IshRa through my eyes.

Raman Kumar Bhalla.

When Raman was with Shagun, he loved her. He did everything in his power to make her happy and to see to it that she is happy. But what did she do? She left him for Ashok. Not only that, she took their son and left him with their small daughter. And since then Raman became Ravan Kumar and started hating women. In the initial days, we saw that he hated women... he didn't trust them. He thought they were vindictive and conniving beings. He didn't know Ishita much at first but that didn't stop him from judging her and hating her. He thought she had ulterior motives to get close to Ruhi when her heart was clean and all she wanted to do was love Ruhi. Basically, he didn't even know her and he hated her because he hated women in general. And he had stopped believing in love. Right?

Then slowly she broke his walls. She taught him to truly love... like, truly madly deeply love. You know how I always say their love is palpable? That kind of love. He went from hating her to loving her and to not being able to live without her. With shagun, he went from loving her to hating her. With Ishita, hating her to loving her. Which are very two distinct notions. Ishita gave him everything he never knew he needed and more. She made him human again. She gave him love. She gave him Ruhi and Adi. She gave him his family. She gave him everything Shagun took from him.

Then. Just like Ishita gave him everything...one wrong thing he said, and she killed herself. He has always been unlucky in love. First time he loved a woman, she left because of his inadequacy. Second time he loved a woman, she killed herself because of his inability to keep his mouth shut. Imagine loving someone so much and ending up being the reason for their death? He calls her Jhansi Ki Rani, he believes she is his sherni, that she is this strong woman. And just one thing and she kills herself? Albeit it's a big one thing. How can he love again? How can he believe in love again? Because the person who taught him to love killed herself because of him. Ishita taught him to love and he taught her to die. Just place yourself in his situation and think for a moment...you are responsible for the death of your wife, the love of your life. How would you feel? How on earth would you be open to love again? It is why he is indifferent towards everyone but Puhi. Puhi is a part of Ishita. She is their pyaar ki nishaani. She is the last thing and the only thing Ishita left behind along with her memories. If it wasn't for Puhi, he would too join her by jumping off the cliff. But he can't do that. He can't do what he did to Ruhi to Puhi, because he owes it to Ishita to take care of their daughter, when she has given him so much in life.

And like Anku once mentioned, Ishita is gone according to him. So how can he be open to love when he knows he can only love Ishita? If Ishita isn't there, then what's the point of believing in love? The person he can love and loves is dead. So why would he have faith in love? When the love of his life is dead...and he blames himself for it.

Ishita Bhalla ne Iyer.

Ishita Bhalla is the most insecure person in the show. She needs love, acceptance and to be needed to feel good about herself. When she was Ishita Iyer, the woman who was left at the alter by her long term boyfriend, only because she couldn't conceive, is very insecure. She couldn't give a man something she thought was very important and needed to be loved in return. She was a baanj, as they so skillfully call her several times in the show. She went from being so loved and ready to be committed to a man to being left only because she couldn't give the man she loved and whom she thought loved her back, a child. Through the years, she learned to live with it, not daring to ever dream again of being loved. Because she knew, what's the use? Not like she can produce babies, why would a man ever love her again? Look at her again? Desire her again?

That is until she met her match in Raman Kumar Bhalla. See, he was a person who didn't need a child out of a woman, no. he already had a child, who needed a mother. He only needed a woman who could be there for Ruhi. Ishita and Raman's needs fit perfectly like a puzzle. They fit perfectly like a puzzle. There is this woman, who cannot bear children, who loves children and wants to be a mother no matter what. Then there is this man, who has a daughter and who wants a mother that would love his daughter. Perfect solution, right?

They decided to get married, but did her insecurity leave? No, insecurity is her middle name. Ishita Bhalla is a woman who goes out of her way to help everyone. She is Jagat Mata, Tyag ki devi, etc. Why? Why does she do all this? Because helping and fixing others is one of the ways she feels good about herself. She can fix herself, she feels she is broken, barren, unwanted, cannot be desired, cannot be fully and wholly loved. Time and time again, she repeats how she is a complete woman. Why? Because she wants to believe it. She so badly wants to believe that she is indeed a complete woman and not what the society brands her to be. But even she isn't a fool. She knows it. She isn't complete. At least that's what she believes.

She lives in such a society that being infertile is a taboo, it's wrong. It's not the norm, it's looked down upon. So she makes herself believe that she is complete, and when Raman would be upset, she assures him too, that she is complete.

After she was left by Subbu, from then on, she had to face instances where people would several times call her barren, she had to hear taunts from all sorts of people because of her inability to conceive. She didn't mind. She survived. Duniya walon ka kya? She lived. Because they didn't matter to her, they weren't important. They were merely people breathing the same air as her. Mere species in the earth.

That is what she thought...until it came from that one person...whom she considered her whole world, her whole life... that one person, who repeatedly said, completed her. That's when she hit rock bottom, that's when she felt apart, that's when she truly felt the word having some meaning, that's when she truly believed it, that's when she lost it, that's when she had no reason whatsoever to continue living.

Raman was able to slowly break down her walls, make her believe that should be loved and desired. He made her love again, her unraveled her. She was able to trust him and feel she was complete. But the walls were not fully broken. It is why, even after everything IshRa have been through, she had the audacity to think he could ever want her out of his life. That he could ever be happy without her. That he could ever fall in love again. Because even after believing that he loves her, she doesn't fully believe she is capable of ever being so loved by someone that she could think of anything but that person being happy after she leaves. And this is because of nothing else but the insecure, of such magnitude that she feels within herself. That she is incapable of giving someone everything that he wants. She thinks she is so incomplete; she could never complete someone else.

Originally posted by: -Nidoo-

Res.

And Puhi? Here? Really? 😆 😆

Originally posted by: -Anku-

That is a beautiful beautiful post Atii.🤗 I don't know how you can doubt yourself at all.

You've indeed spelled clearly what IshRa really are. And with such perfection that I don't know what to say.

But like you said, Raman made Ishita believe in the fact that she could be complete. Even if he himself felt he wanted to give her the blessing of giving birth to her own child, she felt complete with him, with Ruhi and Adi. He gave her what the world took away from her. She became a mother even before she became a wife. Raman trusted her first as a mother and then as a companion. And that's something no one had done for her. He relied on her for everything, with his life, his family his kids. And then one day they lost their Ruhi...and she got accused for it, accused for being the one to have lead that to happen. And she believed it. Because if the man who made her believe in herself didn't believe in her anymore. Ishita isn't weak...but she's insecure and has always been. Raman was the one who secured her...and only he has the power to have made her come to what she has today.

Similarly for Raman, he had forgotten how to be loved and to love. He had distanced himself from his people, from anything that meant emotion. He had been made to feel that he wasn't enough or capable enough to keep anyone happy. His emotions were thrown back at him as an insult than be respected. Ishita was the one who came and broke those walls he'd build around himself and valued and respected his every little gesture like no one else had. He got back respect and love in abundance. Slowly she became his strength and the reason he wanted to live. It almost felt like everything he had in his life, he felt he owed it to her. And then one incident ...and in his anger he took that away from her, instead blaming her for being the one to have taken away his happiness...And that lead her to kill herself. He had always felt that she's the one whose given him the most and he hasn't done anything for her. It only hit him that day, just how much he meant to her ...that she would end her life if she didn't have his love and trust.

IshRa are soulmates for a reason. They may seem toxic for each other, but such is their love and importance in the others life that none can function without the other.