Posted:
Since everyone is busy writing some form of goodbye or closure letters, I figured I'd start mine early😆
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Shivika,
Where do I begin? For it all really starts with you, doesn't it? In the face of long, LONG odds, you still stand. In the face of people trying to deny your existence, disrespecting you, your legacy, you still stand.
So, I shall try, in my own small part, to acknowledge what you were, what you stood for, what you meant to a lot of people who will never let go no matter how many forces try to devalue you.
This is in some ways about the story of my journey with Shivika. It all begins with a girl called Anika...whom I never really intended to watch or know. Yet somehow I did, on a lark. Hmm, I thought...I like her voice...she's got a spark even if she's a bit raw. She makes me want to watch her even in a cliched story. And so I decided to watch...on an on/off basis, since the show itself seemed to have mediocre writing at best, riddled with typical cliches...easy to dismiss. Every once in a while, I'd catch up...find myself amused, despite myself. Laughing at a quip of hers, at the way she put down the cliched businessman male lead, whom I initially found to be too stiff and quite unremarkable...most of my entertainment came from watching him sputter in front of her😆. I watched but never deeply connected...they were an easy watch, uncomplicated, light...nothing I expected myself to invest in.
Two months down the line, I find myself surprisingly watching more regularly. Even more to my surprise, I start coming across scenes that actually had substance...and heart. I vividly remember the conversation about the practicality/impracticality of love, that was a turning point in my connect with Shivika. Hmm, I thought again...so there may be more to them beyond the cliched "I believe in love, I don't believe in love" tropes. And I continued to get reeled in despite myself.
Time passed, more scenes connected with me, I talked about the show more, found some like minded people here to discuss it with...and that invariably kept building the connect. And it struck me over time that I was trolling the characters as much as beginning to get attached to them. This was especially true of Shivaay...whom I started off trolling a LOT😆...for too many reasons to get into now...he really was a walking advertisement for things to troll...and yet somehow mazaak mazaak mein, I became fond of him...fond of his quirks, his weird tics, his awkwardness, his warmth...it all amalgamated together. It was partly the writing which generously layered him and partly the actor himself who infused such a sense of sincere warmth in Shivaay that I came to connect with him.
More time passed, Shivika traveled their own roller coaster of a path in the show, traveling a whole range of emotions from zany, wacky, goofy to emotional, angsty, and back to madcap...haha...their RANGE was a story in of itself. And with each new phase, I came to connect more deeply to both of them. What started off as a connect to Anika, then to Shivaay, blossomed into a deep connect with BOTH of them. And they never really made it easy to always continue that connect😆...they tested our connect with them as much as they tested their relationship with each other. And with each layer added to their relationship, a layer of connect was added for me to towards them as well.
I said this many times over the course of the last two years. Shivika to me represented a beautiful UNIT. Not an ideal unit, but somehow all the more beautiful for it. They were never some idyllic pair to be held up as a role model for life...God no...look at how idiotically they behaved so many times in their ego😆...they were beautiful in all their imperfections to me. They represented an ideal, not in the typical sense of an ideal. To me, they represented the ideal of finding perfection in imperfection...of becoming a unit despite all those imperfections...and holding that unit strong in the face of all odds.
And I have to speak of odds now...because God knows there were MANY😆. The odds of poor, disjointed writing, of initially being written off by some. The odds of constant undermining for promotion of spin offs or other projects😆. The odds of constantly being undervalued as the people who were the bedrock of this show, so that others could be propped up...the odds of continuing on...in the face of spin offs, hour long mergers, half hour long mergers, groupbaazi, social gyaan and a lame redux. The odds of starting off building this show and then being told in the end, you were just one cog in a machine of six, so tata bye😆
I speak of these odds because they must be addressed in this larger story of Shivika. I speak of these odds because so many would rather pretend these odds never happened😆...but we remember. We definitely remember. Shivika were the characters on whose backs this show was built. The characters the audiences loved the most deeply no matter what narratives were spun to devalue them. They prevailed. They still do. That is the truth.
The end of the road for Shivika came a while back, perhaps even before redux, in many ways, when in the face of so much sabotage from the writing team, their characters were ultimately diluted for some pathetic writing. And yet, many ppl still watched...for the actors who lived these roles. Who stayed dedicated for as long as they could.
I thank you, NM and SC...for playing these roles so beautifully and leaving so many wonderful memories for me and many more to cherish. Long after this show ends.
I thank you for providing us with 550 episodes of Shivika content to cherish. Because if I stayed watching for those 550 episodes and even a few after, it was only because you two still poured such sincerity, a sense of feel good warmth into those parts. You were STELLAR...in the true sense of the word😆. And that is the memory I'll take with me.
And finally I thank Shivika...for this totally improbable KHIDKITOD journey that I never expected to have with them...least of all for so long. But it was more than worth it :)
With Love,
AY
Cricket
