Credit for this gorgeous banner goes to Maham (Allbut1)!
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HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO PV!!!
Though it is hard to believe now, precisely one year ago, PV forum looked a lot this:
😆
For those of us who came here, interested in the actors to be sure, but more interested in the concept and the way it was going to be dealt with, the atmosphere of the forum made us:
And we wanted create and discuss in a virtual space where you could always come and feel safe sharing your opinions, no matter what they were! A shelter from the crazy weather, if you will. 😉
Thus the DC was born, though it would be a few months before it was called that. It started out as plain, "Episode Discussion," moved on to the temporary name of "Analysis Unit," until finally on the day Aarti and Paridhi entered Scindia House, it got its glorious name... DRAGON CLUB. No matter what the name, what remained the same was our ethos, everyone was welcome to share their thoughts and enjoy the show!
Of course, thanks to the cast and crew's fabulous work, it didn't take us long to fall for the beautiful, bittersweet story and our two beloved leads:
There were some out there who said that PV was regressive and stuck in another time
There were some who didn't quite understand what was going on with the story 😕😆
No matter how cute we were, some people just didn't seem impressed! 🤔
🤣
But that didn't stop us fans and lovers from falling more and more in love with our beautiful story and characters and everything about them!
And over time, I can confidently say that PV forum became one of the most united and peaceful forums in IF history!
🤗
We all have such a wonderful time on this thread and this forum and I think we have our PH, writers, the cast and crew to thank for that! They gave us such a beautiful story and such heart-touching characters and have made us into the big, peaceful, happy family we are today!
Thank you for maintaining such a high standard for the show through all the ups and downs, and thank you for one year of PUNAR VIVAAH!
**Special thanks to all the AVI and GIF makers! It was a treat to go through the Creation Gallery for these and relive the whole journey once more! I am sorry I couldn't cite each one of you, but there were too many!**
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What a beautiful character study of Yash Scindia we had today! He is a man to whom family means everything, and he is willing to give up so much more than just his life for them... he is willing to give up his principles and take a stain on his own conscience in order to protect his father's reputation from being tarnished. I love this development because it puts into such sharp relief, Aarti's divorce lie. We knew that she was a principled person who was forced by circumstances into the lie about her marital status, but given that the lie was born with the story, it became a part of Aarti's character in a way that it was hard sometimes to remember that she was a staunchly principled and upright person, who was bent over forcefully by the demands of society. Today, it hits us even harder because while Aarti's character carried the burden of deceit very early on, we have never seen Yash be anything less than completely honest... and sometimes even a little too honest. But given the right circumstances, even he bends to the overwhelming power of SOCIETY and compromises what is right and true to maintain what is acceptable and "respectable."
The same way Yash's lie helps us understand the position that Aarti found herself in early on in the series, Aarti's lie and the way she dealt with it helps us understand what precisely Yash is going through right now. More than a desire to deceive, Yash was in denial today when he found the real reports. He somehow thought that if he never told anyone, and kept the secret buried deep within his own consciousness, he could somehow erase it from history, avoiding all the implications that came with it. This reminded me so much of Aarti's post-traumatic behaviour after that big confrontation with Prashant when she simply shut off her past entirely. It didn't occur to her at the time that she was doing wrong because she had honestly and truly blocked Prashant and any memories and feelings about him out of her active thought. This is precisely what Yash is doing with the knowledge of SP that he now possesses. More for his own emotional security -- as a reaction to the trauma of the truth -- he is trying to deny the truth, pretend it never happened so that everything can be "perfect," the same "perfection" that Aarti was using to justify her continued hiding of the divorce truth.
This is amply clear in his dislocation of SP from what happened to Radha. As of what I could see in the episode, he sees Radha as a woman who has been wronged and he sees SP who stands at the precipice of losing his most precious and hard earned status in society. He is yet to reconcile the strong and principled SP with the man who so gravely wronged Radha and yet to reconcile the father who gave him so much with the father who deprived Akash of all of those things. Because this reconciliation hasn't happened in his mind, he sees them as two problems with two distinct solutions. A wronged Radha and Akash must get their right and on an almost unrelated note, SP has to keep his honour intact, Gayatri's feelings must not be hurt and the status quo must be maintained. And again, because he hasn't linked SP with the act of betraying Radha, he sees this dishonour on the family as something abstract, rather than the direct results of SP's own actions and his refusal to accept their consequences. This is why it is excellent that Aarti is taking a stand. Yash is too involved, in too much grief to be able to see the situation for what it is. She has to become his conscience because his own mind and his strong conscience are overpowered by crippling emotions.
I don't know why my take ended up going backwards today...😆 Anyway, my favourite part of the episode was the first speech from Yash to Radha. Even though he has no idea of the truth, that speech was way harsh and I could sense Aarti's turmoil, every word still rung true for me. Her motivations are a separate discussion but there is no doubt that Radha did something criminal by kidnapping Akash and leaving Yash in his place at their birth, and two specific things that Yash said to her are whirring in my brain.
"A mother is suppsed to show her child the right path and you lead your son down the wrong one."
Yash was talking about this in the context of Akash and his supposed false claim to his rights as SP's son, but doesn't it apply to him as well? Radha did lead him down the wrong path very literally by getting him his rights through deception, at the cost of another baby's. Though intended for his own good, she led her son to live a lie for his entire life, stealing the privilege of another. Simply by being a Scindia, with all that entails, Yash is every second of every day, doing wrong by Akash and it was because of Radha that he will have this on his conscience once the truth comes out. Even though Yash was mistaken in the immediate context of what lie Radha had actually propagated, he was ironically spot on with his words, which is why I didn't really share in Aarti's sympathy.
"Nobody could even call you as a mother after this."
Again, a prophetic nod to what is to come. When the whole truth does come out, it is true, nobody is really going to be able to call Radha their mother. Yash, of course is completely tied to Gayatri and the attachment between them has always been evident. He may accept Radha as his biological mother because it is the right thing to do, but in his heart, it will always be Gayatri. And Akash? He is never going to be able to see Radha as anything more than the woman who stole his birthright from him, who kept him away from all that was rightfully his because she wanted her son to have it. Neither "son" will with full acceptance be able to call Radha their mother. I am interested to see what they do with her character, given that that is the case.
More importantly, I understand Aarti's sympathy but I also hope she realises the gravity of what Radha did. Extreme mamta is one thing, and I know Aarti relates strongly to Radha's mamta, but it does not excuse the crime that Radha committed. In all her zeal to defend Radha's "haq" [what haq?] as a mother, I hope Aarti doesn't try to push Yash too hard into accepting her, though I have a hunch we may just go this way. 🤔
And with that sunny prediction I will wrap up for today! 😃
