Imlie's journey of falling in love for Adi is difficult to chart in a conventional way because so much of it gets mixed up with her faith & belief in marriage. She is a really unconventional FL from what we get in a typical ITV show. She is not the straight sanskaaron main vishwas karnewali, docile girl or a bhaashanbaazi karnewali modern woman. She is an interesting mix of traditional beliefs with modern outlook towards life.
Though she is a staunch believer in all the marriage rituals & her faith in her SM is unparalleled but she is quite practical also about her beliefs. She believes what she wants to believe & never imposes her beliefs on others.
When we first meet Imlie in PD she is a bright bubbly girl with a passion for studies & who has a dream to become a police officer one day. She has grown up as an illegitimate child of a mother who has raised her lovingly along with her hero & role model SK in most impoverished conditions. But she still is compassionate to others & finds happiness in the smallest things & gestures.
Imlie did not want to get married because she wanted to study further & achieve her dream. For her marriage once done would be forever as she strongly believes in all the traditional rituals. So she thinks about marriage as a cage which would not allow her to fly high & achieve her dreams.
When she first met Adi, she did not really like his attitude at all. She thought him as an arrogant person & tried to avoid him. Her attitude towards him changed only when he helped her dadda to escape the police risking his own life. That earned her admiration. She was friendly towards him after that. They had great camraderie exchanging thoughts about all kinds of things. Adi treated her very nicely.
But then the forced marriage happened & everything changed for her in a single night. She had to leave behind her mom & go to city with an angry Adi who himself was also practically a stranger to her despite their instinctual connection. For her the marriage happened & he was her husband.
She knew about Adi already being in a relationship before the marriage. Also she knew that they had to do the marriage against both their wishes. So she did not feel the right to oppose him if he did not consider his marriage to her as valid & was ready to hide the marriage.
I think Adi wanting to honor his commitment to Malini was also a point of admiration for Imlie. She also is a very loyal person who believes in fulfilling her commitments. Adi also allowed her to stay with his family when he could have very well dumped her on the road. So though she was hurt hiding the truth about their marriage & staying in the capacity of a household help in her own sasural, she definitely was grateful to him.
Adi continued to behave horribly with her but because she knew the reason for his behaviour & her inherent compassionate nature she never held it against him. The Tripathi family also treated her so warmly & as if she is a family member. I also think she had some faint hope initially that Adi might accept the marriage & her as his wife before his marriage to Malini. But his marriage to Malini was I think a major turning point for her. She knew that she would never get the right on Adi as his wife hence she closed the door on any hope of acceptance from Adi as a wife. She believed him to be her husband but she was not his wife. Malini didi who was a nice person & who loved him was his wife.
Imlie then accepted her fate of being only a token wife for Adi who was not even acknowledged by him. After that she only expected basic consideration, understanding as an individual from Adi. She sees his unsaid caring gestures for her as him being a nice person. Her care for him grew from her independent admiration for him as an individual & not via his actions towards her. She also started to feel fluttery feelings for him. He was the anchor for her in the turmoil that she was going through.
She was hurt when he went to leave her back in PD but she understood where he was coming from. He also accepted her request to honour her mother's wishes to fulfill marriage rituals though he did not like it at all. It was only when he accused her of planning to seduce him that her patience with him fused out & she told him about all the pain & hurt that she was suffering because of the forced marriage. How for her life will never be the same after he leaves her in PD.
When he left during the night she went behind him to save him during the violence. He had made a place in her heart by this time. She let him leave from there with no expectations from him & even got shot in the tussle with her villager who was planning to go after him.
Adi had no obligation to come back to save her but he did. He went against all odds to save her. No one would have blamed him if he was not able to rescue Imlie in such conditions & it would have been logically better for him where the root cause of the troubles in his life would be over. But he went over & above to save her, not letting her give up, anchoring her to fight for her life. He was her saviour literally & I think she fell in love with him then.
After that she told him her own view point about how he will always be her husband though she knows that she should be able to break free from this forced relationship but she can't. She said it was because of her beliefs with which she was raised but I also think her subconscious love for him played a role too. They reached a truce & their equation changed for the better.
Though there was still anger & daant but there was also fikar & care. Her feelings for him also continued to grow as shown during the hand holding scene during their study time, her dreaming of hugging him, her wish being Adi on her birthday, her yearning to be cared for by him after the bridge collapse incident. But as Malini was his wife & he did not accept their marriage she compartmentalized these feelings & felt that she had no right to them. She thought she could live like this watching him live a happy life with Malini & family, completing her studies & fulfilling her dream of becoming an officer.
Adi's talk with her regarding marrying someone else was what shattered her bubble. She understood that he was not comfortable with her staying with him even though she was not imposing any sort of obligations on him. He did not understand her values. So she decided to leave him as per his wishes so that he can live his life without her reminder. She thought that would be the end of it but Adi came to PD.
Adi confused her to hell & back with his arrival. She could not understand why he came to PD & why he was willingly staying with her family or obliging as a SIL of the family. The rishta was over as he wanted, she had given him the freedom that he wanted, so why was he here. His respect for her Amma, his behaviour with SK, his fight for her to attend the exam even after being injured himself, his belief in her capabilities, his willingness to stay 1 more day to participate in the mannat ritual, him participating in all the rituals, giving her the name of Imlie Aditya Tripathi, dancing with her, guarding the diya despite hurting himself, etc. charmed her as well as confused her.
He requested, demanded, scolded her inorder to come back with him but she didn't budge an inch because now she would not allow any hope to bloom. She tries to ignore his insistence to the max. We all saw how many times Adi apologised to her but she refused to become a zimmedari or burden to him & return back to city. It was during his confession when they were once again stranded due to rain that she came to know that all his behaviour was not a naatak. She mattered to him, she had made a place for herself in his heart & he was her husband. When he showed this level of honesty of his feelings only then she allowed her heart to believe him. She believed in his words because he had never lied to her & the trust that she had on him. That was the turning point for her.
Now Adi confessed that he had feelings for her & she also wants to reciprocate but she cannot allow this because Malini would be hurt by this. For her, Malini's happiness is more important than her own & she is ready to sacrifice her feelings for the same. She doesn't understand the full extent of her own feelings for Adi yet. She is yet to realise that what she is actually feeling for him is love on a conscious level. But I am sure we will get a great realisation arc for her as well. I think the realisation arc is currently ongoing for her where in she is stuck between her own wants & desire for Adi & letting him go for Malini's happiness.
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