Yes, yes, I know that all of you are terminally het up about Purvi being kidnapped, and not just Abhi, who predicted this correctly, and not thru a lucky guess but by deduction from painstakingly assembled data. Sherlock Holmes was a misogynist and was generally contemptuous of the intelligence of women, but he did make rare exceptions, and Abhi, with this deductive success of hers, would won some modest approval from the Master.
There is nothing to be done about Purvi for the present. Tomorrow Ovi is sure to successfully block Manav from riding to her rescue (not literally, of course), if only because it has to be Arjun who does it, this being an iron clad rule of all romantic fiction, in fact their First Commandment.
Right now, Arjun has dashed off as soon as Manav informs the assemblage that the kidnappers are asking for a ransom for Purvi 'as she is also part of my parivaar', and he had not reappeared till the end of the episode. He had already readjusted his jawline (which had gone all soft over the last month with all that 'sirring' and assorted obsequiousness to all and sundry) to a moderate degree of the hardness needed for his new knight on a white horse role. He still has to work on it a bit more, and then he was probably also looking for his white horse. No, don't throw anything rotten at me, please! It is just that I find it very difficult to get worked up about a fake crisis that I know is going to be sorted out very soon, well, perhaps a little later, but sorted out at all events.
The fact is that Arjun does not know who the kidnappers are, nor do they know that he is the most interested party, and they do not have HIS cell number either. So there is no way he can rescue her on his own, in the purely physical sense. The conduit for any rescue operation still has to be Manav. Besides, our 'just Arjun' is kangal, and has no money to rescue his lady love. It is his father who will have to dig deep into his pockets to get the Rs.3 crores demanded, with a fine flourish, by Janhvi's unkempt Robin Hood. DK seems more than ready to do so, but the point is that Archana has now to understand that it is not mehnat ki kamayee that can rescue Purvi, and that it needs the big bucks of the Kirloskars.
For it is not going to be her beloved Manav who does the rescue act. He does make a dramatic speech after Archana falls at his feet and begs him to get Purvi back as otherwise 'Main mar jaoongi' ( I will die). No mention of what Purvi might have to undergo at the hands of ruthless kidnappers, which is what one would have expected, but then the CVs probably believe the audience prefers this sort of self-centred drama, and judging by the reactions in the forum, one suspects that they are right.
Manav embraces Archana, and declares, with a fine flourish, that he WILL get Purvi back, and that she is as important for him as Ovi and Teju. In the background, Savita, Teju and Ovi, all glaring in unison, give a passable imitation of the Three Witches from Macbeth. Even before Ovi uttered Baba! In stentorian tones, and Manav turned back, I knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that he would be grounded.
DK has started out with Manav, with Sachin in tow ( I do not know what they promised poor Puru to get him to stay on, but his footage seems to be even less these days than when he at least used to be allowed to glare at Archana every day). One presumes that they will borrow Manav's cell phone and continue with Operation Purvi. I only hope neither DK nor Arjun makes the mistake of revealing the depth of their interest in Purvi, as then the ransom amount will surely be doubled once more by the shrewd Vishnu.
DK wanted to call in the police when they still thought it was Ovi who had been kidnapped, and Manav had no objection to it. So they might call in the police; Vishnu would have no network of informers in Mumbai as a local gangster would, so his unspoken threat to Manav not to go to the police might not be very effective, as he would have no way of finding out if they did.
So, we will just have to wait it out, but hardly in a state of breathless tension! For, just as surely as we know that it will be our boy wonder who will rescue Purvi, we also know that nothing is going to happen to her. That is the Second Commandment of all romantic fiction, and after all, this is PR (and not Crime Patrol, which is, like real life, very difficult to take at times).
It is merely a question of how long the CVs drag it out and, as a corollary, how good Arjun looks with days old stubble. He cannot be shown spending time on a shave while his love is yet to be rescued; that is another unbreakable rule of romantic fiction. He will probably also go on an (unstated) anna tyaag anshan ( fast) till he has got her back, as that will add to the drama and will go down well with viewers accustomed to such gestures in their soaps (it is usually the women in the family who do this, but we stand firmly for gender equality). That would not be such a bad thing either so long as he takes care not to get dehydrated; he can afford to lose a few pounds over the next week. Judging from how out of breath he was after his vigorous display at the DID LM last Saturday, it would do him a lot of good.
Now for the absurdties in the title; I am sure you thought that I had forgotten all about them, as the CVs have done with the body in the boot, the unfortunate Rahim Khan, but I have not. There are at least 3 major ones.
- Vishnu is shown grabbing Ovi and chloroforming her in FULL view of at least 20 people within 10 yards or less from them. This is ridiculous, and an insult to Vishnu's intelligence. He would have been nabbed at once and probably lynched by the crowd. When Purvi is carried off, there are 3 of the kidnappers to encircle her and shield her from any curious eyes. Vishnu is totally exposed, and still he goes ahead without having verified that the back up is at hand.
- Once you have a pad drenched in chloroform over your nose, your senses start failing at once, and Vishnu uses a dose enough to knock out a solidly built man for 8 hours (remember his experiment on he unfortunate guinea pig from his gang?). Ovi is a girl and delicately built, and she would have passed out at once. Instead, she retains her consciousness throughout, and claws backwards at his face, getting at his eyes and forcing him to release her. Not just that, she does not lose her balance as she stumbles away from him, but is alert enough to immediately grab a handful of gulaal and throw it accurately straight into his eyes, thus paralyzing him. She then makes good her escape, after what can be only called a remarkable degree of presence of mind and spunk (Jyothi, are you listening?)
- Purvi tears her orange sari on a nail and she and Archana try to get hold of some safety pins to hold the torn part together for the present. Lo and behold, the lady whom they approach for this purpose, who turns out to be the wife of the Krishna temple priest, does not stop at handing out the pins, not at all. She insists on Purvi wearing one of her own sarees, and returning it the next time they come to the temple.
I was dazed at this display of unbounded faith in human nature, seeing that she does not know Archana and Purvi from Eve (well, a pair of Eves, if you insist), and before I could gather my wits. she had produced Purvi, decked out is a heavy Kancheevaram number that would have cost Rs. 12-15000/- at a rough guess. Also a near backless blouse to match, into which the priest's wife could not, by any stretch of the imagination, have ever fitted (and the blouse had to hers, right?) Plus a whole stack of bangles to match. One is left to wonder about the kind of dakshina that the worshippers at the Krishna temple give the priest, that he can afford such lavish sarees for his wife.
- You would notice that in recounting this absurdity, I have carefully refrained from mentioning the odds against the saree loaned to Purvi (now, alas, gone for good!) being the clone of that worn by Ovi. A Kancheepuram weaver makes only 6 sarees with the same design and colouring before he discards the pattern set up on the loom. For the odds against 2 of the 6 turning up on Ovi and Purvi, I would have to turn to an astrophysicst – they specialize in giganumbers.
To conclude, this only PR, not real life, and a happy resolution to Operation Purvi is assured. So folks, relax and enjoy the fun.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
