A very long post but please bear with me and do try to give it a read. Thank you.
‘This show is disgusting’ ‘Bad message to society’ ‘It should end’ ‘ladke kharab horahe hai’ ‘sharam ki baat hai’
Give me a break.
I have been watching this show since the very first episode. And although I like adilie now, I never watched it as an adilie fan, I disliked aditya in the beginning and Malini was my favourite character, I love both Mun and Imlie now. I have pretty much watched it as a neutral viewer. And I think it’s easier to analyse a story when you’re not blinded by devotion or rage.
The screenplay, production, direction, acting of this show is absolutely phenomenal. They’ve managed to keep the audience hooked without any ott drama and have tried to keep the emotions as real as you can in itv. It’s easy to see hard work that goes into this show, the actors give their 100% do a great job and a show like this should get immense praise and recognition. But it doesn’t. Instead it gets bashed, sometimes rightfully, sometimes for the most ridiculous of reasons. Why? Because: Morals. The show is apparently immoral according to people.
I was perplexed as to how people remained blind to the subject of morals on itv for so long and suddenly are reminded of it. I got my answer when I watched a certain show rn and see the third angle, who is a villain and fl as unbelievably ‘mahaan’ as a fantasy figure could be. In between those two the ml gets to go scot free of the wrongs he’s done, be it emotional abuse or cheating. That’s what the audience likes, the easy way out. A clear distinction between black and white. After decades of having content like that onscreen, in a long time itv has introduced as close humans characters as they could. Gray characters, with complexities and nuances. And that is something some people are unable to digest.
For me the story progression has been wonderfully done. Maybe the makers should have been more clear about the subconscious struggles of the characters for the audience at large since they are unable to comprehend it right now, but I think many who watched regularly know how well the story progressed. Since the very beginning the concept has been clear, evident by how they were repeatedly playing the pia tose background and others only with aditya and imlie, focused on them, they were the main couple that was clear. Yet, some people set themselves up for disappointment by creating other ships and boy are they not taking it well. To me, Aditya Malini never had chemistry since the beginning and even the characters seemed more formal with each other. The way he was comfortable with imlu and joking before he was married to her was not even how he was with Mun. They always seemed incompatible and all their romantic scenes and gestures came after aditya got married to imlie, as if he was trying to compensate for the guilt he felt or trying to ignore his feelings or care towards imlu, as evident by the bridge incident and his sudden gesture for mun afterwards, because he realised he didn’t care much for mun like he had for imlie. People have stayed for longer than 7 years in stale relationships just because of the comfort they felt in it. For aditya it was a woman with good principles who loved him, for mun a guy she actually does love but more an escape from her toxic home life and someone who she doesn’t really understand but does not try to because of how stable the relationship was, reality check: it was stable because aditya hardly tried in it or took interest so how would they ever fight? They would have stayed like this forever, had aditya not realised what love truly was and was supposed to feel like. That doesn’t make this immoral, he is a guy who is trying to rectify the mistakes he made and once he has realised where his heart truly lies, he’s gonna stay true to that and wants to tell the truth to Malini. Sometimes people make mistakes and end up in bad relationships, loveless ones. And it’s okay for them to end it and find something better and have a chance at moving on in their life. But we can’t accept that because all we’ve seen around us all our lives is people compromising on them.
Honestly, this is a show where they’re trying to show you how horrible mistakes made by the leads drive the story forward, no external villains. The no villains part is what makes it interesting. The greys all characters have. Not even Anu or Dev are villains. Mun fans try to make adilie the villains when all they’ve done is fallen in love and are trying not to hurt others and find ways not to let themselves be hurt either, imlie especially, poor darling hasn’t done anything to deserve the hate I think and adilie fans try to turn Mallu into some fictional villainized version of herself, when she’s just a woman who is losing her marriage and love of 7 years so ofcourse she’ll lash out and want to fix it, she wants to save her marriage nothing wrong with it, there’s other flaws to her characters but she’s not a bad person, she’s a sweetheart. I don’t know at what point we turned from wanting stories to watch with actual characters with complexities to picture perfect world with picture perfect people. There is nothing wrong with wanting picture perfect but sometimes some people want content like this too, raw and heartbreaking. Consume media as that, fiction, which you can criticise but stop making it personal.
So please do not bring morals into a show as complex as this, trying to show you how people make mistakes and how they try to fix those mistakes. If you want to shout about morals why not about shows that are showing domestic abuse rn and some having concepts worse than that. Just accept your morals are subjective to who or what you like, or just based on some skewed perception of the label of marriage that keeps changing according to what you like. I do not ignore Malini is wronged, I accept she wasted her 7 years for nothing. But I don’t make that a focus of my raging forever. Because she will have a journey of her own dealing with that which I am excited for as she is a character I really like. Adi made mistakes but that doesn’t mean he should be made to live with them forever, that leaves no one happy. There is nothing wrong with people not wanting to live in misery forever just for the sake of someone else.
It will remain a tragedy, how such a good show will be underrated and bashed for no reason because we can’t consume media critically anymore and can’t distinguish between fiction and reality, can’t raise our voices where it’s actually needed. Our idea of morals has really become convoluted. I for one, am glad they didn’t pull a make the third angle villain and are showing a human being with emotions. The whole story is about good people making bad decisions, human emotions and unfortunate circumstances and overcoming that, no villains. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but please give it a try before bashing without watching or watching for a character and ignoring their journey for how you want to see them. Enjoy the show, analyse it, it’s entertainment not something your life depends on if you don’t hate for whatever reason. Watch what you love and let others watch what they love. Hope this show gains the recognition it so deserves for the spectacular performances, runs for a decent amount of time however long they need to tell the story and remains successful.
Ufff Yeh Love Hai Mushkil
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