Okay this really, really, really isnt any good. Seriously I'm not happy with it at all. Some people wanted me to write a review on today's episode though so sharing this. Stupid really how I can't write anything useful on an episode that was good on so many levels. Anyway...
Today was Kushal's day. I don't think I remember him owning an episode so thoroughly before. He was simply magnificent today!!
Starting from the beginning.. So Virat had NOT heard anything. Thank God. I was counting on the fascinating ability of people to lose their hearing in such situations on Indian shows and the CVs didn't disappoint me. :P
Anyhow Virat tries to talk to Manvi and Manvi refuses to listen, I love how she clings to Jeevika here as though she's a shield. A shield against Virat's love. She needs one because her defenses have never worked around him. All they seem to do is fall as if they never learned how to stand. Considering how strong Manvi is that's saying something. His love has been her biggest strength but right now it's also her biggest weakness. I love how when he tells her again that he loves her she ends up yelling at him, trying to shut out those words. She really can't afford to listen to him speaking of his love anymore. Her reaction to those words was so extreme here. Shows how her love is a constant struggle. The struggle to either hold on to him tightly or to simply set him free.
She begins to tell him off using the one card she always has. She calls him a failure, a useless man who does nothing but create problems for everyone. His family regard him in the same way. She did that when Jeevika told her to stay away from Virat. Even then she knew she would be incapable of turning away from him if he approached her so she simply made sure that he wouldn't and she does the same now. She pushes him away. I'm not saying that it doesn't matter to her what the family thinks.. of course it does. But here she yells at him more to drive him away than anything else. She tells him she's leaving for Hrishikesh. Once again she chose Virat over Jeevika today. She knows how much her sister would want her to stay here but she can't. She ignores that for she has to protect Virat.
But then Virat is Virat. Even now, even now after all she has said to him he only cares about the fact that she stay here so that he can take care of her. Such is the love of Virat Vadhera. You see its affect on Manvi too. Why can't he simply walk away? The problem Manvi is that a love as grounded as Virat's cannot fade by words alone.
I loved Jeevika in this scene. Krystle was very good. You see how her heart bleeds for them and how much she wishes that they too could have their happy ending. In the end she picks her sister because Manvi does have a point. I loved how when Virat asked her who would be happy with Manvi leaving, she closes her eyes for a brief moment before saying everybody would be happy. Somewhere perhaps she chose to protect him too then. It pains her too but she has to take a stand. Virat ofcourse refuses to listen.
Absolutely loved what followed. Brilliant acting by both Nia and Kushal here.
Virat's reason as to why he had never told her that he loved her was so heartbreaking. Very well done by Kushal. Then he starts talking about taking his words back infront of the family. His desperation is so clear.. He'd do anything' anything to make her stay. Even make himself look like an utter fool infront of his family. And why? Because he wants to take care of her. Because after she has practically rejected his love all he wants is to take care of her!
Who are you Virat Vadhera!
How can one so completely and thoroughly give their soul in someone else's hands? How can one want nothing.. nothing but that person's happiness?
His love is so pure, it almost blinds you.
And it blinds Manvi too because you see her lose grip over reality . His love numbs from within. He loves her too much. Simply too much. What girl can hear those words and not melt? What barrier can feel the force of those words and the love hidden in them and not fall? Those words and that love' its like water. It flows gently through her, too gently perhaps, probing away at the pain in her heart and taking it away in its flow leaving her heart intact and whole.
When she says,
"Kyun hamesha apni manmaani pe utar aate ho tum han? Kyun?"
She practically tells him she loves him. Too. She loves him so much.
She pushes him away now, completely refusing to listen to another word, shutting her eyes as she does so. Just looking at him, just listening to him plead with her makes her want to love him, to whisper words of comfort to him, to tell him that she does love him back. That he had been wrong. She wouldn't have left him if he had told her he loved her. She would have returned his love. But then, that would be a happy ending. And happy endings were not for them.
She makes him leave only to sit down in quiet shock. She had done it. She had actually pushed him away. For now atleast. Her sister tries to comfort her but all Manvi does is cry silently. A life without Virat is impossible. And for her that journey has just begun. He is her lodestar isn't he? How does she find her way home now? There is no home for her. Not anymore. She just set fire to it herself.
And then the scene that completely overshadowed everything else in the episode.
Virat sits, flinging a ball at the wall, his pain and his hurt completely obvious. I love how he always takes his pain and his anger out in the most normal of ways like on the punching bag or like finding seclusion sometimes in the dark and sometimes otherwise. Today you see him do that again.
His Mother tells him to eat something but he refuses and tells her that they can be happy now that Manvi is leaving. Leaving the house. Leaving him. Nobody understands his pain. Nobody. And if they do then why don't they stop Manvi?
Once again. Once again he is desperate. He is still clinging on, still refusing to let go of that quiet hope that somebody, something would stop Manvi from leaving.
"I love Manvi Mom. I just' love her."
I loved the last bit. The way Kushal lets those words out in the softest of whispers, his voice telling a story within itself. The story of his helplessness. He's helpless in this. He loves her. He can't stop. He simply can't.
When his Mom tells him that she does like Manvi but is simply scared and he asks her,
"Kis baat ka darr Mom?"
You see how utterly ridiculous the question seems to him. He really has never thought about it has he? How he might lose Manvi one day? How he might end up spending a large part of his life without her? He is so completely focused on the idea of making her well and loving her that he has never considered the possibility or the fear of losing her. He refuses to see that dark reality. All he sees is Manvi. His world, his light, his life. He speaks to his Mom of his love, of how love does not end even when life does, he speaks of how he doesn't want anything but Manvi, how even a brief period of being with her, of loving her like he so wants to would be enough. Enough for now and enough for the rest of his life. His love wouldn't fade away, those memories wouldn't fade away. And that even if his love were to destroy him later he'd embrace the idea of having Manvi first. If he doesn't he'd have nothing but regret. Manvi is his light so how could her memories and the love attached to them bring him darkness even if Manvi herself fades away? His love is all about Manvi and that love is eternal so that light too must be eternal. He is her shadow now.. perhaps then she'd become his shadow.. Treading every path that he treads, living everyday that he lives and be totally and eternally there for him. God might snatch his Manvi away from him but He cannot take away from him the strength to continue loving her and to continue seeping life into her by living every memory a thousand times over. But for that he has to have her. He must have her.
Kushal Tandon was brilliant in all this. The tears, the bravery in his smile, the love written all across Virat's face and the sheer raw vulnerability as he bared his soul infront of his Mother was heartwrenching. He makes you cry and bleed for Virat just like Virat himself bleeds for Manvi. He had learned to live his life in the dark once he cannot do so again. That light has been too pure, too beautiful for him. He cannot do without it.
You see the tale of Virat Vadhera's heart in this scene. Tales of the purity and selflessness of his love, tales of his need for her love and also his need to show her the love that he feels for her. You see his bravery, you see his sacrifice and you see how he loves the destruction that this one love can bring upon him. Simply because all of that pain and sacrifice and destruction is based upon one single person'
Manvi.
His love for Manvi is like the eternal rocks beneath. It's a necessity. She is a necessity. For his heart to continue beating, for his soul to continue living. His world, his Universe would not exist if Manvi was not his. He'd be nothing but an empty shell.
As tragic as it is, Manvi is already his. She too submitted herself to him long before she even knew it.
Talking about Manvi, you see her thinking about him. What I found particularly interesting is how she remembers everything. Simply everything. She hadn't understood those words when he said them yet she still remembers every moment she had lived with him. She reflects on them again now allowing herself to understand, to practically savor the idea of Virat loving her in the same way she does. Those thoughts are as beautiful as the Man who is an essential part of them. Her mind, her heart are surrounded by nothing but memories.. beautiful ones, happy ones and its almost in a trance when she walks to the mirror. Would she still see him? Would he still be there? And he is. Of course he is. Even his reflection will make her smile' Who is Manvi to think she can hide her love from Virat? She turns, and the dream breaks. For that is all he was' a reflection. That is all they are going to be now. A bundle of memories.. Memories of laughter, of love.
Their life is at a juncture such that they cannot meet. She must walk away from him. She's going to try atleast. She's forgetting though.. that love weaves its own path. It does not follow the rules you set for it. Because it's a game. She had loved playing games with him hadn't she? This is going to be a new one. A different one. And she'll have to play. Her heart will make sure of it. Only this time, the challenge will be bigger. This time, she cannot simply run, because Virat will follow and Virat will make her play again and again and again until she finally loses. But she wouldn't really.
They'd both win. Their love will.
===============
Sigh. Bring on the brickbats and tomatoes.
Maham.
