We All Fall Down

Disclaimer: Spoilers. And also, I watch this show because they started on an interesting note (seemed to be exactly what i wanted to do for half hour of my 1.5 hours of tv time i get after work and 4 kids) and I criticize it because i used to love a lot about it- maayi being 1 on the list, abrar and sonalika ji's dhakar acting, shruti whom i knew had a lot of potential despite of dhanak's pappa-ing, raghu even when he used to behave like a monster- as the premise calls for, the punters- and hope for it to take saucier/more interesting turns.

Now that thats out of the way, i have a lot to say about this episode AND the precap AND the new promo on tv. so lets get on with it.

right of the premise the mission is done and the children are safe. after the hour or more the police managed to finally find a towing vehicle to connect to the bus. its amazing...their performance is...but anyways. the bottomline of it was, raghu doesnt want to leave the death trap bus till dhanak is out, so dhanak (a trainee IPS officer) ordered the full-on police to leave her with her husband in the said bus because...its better that she dies with raghu than face maayi after playing a facilitation role in raghu's death. smart girl.

now lets address the first part- raghu not wanting to leave the steering till dhanak was out. apparently he was born in the 1960s when you needed to constantly steer the vehicle in order for it to move in a straight line for a bit. aaila! i thought he was like early to mid twenties but bhai toh almost 60 nikla! kya maintain kiya re khud ko! they're on a straight highway without any curves. he could've let the steering go for the exact minute it would've taken him and dhanak to jump off but no! why not you ask? because i deeply believe that raghu is actually suicidal. dont believe me? just watch the series of previous episodes since they got married. count the number of times in the 30 or so odd episodes that raghu has actively tried to kill himself or asked someone else to just kill him. if i was to recap and take a shot for each time, I'd be dead. still dont believe me? then just watch the rest of the episode.

now let's address the second part- dhanak not wanting to leave raghu because he has no way out unless he goes with her. now admittedly, its been a while since i was in school and that too not in india. so do the driving seat not have doors in india that he could've jumped out of? or was that detail not covered in her ips syllabus as of yet? ok lets just chalk this one upto panic ki maayi maregi agar raghu mar gaya.

now for the grand hooha! the dard bhari young lovers about to die scene. who here was confused that raghu loves dhanak? who here was confused that dhanak cares about raghu in some human capacity? well, if you were, im glad you got 4 whole minutes of raghu telling you in many round about ways that he loves dhanak and would die for her (waise toh i think he'd be glad to just die anyways but this sounds better than suicide i suppose). for those of you who knew, just skip to the last two minutes. that bit was the only part that seemed real and landed as she struggled to finally pull him up, he finally tried to come up instead of sprouting rubbish and she took yet another vachan- dont speak about death again, she's probably just as tired as us of hearing fake death threats. that bit seemed genuine and really, the only part that added anything of significance.

The dialogues for the grand scene were just plain weird. besides asking dhanak to let him die, he thanked her for coming into and completing his life (sidenote: abrar's english diction is too posh for raghu, thats the only error i've noticed in terms of his acting)- by making him ttly bekar, suicidal pav bhaji wala from an accha khaasa don and making him cry enough buckets to solve mumbai's sukha problem. this was the last thing he wanted to tell her- thank you. not the more direct- i love you and whatever i do is for love. the flashbacks made me sad, not because raghu was 'dying' but because i miss what this show used to be. but then ofcourse he remembered that there was more he wanted to say- like how much she troubled him with the vachans, his hopes for this life, for the next one, etc. point to be noted- maayi was nowhere in his death speech. anyways, dhanak's response to his nonsense was- you've passed the tests and you cant give me 'itni bari har'. her husband was at the edge of death and she was still somehow rationally thinking about the sath vachans and giving bhashans on imandari. all of it sounded like telling a dying person whatever they wanna hear. kuch bhi. i hate those sath vachans. the panic didnt set in till the last two minutes in dhanak when she was finally like- shut up and try to come up. and raghu like a chabi ka khilona climbed up the falling bus and pushed himself in within a minute. which poses the question- itni der tak jhak mar rahe the kya bhai?

the logistics of this whole shindig was as i discussed in my previous thread, crazy. what exactly was stopping the bus from tumbling down instantly? i literally saw no barriers. raghu broke through the front glass head first and was somehow not cut up everywhere, suffered no head trauma and was not bleeding to death, dhanak who couldnt get through to the driver's seat somehow magically got inside just as raghu was about to fall. now i am a pretty fit woman. i can still bench press 100kgs about 10 times. chalo maan liya IPS is way fitter than me. phir bhi ek 75 kilos k aadmi ko 6 minute tak ek haath se pakad k rakhna must be a new record of some sort. BUT the craziest of them all- there was no hurricane, bas ek bus aur niche ek gehri khai. then how in the world did raghu and dhanak end up in the forest? yeh magic forest tha kaha pe yaar?

Now for the final scene- maayi telling pappa to stop being such a looser would be great on any given day. the man is a sniveling mongoose. but in this occasion i was just laughing when she was like- savitri yadav ne sher ko janam diya hain. i was like- sure maayi. sure. then she explained how if raghu is alive nothing can happen to dhanak- didnt he shoot her a month ago? but ok. satvi maayi. BUT having said all this, one thing is for sure- her anger at dhanak is completely justified. she lied and cheated and played a pretty stupid game that'll have resounding consequences for her family. she's fudged with mumbai underworld and also disrespected maayi. you cannot try to paint new colours into people and relationships with lies. you wanted to sudhrao maayi, you shouldve tried harder rather than faster. i'm sure this'll have pretty deadly consequences for the jadhavs and punters. dhanak has really crossed a line with this in her naivety. ab geher barse ga and raghu will be forced to take up arms again (which i hope is the case. don bin raghu is just bin raghu).

now coming to the jungle mein mangal track. copied from DABH (i watched only bits of DABH, lost patience for it pretty quick) and all ok thik hain. yeh bhi maan liya. but i was hoping that they'd take this time to show Dhanak's side of the story, to give us an insight into her feelings- any love or attraction she feels beyond friendship and gratefulness for a competent (debatable) partner. and then i saw the promo of her dancing and thanking raghu with once again a monologue from raghu, whose feelings i hope by now atleast are clear to all? hopefully the episodic execution will be 20K times better cos that promo was just knee deep in silly- both dialogue and dhanak's random dancing wise. or worse, its raghu's dream. saala sapne mein bhi yeh sirf thank you tak hi dekhta hain yeh gareeb aadmi.

when i had said that this story needs to create some angst, i didnt really mean putting characters in an insane and stupid situation just to draw some tears from dhanak. i meant create some situation where either her feelings deepen or she understands how deep they run and she tries to vocalize that through words or actions. not wanting the man you sleep next to everyday to die, doesnt say anything at all. actually one little correction- there is no time for feelings to get deeper- its aar ya paar time, they are friends, they are partners, they are husband and wife, raghu has tried to kill himself multiple turns over her, has literally cheated his own mother multiple times for her. it doesnt get any deeper for him. if she still doesnt feel attracted to him- the only thing that differentiates her 'love' for raghu and parag, then she might as well walk out cos all these situations dont have any emotional weightage if dhanak doesnt love him in a man love woman sense. raghu is not her brother and he cant just be her friend anymore. its exhausting and boring. and if this jungle period is going to lead to some one-sided or random both sided romance and then she just thanks him and we have to treat that as progress, then please humein baksh dijiye. their interactions remind me of mem sahib speaking to a pav bhaji wala who has a crush on her- bhaiya ty so much mere pav bhaji mein extra ghee dalne k liye. the idea was to find and culminate love in a war zone, not to sign a peace treaty and become trade partners. its to create a love that compels, not just raghu but dhanak as well to stay even when our partner crosses a line and try work things out. the kind that compels us to believe that it'll be ok in the end. but nothing with anything so far.

whether you agree or disagree- sound off below please. APPEAL TO SILENT READERS!

Nice write-up.

I don't know where the show is going because I don't understand the relationship anymore. Raghu's love is boring, clingy, and brainless. I liked your comparison of Dhanak's feelings for Raghu Vs Parag. Once I read it, I realized that there is no difference in her feelings for the two guys. That was almost pukeworthy.

Khai, jungle, hanging bus, long winded-dialogues, Dhanak ordering police is too much logic for the show. I don't know what was the purpose of the whole scene/setup. Raghu was still harping about his love and Dhanak was still trying to save her "partner".   Zero progress in their relationship or the plot.

Police should hire Raghu with Dhanak because she obviously can't complete any mission without him. Raghu is definitely suicidal but then who wouldn't be with a wooden robocop for a wife.

Haven't seen DBAH so can't comment, but one thing I can say with confidence is that DBAH couldn't have such a hair-brained show for at least its first year or it wouldn't have survived/topped the charts.

I did not see Shruti in the competition show - but I feel her performance is not up to par. It started off well but has gone down as the show progressed. It may just be that she can't keep up with the demands of a daily show.

i solemnly swear that i will say nothing about the ridiculousness of their injuries or lack there of or the superman level of strength raghu has- aila! bol hi diya. damn. fine from now, zip on the logistics and suspend all modicum of disbelief. 

as i predicted, today's episode was just random bits of 'romance' (if you can call it that) with no head or tail. dhanak felt nothing to be alive, let alone feel something that her husband is alive. yeh robot saach mein sar pe kafan bandh k ghar se nikalti hain. anyone else in her position wouldve laughed, cried, said a prayer, kissed or hugged their partner, would've addressed the partner's suicidal tendency...kuch bhi. par nahi, again just as with the shooting dhanak moved on like nothing had happened. @irshita i agree shruti's performance has not been on par with her partners' in the show but one cannot be faulted for crap performance of a crap reaction. the romance and angst material was ripe for the picking, but instead the cvs wrote in random idher udhar ka scenes with them randomly traipsing around the forest, dhanak enjoying a piggyback ride, showing off her targetting skills (i dont know why because clearly raghu has had to save her ips behind on every mission), eating mango and racing on broken knees. nonsense.

BUT dhanak finally stared longingly at raghu and we got flashback to affirm that she has the feels, but then it clicked in my head...i've seen this look before- during gudi padwa...in fact i've seen more lust than that on her face before...during holi AND right before maayi caught her below raghu...sooo... progress? no. its not. dhanak seems almost indignant to be feeling something for raghu. and her hesitance to hold his hand, jump onto his back, look at him, or even shade him from the sun is borderline abnormal. she's hugged him voluntarily multiple times, been touched more intimately by him even if was accidental (its not like she pushed him off) and has shared a bed with him for months. this is hardly anything. so why all the awkward faces? this is the problem with this 'love story'. it feels like 1 step forward and then forgetting that its moved 1 step forward already and restarting from scratch. 

Note on the extras: Sejal-Aslam are genuinely cute. organic and authentic. much more so than RaNak. Probs because sejal is human and aslam is mature. Par jab tak maayi hain, i dont think kisi ki bhi daal galne wali hain.