I’ve been thinking about the new character and how they can shoehorn him as being raised by Karan as a son when he was essentially fathered by someone Karan has to hate, not to mention he’s the physical embodiment of Nandini’s trauma come to life against her will.
At first I admit it was too far fetched but then as I was watching the scene between Tulsi and Nandini yesterday something Tulsi said clicked with me and I pondered over it.
Tulsi says Karan has watched her suffer so he will never cheat on his wife. She knows her son has seen her pain and he wouldn’t ever put his wife through something like that.
Now… this is Tulsi not just being a mother but a mother who has enough faith that her children, Karan especially will never commit infidelity. She knows Karan is the least capable of doing something like this as he knows better than anyone what it feels like to be so hurt. After all, Karan himself has experienced the trauma of Mihir’s rejection, then discovered Mandira had him only to trap Mihir. Through everything, never once did Karan have any ill feelings or malice towards Tulsi in his heart from day one. He saw her as much of a victim as his mother initially and later, perhaps the biggest even if not the only victim even though now Mihir was the parent he saw as a victim and not Mandira.
What it the makers show that Nandini had to have the child because of medical complications, she found out that she’s pregnant only in the second trimester or even if it was a bit earlier, her body was too fragile to handle the stress of a pregnancy termination. Regardless, she could die if she tried to undergo the procedure.
Nandini had the baby but gave it away. Legally perhaps she was the only one who had any rights to decide the fate of the child. Karan felt that the child was ironically being punished for the sins of the father while he was being abandoned by his mother for no fault of his to begin with. He understood and accepted Nandini’s decision; he couldn’t ask her to leave her trauma behind and raise the child like nothing happened. A son would undoubtedly make Nandini perhaps more uncomfortable and more traumatised as a reminder than a daughter would since she would have Ansh in the back of her head whenever the child appeared before her no matter what.
Karan in a way felt that the child was being met with the same kind of fate as he was - rejected by a father. Though Mandira didn’t exactly abandon Karan, he grew up thinking his mom had lost her senses, in a manner of speaking, owing to the way his father had callously used her and perhaps trapped her in an extramarital entanglement where she had no future.
Karan likely felt that he could save another kid from suffering a similar fate. The fact that even if he didn’t want to like it the kid was his family, biologically his nephew and via marriage to Nandini, his stepson.
Karan has therefore been raising him in secret with help from the lady played by Parakh. That’s my guess.
71