3/8 Dragon Club :Yeh hai Mumbai Meri Jaan :P

Res 😉

Today, In the theme of general discomfort with Arpita's memory and the way it is manifest in Yash's life, I want to talk about the inconsistencies that are making themselves more and more apparent as we delve deeper into the life that Yash and Arpita shared with one another.

Arpita in Yash's memories has been shown as a perfect woman, a perfect wife and a perfect mother. It is because of this legacy of perfection that Yash perceives that he is not able to move on. He perceives anything he might do outside of the realm of her initiation as imperfect and so ruinous to what she built up. It really makes me wonder about the larger than life image that Arpita built for herself in Yash's head, because after today's episode it is becoming clearer that she played a huge part in the way Yash felt and feels about her: the devotion, the loyalty and the helplessness in her absence were at least party of her own making.

Three places where Arpita has had a hand in decorating: Yash and her bedroom, the girls' room and now this beach house. The common factor? All of them have pictures of Arpita, and of Arpita and Yash engaged in a variety of romantic moments. At first it seemed like Yash had created that mausoleum for Arpita but we see that even in the video that Prateek made, the blow ups are very much present already proving that it was not Yash who put them up on the walls. Similarly we find that Arpita was the one that decorated the girls' room and there also there is a picture of her and Yash, as well as smaller pictures of her in stand alone frames. The pictures of the girls are recent ones, and I just checked the flashback from Palak's birthday and while the picture of Yash and Arpita was there, there were no pictures of the girls, in their own room. Finally today, Yash explicitly states that Jagan has not changed one thing about the house since Arpita herself decorated it. And what do we find? More pictures of her and Yash, and more pictures of her alone.

It really makes you wonder, what about this woman made her feel like she had to emblazon her own pictures and sometimes those with Yash all over the place. It is too early to really hazard a guess about where the CVs are taking this because there is far too little information, but it does feel like she was desperately trying to immortalise herself and Yash's love for her. It is almost as though she is enticing Yash to join her in all the pictures as all of them are either her as a bride, in coy looks or enjoying moments of love with him. And this brings us right back to wondering...did she know she was going to die? Is there more to her death than just an accident one rainy night? What she did to herself that night can be termed as suicide in some ways and the issue of the pictures coming to the forefront really makes me unsettled once again, where I thought we had closed a chapter. Adding to this is the symbolic white frames of the promo, clearly indicating that there is a connection the CVs are trying to make with this whole picture thing.

From Yash and Aarti's perspective, the episode and the entry to the beach house was rife with symbolism. While Aarti and the kids saw the beauty of the place, Yash saw only the decorations that Arpita had chosen...a wheel that was stationary and empty pots. This is the legacy that Arpita has left for Yash in her memories, immobility and emptiness. Aarti stands behind him, wanting to turn the wheel and fill his life with colour, as she promised Gayatri she would, but he doesn't see her. The only thing that is able to snap him out of his reverie is Ansh, ironically, because he is overflowing! 😆 They progress to the door, where despite Arpita being gone, she has left him a key to enter the haven of her memories where time has stopped (as represented by the wall clock). I think this shows that Arpita left Yash a key to get lost in her memories at any point, through those pictures. He didn't need anyone's help. Did she provide him the means to shut himself off from the world? I feel so creeped out by the possibilities that I now understand why Yash was so scared of coming here, where the Arpita pull is so strong and he can't seem to control it.

And then there is a glimmer of hope. Jagan and the Mrs. show up and start arguing, Yet again, Yash sees something that is the same, their fighting. But here there is something fresh that invades his psyche, like a beam of sunshine. Aarti's interpretation of Jagan and Mrs. J's fight as not a fight, but the teasing that can otherwise be called love. For a moment Yash is snapped out of his trance as he looks at Aarti in surprise. This to me showed that Aarti has the power to break the spell of the beach house, break the power of yesterday and make place for a beautiful today, but she has to be herself to do it, a lesson that she always seems to learn the hard way.

I also thought that light touch on Yash's shoulder was a beautiful loop closure as Aarti talked about memories. It reminded me of their SR, right after all the misconceptions were cleared. That was the first time Aarti saw those portraits of Arpita, and at that point she tried to touch Yash's shoulder, as he was absorbed in Arpita's picture, to get his attention so she could apologise. But just at that moment, the wind chime chimed and she fell into her own memories of Prashant's abandonment. Today she managed to touch his shoulder and he turned around to face her. But the truth is that he is not ready to hear what she has to say just yet and I wish she wouldn't push him (which from her final decision of the episode, it sounds like she is going to do more aggressively now). I also found it interesting that he chose to have his alone time in a place without any objects or pictures. One some level he is trying to escape the memories as well and this adds so many dimensions to the possibility of Arpita's reality.

The VMs I made in last 48 hours 😳