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Watching yesterday's episode gave me a lot of pause for thought. We all lie upon occasion, for self-preservation or out of guilt, fear, shame or stubbornness. Sometimes we even lie to spare a loved one their feelings. But do these lies, these "white" lies, really help in the long run? Are we deluding ourselves that by lying to save something in the today, we are ultimately damaging something for the tomorrow?? Bauji tells Devyani that, on the one hand, her lies have held the family together like a fist - tight and strong, at least on the outside. But on the other hand, each lie that she has told or kept has weakened the heart of that hand and made it hollow. Like the worm inside the apple, the fruit looks rosy and healthy from the outside but is rotten from the inside.
Is it more important to preserve the truth or the illusion of it? Devyani's outburst yesterday brought from me, for the first time, some sympathy for her. In the past I have seen her denying every truth that comes in front of her eyes - Uttara's marital abuse, whatever Gaurav's deal is, and her own problems with the SSP. For the first time, I felt for her when she told Bauji that she had no choice but to lie to Priya (and everyone else) about SSP and their family. What could she say to her children about their dad? What good would it do? But it seems to be that this is a problem of her own making. Sir Walter Scott said "What a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive", and this is particularly apt here. Every lie that Devyani has preserved or told is like a piece of string, and each string has become so incongruously tangled that she cannot even begin to tell them apart. If she had told the truth from the beginning, perhaps their family would not have survived. But maybe it would have been better in the long run?
Now it seems there is no way out. Devyani has constructed a chakravyuh so tight, it is even more impenetrable than the one that Abhimanyu faced in the Mahabharata.
Bauji's foreshadowing that "what happens if you get a bahu who is strong and smart like you but who also tells the truth", is, of course, obviously related to Priya - a fact that Devyani is again refusing to believe. We all know exactly what will happen once Priya comes into the family, and sees SSP. But it makes you wonder whether her stand - that of telling the truth and destroying the family - will be better or more justified than Devyani's desperate bid to keep the family together. Who is right and who is wrong in this situation? Devyani does not lie out of malice or ulterior motives for self-gain: she lies because she has no choice, because she wants to keep her family together. So should Priya, as an incoming bahu, meld into that role and take up Devyani's mantle? Should she, as a member of that family, preserve the lies, the fiction? What right does she have to come in and destroy years of hard work?
On the other hand, Priya is not wrong either. She has suffered at the hands of this man, and at the hands of everyone else in "society", for simply telling the truth. If she had not told anyone about the molestation, if she had lied, she would not have faced such adversities. But isn't it cowardly, demeaning to our own self, to lie about something like that? If its a crime to do evil, surely its a crime to lie about it as well? Is Devyani then a criminal?
Where do you draw the line? In real life, people lie all the time. Yet we are told that the truth will always out, sooner or later. Isn't it better to face the consequences from the beginning than to lie about it and face double the storm? What do you think? Can the lies that a family keeps really keep them together, or does that just make them a hollow shell, an illusion of the real thing? Is it fair that Priya will come in and unravel the string and break the fist that Devyani has worked so hard to keep closed, or have Devyani's actions themselves created the mess, the despair, the mockery of a family she wants to keep alive??
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