Tuesdays and Thursdays are always hard for me to do full takes because they are such busy days. But here are a few thoughts that I felt couldn't go unsaid, and I will treat this as my take on the episode:
Yash said exactly the right things in his TV recording, most importantly, "don't punish the children for my mistake." This really is an incredible role reversal where, during his madness Aarti tried to drive home the same message, and in the end was forced to take the kids away from Yash in order to keep them stable and happy. I am very happy to see Yash understanding what he did wrong in not understanding Aarti's intentions and her true nature, but I wonder what exactly he meant by the statement, "now I understand." Does he understand her place in his life? Does he understand that she only ever wanted his happiness and the happiness of his family? Does he understand that she is the one who brought him out of his pain-ridden grief when he thought that was impossible? Or does he understand why she felt she had to leave, knowing that she was bearing the nishaan of uss raat inside of her? Food for thought...
But what I loved most was how Yash spoke about the children, all four of them. He said that Payal and Palak were missing Aarti, that he was sure Ansh was missing them too. These are the relationships he is sure of in this PV, and he articulates them first. When he spoke about the baby, the expression in his eyes was enough to convey how he felt about it, where his suffering turned to tenderness for a split second, thinking of that little life inside Aarti. I loved that his biggest regret was the the children and Aarti were suffering because of him, a realisation that was a long time coming. Yet, I can't help but hope in all this that Aarti has a similar moment of redemption and realisation, because I think she hurt and is hurting the people she loves just as much as Yash did. I hope that does come forward in the story as it moves along, and I am pretty confident it will because of the kind of person that Aarti is and the love I know she has for all of her children.
Yash saying he couldn't live without Ansh just about broke my heart! When do we get to see these two reunite already?! Aarti is still uncertain ground for Yash and he is the kind of person who would not dare articulate his feelings until he knew exactly what they were. But Ansh, he can freely say what he feels about him because he knows exactly what it is. Ansh is a part of him, the other half of their winning team, and the first force that reached Yash through the haze of Arpita's grief. If it wasn't for Ansh, Yash would have never gained Aarti's trust in the first place, so this was perfect to me. Before Yash realises that he can't live without Aarti, he has to realise that he can't live without Ansh, because only with Ansh comes Aarti. He cannot love Aarti independent of Ansh.
But I think what I loved most of all was that Ansh responded subconsciously to Yash's voice. Even though he didn't wake up, probably because he was dead tired and the volume was low, somewhere inside him, he heard Yash's voice from the TV and was calling out to him. Despite his brave facade, he is scared, scared of abandonment from the person he depends on the most: papa. Ansh has seen his mother vulnerable so many times that though he loves her and respects her, there is also a kind of role reversal in that relationship that will never fully go away, one which makes Ansh protective of his mother, rather than feeling protected by her. It is the opposite with Palak because she has seen her father vulnerable; she protects him rather than feeling protected by him. To each kid, their adoptive parent represents the stability they brought to their lives, while the biological parent represents the incompleteness that was there before it. That is why Ansh and Palak have this silent sympathy with each other, especially when they sense their parents in trouble. Today, in his sleep Ansh unknowingly voiced the fear of losing that stability.
And Prashant, the giant tool, sought to slip into the papa's place and provide it for Ansh. Ha! Fat chance Prashant. You were never, and are never going to be Ansh's hero. One day you may become an accepted, forgiven and even loved part of his life, if you ever get your act together and behave, but Yash will always be the father who accepted and loved Ansh when he had no father, he will always be the man who saved his life despite Ansh's open rebellion, without malice and without selfish intentions, he will always be the man who made Ansh feel that his mother was in such safe hands that he could actually indulge in childhood. Yash loved Ansh when Ansh wasn't even ready to accept another authority figure in his life and he did his job as a dad, whether Ansh liked it or not. Ansh had to say those things in his sleep for Prashant to respond to his love...shouldn't the parent be the first to offer love and not be the one to merely respond to it when it comes from the other side? Prashant's is what we call conditional love.
