Posted:
It was truly an amazingly good double episode on Friday. The CVs seemed to have woken up and done a surprisingly good job of practically all the different sections. They have also avoided the usual cliches of a drunken car crash and the like to resolve the Arjun-Purvi impasse, and also that of Arjun's inability to understand his own feelings. The way in which they have materialised Aashana's spirit is a wonderful device, and it plays out in a fabulously acted scene.
Of course the tour de force of yesterday's double episode was this scene between Arjun and his mother. It was incredibly moving - Arjun's raw anguish, and his feeling of being lost, with the whole world against him, he knows not why., come through so clearly that your throat aches with empathy. Rithvik is a very resourceful actor, with an incredibly nuanced range of expressions - wrenching anguish as shown yesterday, the Devdas look, the one like a lost puppy wanting to be claimed and loved, which he has when he is standing at Purvi's doorstep in the precap shown yesterday, the heart-in-his-eyes look as when he stands leaning against his car watching Purvi go into the house (after picking her up from the roadside bench and bringing her home), and a very sweet smile that appears but rarely. He is the mainstay of the ArVi pairing, for Asha Negi, while competent and very charming when she is laughing, seems to have just one rather scared, frozen look in all her emotional scenes. it remains to be seem how she copes when Purvi really falls in love with Arjun. In the precap yesterday she looks more dismayed at seeing Arjun than anything else. There was no reaction to the strain and worry in his emotionally battered face. One hopes she will be better in the scene than in the precap.
Though he is almost uniformly good, yesterday Rithvik surpassed himself. The slurred agony in his voice when he talks to his father, the bitter helplessness when he clings to his mother's hands and seeks answers to the puzzles of the heart that plague him - " When she cries, it pains me, I do not know why" , which sums up the whole essence of love - this is acting at a level that is practically unknown in TV. It was wonderful to watch him even as tears of sympathy filled my eyes. At the end of the scene, when he looks at himself in the mirror, with a stray tear trickling down one cheek, and smiles, very slowly and very slightly, as the realisation of what he feels for Purvi finally comes to him, his face displays shades of emotion that are so nuanced that they are mindblowing. One forgets the actor and thinks only of the character, finally freed from gut-wrenching doubt and confusion. That is of course the final triumph for any actor.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Purvi is now going to feel that Arjun is professing love for her out of either guilt or pity or both, to get her out of the very unpleasant situation in which he has, inadvertently, placed her. If that happens, one wonders how the poor chap is going to prove a negative.
In general, as one member has pointed out yesterday, Purvi's character is curiously inconsistent. She is far too familiar with her boss than any real life executive assistant would be - others have cited several examples of this - and such behaviour would be taken by most men as a come-on, though of course it is not. Not all men are as incredibly decent as Arjun Kirloskar! Then again, after the MMS episode, Purvi clings readily to Arjun for a good cry, and yet she takes violent and unseemly offence at a gentle kiss on the forehead. All in all, if she can really believe what Vinay said of Arjun, she seems to be a poor judge of character.
As for the hotel room episode at Pune, Arjun is western in his upbringing, and he does not realise the need for a chaperon in the Indian context. Purvi, who earlier protests, when Arjun gives her an engagement gift, that if others learnt about it, " tarah tarah ki baatein karenge", could easily have insisted on having someone in, and Arjun would immediately have understood. But then, how would the story have reached this catalytic MMS crisis, and how would Arjun have finally understood what he feels and why? So one has to put up with such inconsistencies, which are really plot devices.
Apart from the treat of watching Arjun yesterday, I also loved the way in which both Archana and Manav, separately but similarly, defended both Purvi and Arjun. After all, faith means that you do not ask for proofs and you do not need them. Again, DK was gentle and understanding with his son - he has mellowed a great deal with age. Also charming was the triangular interaction between Teju, Archana and Manav, and it was a nice change from the endless rounds of blame games between the latter two that are a regular feature of PR these days and are enough to put anyone off.
Another bonus was that we did not have even one minute of the insufferable Savita Deshmukh. I simply cannot understand some of the posts comparing her favourably with Archana's mother. They seem to have forgotten the earlier episodes in which Savita, like a typical saas, systematically plotted and schemed to destroy every loving bond that Archana has - with Manav, with Sachin, with Vandana, and even with Varsha - and in the end made sure that Archana does not get the air ticket for Canada that Manav sends her and so gets left behind.
It is another matter that Archana would also have needed a Canadian visa, and that takes a good bit of time to get, but then the CVs cannot be bothered with such trivial matters! Just like the louvre door through which Punni shoots her video of Arjun and Purvi - any hotel that had such doors would soon get no customers at all! Of course this stupidity is yet another plot device. Like Punni having the mobile numbers of ALL the staff in an office she has joined only a few days earlier. Even those of the peons!
Finally, it has been suggested that Arjun/Purvi should have explained about the eyedrops and the laptop crash. This would never have worked; the MMS looks so sensual that no one would have believed them, and they would only have looked ridiculous. What they did was probably for the best. And the problem is really only for the shell-shocked Purvi; Arjun is the boss and he can shout at the staff and carry on, they would have to be obedient and respectful at least on the surface.
Incidentally, Arjun is obviously not cut out for detective work, seeing the way in which he excuses Punni as being "family". And with Manav having had all the MMSes erased, there would now be no clue to follow up, even if Arjun were inclined to get professional to trace the culprit. It seems, therefore, that Punni will get off scot-free, alas!
Of course the tour de force of yesterday's double episode was this scene between Arjun and his mother. It was incredibly moving - Arjun's raw anguish, and his feeling of being lost, with the whole world against him, he knows not why., come through so clearly that your throat aches with empathy. Rithvik is a very resourceful actor, with an incredibly nuanced range of expressions - wrenching anguish as shown yesterday, the Devdas look, the one like a lost puppy wanting to be claimed and loved, which he has when he is standing at Purvi's doorstep in the precap shown yesterday, the heart-in-his-eyes look as when he stands leaning against his car watching Purvi go into the house (after picking her up from the roadside bench and bringing her home), and a very sweet smile that appears but rarely. He is the mainstay of the ArVi pairing, for Asha Negi, while competent and very charming when she is laughing, seems to have just one rather scared, frozen look in all her emotional scenes. it remains to be seem how she copes when Purvi really falls in love with Arjun. In the precap yesterday she looks more dismayed at seeing Arjun than anything else. There was no reaction to the strain and worry in his emotionally battered face. One hopes she will be better in the scene than in the precap.
Though he is almost uniformly good, yesterday Rithvik surpassed himself. The slurred agony in his voice when he talks to his father, the bitter helplessness when he clings to his mother's hands and seeks answers to the puzzles of the heart that plague him - " When she cries, it pains me, I do not know why" , which sums up the whole essence of love - this is acting at a level that is practically unknown in TV. It was wonderful to watch him even as tears of sympathy filled my eyes. At the end of the scene, when he looks at himself in the mirror, with a stray tear trickling down one cheek, and smiles, very slowly and very slightly, as the realisation of what he feels for Purvi finally comes to him, his face displays shades of emotion that are so nuanced that they are mindblowing. One forgets the actor and thinks only of the character, finally freed from gut-wrenching doubt and confusion. That is of course the final triumph for any actor.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Purvi is now going to feel that Arjun is professing love for her out of either guilt or pity or both, to get her out of the very unpleasant situation in which he has, inadvertently, placed her. If that happens, one wonders how the poor chap is going to prove a negative.
In general, as one member has pointed out yesterday, Purvi's character is curiously inconsistent. She is far too familiar with her boss than any real life executive assistant would be - others have cited several examples of this - and such behaviour would be taken by most men as a come-on, though of course it is not. Not all men are as incredibly decent as Arjun Kirloskar! Then again, after the MMS episode, Purvi clings readily to Arjun for a good cry, and yet she takes violent and unseemly offence at a gentle kiss on the forehead. All in all, if she can really believe what Vinay said of Arjun, she seems to be a poor judge of character.
As for the hotel room episode at Pune, Arjun is western in his upbringing, and he does not realise the need for a chaperon in the Indian context. Purvi, who earlier protests, when Arjun gives her an engagement gift, that if others learnt about it, " tarah tarah ki baatein karenge", could easily have insisted on having someone in, and Arjun would immediately have understood. But then, how would the story have reached this catalytic MMS crisis, and how would Arjun have finally understood what he feels and why? So one has to put up with such inconsistencies, which are really plot devices.
Apart from the treat of watching Arjun yesterday, I also loved the way in which both Archana and Manav, separately but similarly, defended both Purvi and Arjun. After all, faith means that you do not ask for proofs and you do not need them. Again, DK was gentle and understanding with his son - he has mellowed a great deal with age. Also charming was the triangular interaction between Teju, Archana and Manav, and it was a nice change from the endless rounds of blame games between the latter two that are a regular feature of PR these days and are enough to put anyone off.
Another bonus was that we did not have even one minute of the insufferable Savita Deshmukh. I simply cannot understand some of the posts comparing her favourably with Archana's mother. They seem to have forgotten the earlier episodes in which Savita, like a typical saas, systematically plotted and schemed to destroy every loving bond that Archana has - with Manav, with Sachin, with Vandana, and even with Varsha - and in the end made sure that Archana does not get the air ticket for Canada that Manav sends her and so gets left behind.
It is another matter that Archana would also have needed a Canadian visa, and that takes a good bit of time to get, but then the CVs cannot be bothered with such trivial matters! Just like the louvre door through which Punni shoots her video of Arjun and Purvi - any hotel that had such doors would soon get no customers at all! Of course this stupidity is yet another plot device. Like Punni having the mobile numbers of ALL the staff in an office she has joined only a few days earlier. Even those of the peons!
Finally, it has been suggested that Arjun/Purvi should have explained about the eyedrops and the laptop crash. This would never have worked; the MMS looks so sensual that no one would have believed them, and they would only have looked ridiculous. What they did was probably for the best. And the problem is really only for the shell-shocked Purvi; Arjun is the boss and he can shout at the staff and carry on, they would have to be obedient and respectful at least on the surface.
Incidentally, Arjun is obviously not cut out for detective work, seeing the way in which he excuses Punni as being "family". And with Manav having had all the MMSes erased, there would now be no clue to follow up, even if Arjun were inclined to get professional to trace the culprit. It seems, therefore, that Punni will get off scot-free, alas!
