A few weeks back, I was personally getting tired of Shravan's incessant lying and casual attitude seemingly going nowhere, but I feel the story has picked up from last week as SS have officially moved into a friendship zone.
Shravan is fundamentally an aimless and lazy boy....he has all the raw material and talent inside him to achieve great things, but lacks focus and motivation in life. Since the start of this story, the only thing he showed drive towards in the early days was getting one up on the Army kids😆....he put all his energies into achieving that and very much managed to bring about a sea change in the way the kids of the various grades interact in the school. He managed to inspire the civilian kids and even managed to get them almost equal footing in school activities. These are the characteristics of a leader....the boy has them....but is generally too lazy to apply them towards anything substantial.
This is where Sumo enters his life and directly and indirectly manages to inspire him, give him focus and motivation. The friendship and all came later, but from the beginning of their interactions, Sumo and Shravan have this ability to impact each other, an unexpected ease in opening up to each other about all kinds of thoughts.
The Devika chapter has essentially been a set up for Shravan's lies to face a big moment of reckoning. All of his personality traits are being condensed and addressed in this track....he's a typical boy who dates any girl who will give him attention and will help him put on a "cool" impression with his peers. In dating Devika, he's set up a whole web of lies..... Sumo has caught some of them and is tired of his constant lies and called him out on it over and over again.....the development of the friendship became an unexpected bridge between them and has enabled Shravan for the first time to open up to Sumo's advice. The other reason ofcourse is that subconsciously he's developed a core of deep caring for Sumo that he doesn't fully realize yet....he actually wants to make her happy too so he listens to her advice just to make her happy....lol
Which brings us to this week where Shravan is slowly realizing that he feels something for Sumo even as Sumo is enthusiastically trying to give him dating advice for Devika....lol it's a strange bittersweet conundrum for him. I laughed when he considered telling Sumo in the last scene today even as he feared her reaction😆.....I'd thought he might struggle with feeling something for her when they've just about started to settle into friendship.....but then the earlier scene in the terrace does provide some context for this. Shravan is generally in a haze of superficiality all around him.....where self-worth is determined by getting the shallow approval of your peers or society. Sumo is the first peer in his life who is giving him a different perspective towards approaching things genuinely. No matter how cool he tries to act, he's ultimately an impulsive kid who has a mushy core too....Sumo's speech about love today connected with him and suddenly started reminding him of all those moments where he's felt a spark with her but downplayed it cuz they were busy bickering or cuz he was irritated with her.
I feel ultimately the point of all this is for Shravan to realize the meaning and depth of love and emotions beyond the instant gratification he seeks in everything he does in life. For now, realizing he feels something for Suman, he impulsively wonders if he should act on it.....but he has a long way to go in realizing what this is beyond this rush of emotions he's feeling. His first reaction obviously is to explore the prospect even if the girl in question is Sumo😆.....I did laugh at his bravado and confidence that even if Sumo gets upset, he will manaao her somehow😆. Which goes to show that he is still treating this as a casual thing just to explore.....the stakes aren't as high for him yet.
This is where Anish's party will come in where Shravan's lies will all finally face a reckoning.....all the lying he's been doing about how Sumo is the one supposedly desperate for him will come back to haunt him somehow in a stroke of poetic justice. His mishandling of Devika will come back to haunt him too. And I think Shravan definitely needs a big moment of reckoning in order to get a reality check about what really matters in life beyond these superficial things he chases.
Bade Achhe Lagte Hain
Fan Fictions
Shiv Shakti
CID
