typical ASR... cannot take no for an answer 😆😆
Edited by poppinss - 9 years ago
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