Folks,
Yes, it is really me, the Prodigal Daughter (though Prodigal Aunty might be more age-appropriate!😉), peeping back into an old habitat that I have missed a lot this past month and more. What brought me back was, firstly, Hurricane Sandy, and worry about those of you who might be in her path. Then today, while checking on the responses on my Sandy thread, it was seeing bee5's very hard hitting and cohesive Letter to Ovi.
I have noted the trend of the comments in the Letter to Ovi thread, tongue in cheek or otherwise. But as you all know, I was never one to shy away from swimming against the current, whether it is a question of Arjun or Purvi or Vishnu. So, seeing that I am here, I thought of sharing my take on all this with you folks and I hope that, as always, you will bear with me.
-ARJUN-PURVI: It is an undeniable fact that I, along with Archana, and then Jyothi, have expended more effort than any other Arvi lover to defend Arjun against all comers, and I believe it was the excessive efforts I made on behalf of the PAP, that I helped to found, that has crocked my poor wrist past repair!😉 I thus feel more let down and disappointed than most when I see what Arjun has become, and I have no sympathy to waste on him any more.
Nor on Purvi, who is undoubtedly the deus ex machina of their joint destruction. I say 'destruction' because, even when, as will assuredly happen, Arjun and Purvi get together again, it will be only a washed out version of their once fresh and charming love tale.
And that, to my mind, is the greatest betrayal of all. So, whether this pair deserve each other or not, they now most assuredly do NOT deserve us, the fans who had, with unswerving affection and admiration, made them what they were till recently.
- OVI: Ovi is what Ovi is, and has always been. There is no point getting het up about it. She should have remembered that she has bought a house with a mortgage, and the best way out for her would be to wait and hope that the mortgage is paid off in due course. If it ends up never paid off, tough luck.
But of course she does not understand that. If she had any savvy at all, she would have stuck to playing the injured but endlessly patient and long-suffering wife, and made Arjun feel acutely guilty. She is not clever enough for that, nor does she have a good advisor.
One can blame Ovi for trusting Punni the Python, but then people always believe what they want to believe at any given point of time, for their own temporary interests. If this was not so, Purvi would not, just because she wants her aaji Sulochana to be looked after, be now fawning over the consistently vicious Manjusha and the selfsame Punni (whose nature would, by now, be plain even to the most nave) and effectively engineering the entry of this dangerous pair into the Karanjkar household.
Ovi's overweening trait, and cardinal fault, is self-centredness. Purvi's overweening trait, and cardinal fault, is self-righteousness amounting to mania, in which she is Archana's true daughter,
As for what Ovi demands of Arjun, we have to note that Arjun is not offering the explanation that he was effectively shanghaied into marrying her (by his forever beloved, for reasons entirely her own, to do with her Priority No.1, to wit her aai), and thus he owes her nothing. The chap does not stick to ANYTHING he says - either what he snarled at Purvi when he went to her place after the wedding (when he got my hopes up, totally undeservedly, alas!), or what he told Ovi in that scene where he smashed the framed dhaba picture of him and Purvi.
He is now apparently committed, going by his own words, to getting over his past and making his marriage work. So, given this changed equation, as set out by him, the format reverts to the standard nagging wife pattern, and one cannot say that Ovi has no right to nag him.
That it is exceedingly foolish of her to nag him is another thing altogether. Though I must add that, despite Arjun's comment about his desire to avoid a fight with Ovi over Purvi, they have so far never shown Ovi fighting with Arjun about her. Not even when the driver brings Purvi's diary back to the house, when she pointedly says nothing; which in turn forces Arjun into a long-winded explanation..
- PURVI: One cannot blame Purvi for anything post-(the Arjun-Ovi) marriage, but what she did before that, for her own ends, marketing the man who loved her beyond reason and trusted her blindly, was horrendous. If she broke her heart as well in the process, it is no concern of my mine, I care only for what she did to Arjun.
She did sell Ovi a house with a mortgage, but she seems to be trying her best to see that it is paid off soonest. One cannot blame Purvi for her bumping into Arjun every now and then; the CVs take care of that by invoking the long arm of coincidence.
But appearances are bound to be increasingly against her, and it is likely to get far, far worse if the 6 month leap, and what else is being rumoured, both materialise. Ovi will then most definitely have the last laugh. As for me, having defended Purvi stoutly on this count in the past, as being no Sharmila Tagore in Aradhana, I would be most disappointed, and disgusted, if these rumours turn out (as seems to be often the case) to be true after all. It would be plumbing the depths of character assassination, but then one can put nothing past the CVs.
This apart, Purvi's perennial sanctimoniousness is far more pronounced, and irritating, these days, whether she is impertinently lecturing a much older man whom she does not know at all, Thakur Vikram Singh in Phir Subah Hogi, about marriage and morality, or whether she is ticking Arjun off, in front of DK, for calling Vishnu a gunda in his private conversation with his father. What business she has interfering in that private conversation is difficult to understand.
I watched all this with growing incredulity, till I realised that Purvi is steadily being elevated by the CVs to mahaanta lite status, as a sort Archana Jr., jo kabhi galti nahin kar sakti ( who can never do wrong). There is a halo, faint as yet, but increasingly visible around her pretty head.
Curiously enough, Purvi's self-righteousness is not all pervading.She lectures Arjun about being properly respectful to her Soham dada, because she knows that he will take it and not retaliate in kind. She does not try to lecture Teju when she is making even stronger statements against Vishnu, because she knows that Teju will not take it, and will retaliate very harshly against her. So you see, prudence always prevails, even among candidates for sainthood! - ARJUN: It is Arjun who has fallen the farthest. These days, I can barely recognise the boy whom I loved and supported so unreservedly. He might have been the bakra, but he seems to have no resentment at all for what Purvi did to him, and nowadays he behaves more like a tame puppy running after its master than anything else. Why, for instance, does he have to drive all the way to her house to get news of Soham Dada?
If he wants to at least try to get a divorce from Ovi, that would be one thing, But since he apparently plans to stay put with her, he has to stop trying to be 'friends' with Purvi. Such things simply do NOT work. One knows and can accept that it takes time and commitment to get over a love so deep. But as he says that he wants to 'get over his past', the only effective way to do that is to bury it, good and deep. It is not to try and strike up conversations with Purvi every chance he gets, and then complain when Ovi gets to know of them and, ill-advisedly, raises the issue with him.
As for Arjun demanding that Ovi should 'trust' him and 'help' him, how will her not being suspicious help him get over Purvi, unless he too stops taking every chance he gets to talk to her and stops casting sidelong glances at her, with that trademark lost puppy look?
And what if Purvi had in the meantime married someone else? Would her new husband be 'trusting' enough to 'help' her get over Arjun and vice versa? Not a chance.
In the old days, whenever Arjun had that lost puppy look (as when he turned up at Purvi's place to explain that forehead kiss), my heart used to go out to the poor boy. No longer. Now when I see that look, my one strong impulse is to plant a solid kick in his backside.
As for his latest exercise - of fighting with the Sarvesh Industries chap over Purvi - what he does is not just ridiculous, it is terminally immature. Anyone could have predicted what would happen if he took up the cudgels on Purvi's behalf with that chap; it is exactly like throwing a stone into a puddle of mud. Sure enough, he ends up besmeared with muck, and what did he achieve? How can a man supposed to be so successful in his business, which should need a very sound sense of judgement, be so lacking in the same department when it comes to his private life?
Well, it is all the fault of the CVs; they just cannot leave a fresh and appealing character alone. My poor boy, whom I cared for so very much, is gone beyond recall, and I totally disown this changeling.
PR these days: Frankly, I do not see where this Arjun-Purvi-Ovi triangle is going, and I care less and less about them with every passing day. In fact zilch.
Nor are the other PR characters likely to make one look forward to seeing them in action: what with Archana looking perennially like the 'before' ad for Saridon, Teju looking like something Modigliani might have a painted with a hangover, Manav looking so hangdog and defeated that he sets my teeth on edge, Varsha like a warning poster against anorexia, Balan doing an old fashioned daku act, and even Vishnu losing much of his cheeky charm with all this tiring raving and ranting at all and sundry. Arrr.. gh!!
Even more frankly, I cannot see WHAT I am doing unloading all my khunnaas on you, my dear bee, and on all the others who might, misguidedly and out of old habit, wade thru this post. For all those who have got this far, please accept my profound and unreserved apologies!
However, this letter will help you understand why I have stopped posting on PR. My speciality always was genuine emotion for characters that I cared for, laced with tongue in cheek humour. There is no room for any of this in PR as it is these days. Plus I do not want to alarm and dismay so many of my forum friends, who have been so abundantly and extravagantly kind to me in the past, by dumping all this comprehensive negativity on them. It would be but a poor repayment for all the affection they have shown me.
So folks, this is likely - though they do say that one should never say never! - to be a one off exercise, especially seeing the way PR is careening downhill like a runaway car.
What I really wanted, I think, was to touch base with all of you again, and to tell you how much I miss you.
I also wanted to wish all of you, and your families, a wonderful, colourful and joyous Deepavali. I know that I am fully 2 weeks in advance, but good wishes keep remarkably well, and these will stay nice and fresh till November 13.
God bless you and your families, and keep you all safe, healthy and happy.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
CID
