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"The only test of love is time."
Love is never bound by explanations or conditions, it flows...freely. While it remains untamable, it has this Herculean capacity to bind one and all. And love is love; there is no need to fracture it into fraternal, platonic or romantic. For this is all that we have and to break it into fragments would probably take away the core of our being.
Last night was one such retelling that told us repeatedly that there is nothing more important than love, and the ones who understand this are the only ones who can survive this wretched world that snatches away our intrinsic good to replace it with its own version of evil.
Shivaay is slowly being replaced with a hapless evil and the Junior ObBros aren't ready for it. They will fight and fight back even if that means burning the world down to keep their houses alight. Om is a fragile soul that will cease to survive if his brother is taken in the clutches of danger. He was lost, unable to understand how and where he should strike to get things back to the way they were. He knows his brother has an aggravated heart condition that would worsen any moment if he administered drugs of high power. He knows a lot rides on him and everything will collapse if there is as much as a scratch on him. And he knows he will die if Shivaay chooses to close his eyes leaving him behind.
Omkara is a harmonic blend of strength and vulnerability. He is a strong warrior, yes, but there is a limit to which a war-hardened veteran can fight. After a while, even he has to lay down his sword and wait for a release...be it in discharge of duty or in death. For now he cannot hope to lay a claim to death because his brother is still dwindling on the fine line of existence. Today he has to channel his inner fire into a dynamic that he had shied away from previously. He has to fill in the shoes of Alpha so that the true one can recover and recover fast. It is amazing to see such sea change in a man who prefers taking a hit over shielding his vitals from a head-on attack. This man is falling apart and the only way he can be revived is if his brother wakes up defying the norms that he is known for. What I particularly liked about Om last night was that he was scared, afraid and terrified of losing it all, yet he decided to stay put because that is what Shivaay would have wanted for him to be.
It is strange that in an episode where Shivaay was lying on his hospital bed, he made a strong presence felt through his brothers. His alpha-like stubbornness was seen in Om while his refusal to adhere to the norms of the day was seen in Rudra. It was this very quality that made Om and Rudra stand like the mighty army zealously guarding their king. Om was the first to zero down on the fact that Shivaay was poisoned. And all I can say is, fear his uproar for the wrath of the calm is the most dangerous. Kunal deserves applause for shaking off that degree of pain and sheer agony terrorizing him. He crying his eyes out over losing someone as close and vital as breathing was painful enough to watch.
But the one really made a tsunami-sque impact on me was Rudra. For him, his world has fallen apart and all those happy promises of the future came crumbling down to his feet. I made this post previously about Rudra that he has never seen his brothers cast in the frame of being normal mortals. They've always been his personal superheroes. One who can take down the mightiest of super-villains and look smug about the same. He has seen them saving the world and distributing pink candies to little girls. And now that one them has indeed taken a hit he doesn't understand how is he supposed to cope up. The opening scene when he had been mumbling to himself some incoherent and non-cohesive words, showed how deeply he has been affected by Shivaay's pain. He had been crying that he wants his superman back and doesn't give a hoot about anything else. You can see that he still is the little kid who is afraid to sleep with lights out as he fears his cupboard door would open revealing a slimy monster's dwelling. I remember to have said that he might have been donning the mask of indifference now, but as a kid he must have cried himself to sleep: and that he did. It was Shivaay who lulled him to sleep, it was Shivaay who played the role of both his parents and it was the very Shivaay whose absence in his life was making it difficult for him to breathe.
Rudra had gone ballistic when the nurse asked him to sign a non-responsibility form. How can you expect a little kid to part with his super-hero? Remember as kids we refused to believe that Shaktimaan was not real. He was very much a living and breathing entity in our lives and anything against him would excite the fire within us. Same is with Rudra here, he cannot bring himself to even think that his Shivaay Bhaiya would leave him. The thought is abhorrent to him.
Even when he sits down and opens up with Soumya on the same, he repeatedly keeps saying that he is his superman, how can he fall to a petty hit? He has no one else to blame so he is dumping that on himself as he was the one who wanted Shivaay's engagement to break off. If he gets to know that a certain lady was involved he probably would tear her apart without thinking about moralities. Leenesh was so brilliant that I can't even begin to describe it. Both Kunal and Leenesh did give their best. I have a little brother myself about whom I madly possessive. I cannot tolerate a scratch on him, so I could easily connect to what Om and Rudra had been feeling all along.
The episode was so emotionally charged that it left me choking on the same.
The massive chunk of the episode belonged to brothers who even though broken and battered stood together braving the cyclonic agony that came their way. But the other tit-bits of the episode was again beautifully executed and deserves mention.
The scene where Om enters from the dark into a house that is ready to embrace festivities was such a definitive artistic stroke. His slumped shoulders and a thoroughly beaten attitude spoke volumes even before he opened his mouth to break the tragedy over his family. Kalyani was pained, Pinki was dumbstruck and Jhanvi wanted to deny that anything of the sort actually happened to Shivaay who is so dear to her.
Even in the hospital when Pinki is at her wits end, it is Jhanvi who makes it clear that out of all their kids, Shivaay was the most stubborn and he won't rest until all his demands were met. Seriously this woman is class apart. It is from her that Om gets his inherited goodness. Even after Pinki had spewed venom on his face he goes ahead and consoles her. He offers her water and so affectionately calls her Choti Ma. Maybe deep down every other person wants to stick to each other only superficially they are miles apart or maybe it is only tragedy that brings them together. Jhanvi, though faces such severe pains on a daily basis, chooses to stick to her kids and not the pang that she suffers. She is possibly the other reason why Om decided to crawl back to reality from the trance of drugs and its abuse. She is class apart and there can hardly be another like her. All I pray is that all the daughters-in-law love her unconditionally just as Shivaay, Om and Rudra do. And who is her stylist? She looked so smokin' hot that it was difficult for me to take my eyes off her. She defines graceful and elegant. I am sold to this one!
Rudra and Soumya's interaction was another sweet lingering in the mouth. How realistic and beautiful that was. No overtly done scenarios or over sensationalized shots, plain, simple and yet so impactful. The young happy bubble of girl sat down to a boy-man who had been crying over something she didn't know. She offers him water and when he asks for black coffee she happily obliges him and then makes it a point to sit down and listen to him open up. Such a pretty, pretty scene! I loved it when she offered him her parathaa and said that once his brother gets well she'd come and sing for him. Soumya is every girl we like at the first instance in our new school. One that offers us her friendship without even asking for the same. I love this character and Neha was so good in the same. She would never grow up for me she will always remain the chubby, little one from Banegi Apni Baat.
So she too had lost her brother and that is the reason why she could relate with Rudra's plight. Okay I am suspecting that she is Anika's long lost sister, their attitude match a lot and apparently Kumbh-ke-mele-mein-bichde-bhai/behen still sells!
Anika and Saahil's story, though sad, felt shoved into the narration proper of the episode. I believe they could have shown it afterwards or in the next episode. It somehow didn't stick well. Also just in the previous episode she had been feeling a cosmic pain when Shivaay fell down and hurt himself, and now when he is actually struggling with his life she feels nothing? Kyun dhua ho gaya pyaar???
I am rating Rudra-Soumya over Shivaay-Anika as the former carries so much more warmth. That is how you do love stories, damn it!!
If Jhanvi hadn't been playing Omie's mom, I probably would have shipped the two. I totally dig Cheeni Kam' romances.
Precap. The lions roars marking his territory. This was the Om we all had been waiting to see. Go on darling show it to Tej who's the boss. And answer me this how is it that such a ameer aadmi' admitted in the hospital has zero security placed outside his hospital room? And scar-waali-aunty if you indeed have to kill Shivaay, wait at least he is out of Om and Rudra's reach, for these two brothers would kill death, if it tries to harm their Shivaay. She proves why she deserves the dumbest villain award!
P.S. The juxtaposing of scenes where Shivaay had been playing with his brothers with the current one where he is unconscious was so daft that you have to sit up and take notice.
P.P.S. The hospital room scene where Om and Rudra had been holding Shivaay's hand, silently praying for him to wake up, was so heartening. To hell with their love stories, my heart would break into two if the brothers fell apart!
P.P.P.S. That dialogue when Rudra said that Shivaay was more to him than his blood-brother wasn't indicative that he'd choose Shivaay over Om but that meant that he sees no difference between the two. They are both one and the same and he will cease to function without the either not supporting his back.
Health and Fitness
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