Ana...as usual, lovely post đ Loved RaghavI's onion scene as well as - as always - the Raghav-Gayathri scene. Nice progression on some level of change in their relationship...and how heartening it is to see Jhanvi laugh! I don't recall ever seeing her laugh in the soap since her wedding with Viraaj, and even in her scenes with Krish, who she adores and enjoys being around, she is sombre and overly cautious. It's like caution's become her middle name...
I agree with you on this entire alter-ego business. An alter ego is often a personality created outside that of your own with opposite characteristics -- this can be either a personality invented by you with your own knowledge...in which case one cannot really blame the alter-ego for 'making' you do things that you don't want to...or (like in the case of DID) a personality the person isn't aware of and that exists without his/her knowledge...in one of Sriti's previous roles, she played two such characters -- her main character was a traumatized young girl called Sudha, who by night became a party animal called Devika. Neither personality was aware of the others' existence. Another Sriti serial - Rakt Sambandh - she plays an alter ego tapori girl, Vrinda, to her original character Sandhya...but this alter ego is more of a put-on...she uses it as a cover for her mission, not an imaginary character that will achieve goals that she can't achieve on her own.
In Viraaj's case, the 'Black Viraaj is an alter ego' argument falls apart for a number of reasons:
1. It isn't as if Viraaj in his day-to-day life is a drastically different human being to what Black Viraaj depicts. Like Black Viraaj, he doesn't mind manipulating people. Like Black Viraaj, he doesn't mind torturing a person, in this case his wife, to get his own way. For the alter-ego theory to work Viraaj would have to be completely the opposite in his real life, even if he were aware of the presence of this alter ego.
2. Often when he does act nice...it becomes actually just that - an act. He acts around Jhanvi when he wants her to change his opinion on him, he acts around Priya so that she can fall more and more in love with him, he acts around his in-laws so that they don't have the sliver of a suspicion of what exactly their daughter goes through every night at home. For the alter ego theory to work, again, the good deeds and thoughts that he'd have to do should come from a genuine conviction for doing those deeds, not because he wants to pull the wool over their eyes. How can Black Viraaj be an alter ego to Pink Viraaj when Pink Viraaj itself is an act?
3. Even alter egos are created with a sense of conviction in the alter-ego's beliefs - whether it's Jekyll and Hyde, Clark Kent and Superman. Hyde does not think like Jekyll in his pursuit of demonic pleasure, nor does Superman think like Clark Kent when he runs out to save the world. But when Viraaj is Pink Viraaj (gosh I feel silly saying that đ), he does everything with the intents and thoughts of the earlier Viraaj in mind. The only difference is what the others see, and I don't think that makes it a genuine alternate personality. The closest parallel would be to Rakt Sambandh's Sandhya/Vrinda: Vrinda acts like a tapori but has Sandhya's motives in mind. Therefore she isn't genuinely Vrinda, Vrinda is just a temporary mask to use for her aim. While people may loosely call that an alter ego, it's nothing more than a cover.
4. If we were to include covers as alter-egos...then *drumrolls* the alter ego would have to be the better Viraaj - Pink Viraaj! đ Because Pink Viraaj sure as hell doesn't come very naturally to him! 𤣠As far as I can see, the only reason you have a Black Viraaj in a mirror giving advice is because the act is really getting wearing for him, and because he's so frustrated by the fact that Jhanvi can smile, touch, be friendly with another man and he can't do a thing about it without blowing his cover.
6. The use of a mirror image talking to you and giving advice isn't new...and it doesn't mean the person has two personalities present within him/her either. If anything it gives you indications of what the person is thinking inside without him/her having to spout long boring monologues. It's been used with Bajaj in KZK, with Parvati in KGGK, with Jhanvi/Sia herself, and often the two sides of the person's inner conflict is dressed in two different ways just to make it clear what they represent. In Jhanvi's case, the sari-clad Jhanvi represented her memories and who she used to be, and her fear that she might just be dragged back to that hell-hole again; and the salwar-suit Sia represents a life apart from him that she's still struggling to build (though sometimes I wonder if there really is a difference lol). If anything, Black Viraaj represents Viraaj's own need to finish this nice act and show Jhanvi her place, a need he is trying to suppress because he knows Jhanvi will just hate him more if he tries to. To call it an alter ego it would have to be consistently present over a number of incidents, which it isn't.
Since Pink Viraaj is an act, and Black Viraaj is too eerily similar to what he is in real life to be called an alter-ego...I really don't think that argument holds. To blame everything on the Black Viraaj is IMO giving the real Viraaj too little credit for his own actions, which I bet would drive him nuts if he knew đ As far as I am concerned, to call Black Viraaj his alter-ego would be stretching it, given that that's been his personality from a young age (i.e. ever since he started manipulating his own foster parents).
The black man in the mirror isn't an alter ego. It's his real self, which he's suppressing for the sake of an act, and which is demanding an outlet because that's exactly how frustrated he is with acting like such a nice guy all the time. I feel calling it that, and making it sound like the real Viraaj is just a victim to a dark force that supposedly isn't really him, makes it more of an excuse for whatever he's done so far, and therefore an insult to all the trauma his victims have faced.
Edited by BizzyLizzy - 13 years ago
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