Between Facts and Feelings...![CAPS pg2]

With Gulaal that really does change. Her pain pierces through him like its own. Her tears are unbearable to him to the extent that he walks out on them, so many times. Her tears break through his walls of a decade and have him humble within seconds, without questioning why!

And the cute listing of signs of love by Dr. Love Guru Kesar in the first part, for teasing Talli - reflect in such a somber way in the latter GK bit. In the morning he is teasing Talli about being so preoccupied by her own love and world, to not pay heed to hunger and sleep. In the evening, he's showing all those signs, and so much more blatantly! Gulaal asking him, bhook nahi hai, yeh mann nahi hai - is almost a graver version of Kesar from the morning, when he asked Talli the same, in a playful way and different words. And the way Gulaal tells him to not wreck his wrath from one problem over another, is also synonymous in a graver sense of the way he was objectively reasoning with Talli in the morning, when he told her - akeli thi, is liye aur akela hone chali gayi wahan jahan aur koi nahin hai?! - The words ring SO true of Kesar himself, the way he has isolated his dilemma, the way he battles it out himself going round and round in circles! Its like you could ask him the same thing - khud se 10 saal mein jawab nahi mila, is liye aaj bhi khud se maang raha hai?! - like he's mildly accuses Talli of isolating herself more when she was lonely, Kesar technically runs further away from the answer when 'officially' he wants to seek it out so bad!

Of course, the fact that Gulaal's reason makes him change his mind is such a scene of relief after the days before when he's all but rebuked her suggestions and done exactly the opposite. Gulaal's smile to him at that, is indication of the same.

Echoing you Mini - Gulaal and Talli, esp Gulaal, in the first scene, and that conclusive smile after Kesar says 'pyaar hai' is... kinda cringing. I can't really get mad at Gulaal in a scene that is overall so cute on Kesar quotient, but really, she was one buffoon matchmaker! A tweaked around Emma version 😆 So consumed is she by her own 'fantasy' for these two - nothing else glaring in her face makes a mark! But oh, not to forget, that little eye exchange between Kesar and Gulaal before Kesar ki dimaag ki batti goes FLASH - is so so so amazingly reflective of how these two are a team! The way they almost gang up on teasing her - reminded of the time later, when GK become friends again and Talli walks in with Kunnu's gift and Kesar teases her about how Kunnu has no idea about the nagada she is 😆

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Second scene - I want to mention that I titled it so, because of how Vasant remained the picture in Gulaal's heart for such a long time, and how Gulaal remained the picture in Kesar's heart - forever - through the high and lows, in both cases.

The scene really stands out for me, most importantly, because of how reflective it is of how Kesar was never replacing Vasant in any sense. Officially in designation, Vasant was Gulaal's first husband and Kesar her second - but really, that's where the 'spot taking' ends. Kesar had his own place in Gulaal's heart, from the start - and what really happened in time was for that place to not only grow in expanse but in dimensions too. He was never just Vasant's little brother to her, but Kesar, and he went on to become her Kesar over time - from the boy who was her ward, to this person who was the crux of her 'sapna', the focus of her being.

And this scene sort of reflects all those angles. Kesar the little boy, Kesar Vasant's brother, Kesar the support system - basically, Gulaal's Kesar.

There is a vulnerability in the way he wants to take away her pain - but I love how symbolic it is that Kesar doesn't wipe away her tears in this scene. These are not the tears he has given, on the contrary the tears are all she has connecting her to Vasant at this point, happy and sad tears - and the fact that he doesn't wipe them away, instead tells her not to hide them, is about how he never really takes away the essence of Vasant in Gulaal's life. Instead, he thinks of a way to give her new smiles - smiles that will bear Kesar in reason - and in that, symbolically, he makes his unique place in being her man, her support system, not a sub for Vasant.

In the same scene, Kesar can co-exist as a character who is onlooker to the GV story, and an equal and integral part of Gulaal's story.

When I first watched this scene, it touched me so much, how the layers of his character worked. How it warmed him inside to watch the Gulaal who married his brother harbor this loyalty for Vasant; and how at the same time, his own concern for her was a man's concern for a woman he loves. The seamless blend of those two roles, where he should feel overwhelmed by his brother's wife's love for his brother, and his own love for her - without one of the two interfering or contradicting the other - such purity of his emotions - which is why I always say, Kesar never had the selflessness of Vasant, but his heart was golden. The malice just did not exist. If it was revenge, it was pure. If it was love - it was like this! The way he could wholesomely accommodate various people in his life, not because he loved everything that was living, but by giving those priceless people in his life each their own place in his heart, which overlapped but never interfered, was/is amazing! And even as it seems like such a perfect condition for co-existence, knowing the glaring many imperfections of Kesar's character makes him oh-so-real! 👏

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