Rishbala - Through the prism of ep 25th Feb 2013

The end of ep Monday, 25th Feb. 2013 (ep.#204) carried a feeling of almost lackadaisical, and that was perplexing.😕

The episode started off on a dramatically high-impact note.😳😊

Both RK and Madhu had - in the manner almost de rigeur for them - set aside logic, reason and good sense, opting for towering raging overset emotions instead.😳

After all the trauma RK had so recently caused her, concern for her terror of darkness or worry that she might get injured while stumbling around was outrageously disproportionate.😕

Fortunately, mood whiplash for the viewers was averted since proportionate reaction has never been a quality associated with RK, not in any of the bad nor any of the extremely good he has done, be it overtly or very very covertly.

When Madhu threw aside her dupatta and ragingly challenged him to do worse, it was another moment that underlined how very conservative both of them are at the core.

It was the reason why RK had thought she would back off if a stole were to be removed from her otherwise bare shoulders, even leaving her beautifully clad in an elegant gown.

Because that sort of elegance is not acceptable to her for herself.

Now, ironically upset and angry at her, he furiously draped the dupatta inelegantly but securely around her, pulled her along to outside the dark and cluttered indoors, and then shut himself away behind her.

It was a scene evocative of the night at the mandap when RK had dragged Madhu along, except that then she had been in shock and pliable, and this time she was hostile and protesting.

But if one is to consider the two situations in relative comparison, then he dragged her away, left her in a comparatively less accidentprone-in-the-dark situation, and shut himself away.😊

And at the mandap, rather than leave her in that devastated and shocked mental state at the deserted venue, he had dragged her as harshly to his car and then delivered her to her maayka, where he had made himself the villain in the eyes of all her neighbours that might have wondered at her.😳

Every scene ranged from good to excellent.

Then why that feeling of almost boredom that seemed to seep in through the ep?

Perhaps because the powerful impact scenes were placed at the start of the ep, and the rest of the ep appeared to be filler scenes in prep for the next ep.

On paper, it appears to be consecutive interesting scenes throughout the ep, with one or the other of the leads in almost every scene.

Perhaps the flaw may have been in giving Trishna and Dipali a few too many lines, though overall those lines would help maintain characterization within the story at future points.

And we got to see that Trishna - like Radha - is a character that holds steady to its baseline, despite any illusory changes.

Trishna will always be comforting and affectionate to Madhu so long as Madhu appears vulnerable or at a disadvantage.

It is only when Madhu appears at an advantage of any sort that Trishna can see not even her sister's pain in light of her own thwarted feelings.

And the reassurance of supporting Madhu in a fight against RK was almost ludicrous.

The only reason RK let Trishna get away with malice and spite on recent occasions was because she is Madhu's sister.

Now, when his restraint towards Madhu is almost entirely covert, there would be nothing to keep him from wrecking Trishna.

He might even consider it a point victory in even further turning Madhu against him.

Which is apparently never going to be a battle wholly won, if the song playing for Madhu was any indication.

Confusion about tenderness however abrasively cloaked, and desolation about heartbreak swiftly masked over with indifference, combined with no proactive steps to face off and confront the one who caused the pain, *and* the most naive reasoning for remaining in that person's proximity...

It seems rather like leaving a wound covered but unmedicated, and simply carrying on, convincing everyone else it's healing just fine on its own.

Will Madhu ever realize that Radha's words about facing RK down constantly and never backing away from him was *not* so that Madhu might prove a point to him, but rather to reunite the couple in the most ruthlessly swift and effective way possible?

He had once told his mother that he would never do anything to truly disgrace his father.

One may presume that the late Mohan Kundra had not been a utopian sort to suffer qualms over those of his son's actions that could have been set aside in favour of far more horrendous aggression, had RK's ethics and humanity not stayed his hand from truly crossing the line into monstrous.

Ever since RK had told Dipali that he would use her if she were willing, one has speculated over far more crass manners in which he might have done so to discomfit Madhu and accomplish his desperate need to have her quit the job and leave his proximity.

The course he finally chose was almost gallant in comparison.

There could have been no question of inciting jealousy with Dipali as the tool.

But RK does not *need* Madhu to feel jealous, which would carry the terrifying implication that her walls of fake bravado would be melting and she might turn *to* rather than away from him, and demand explanation from him for any number of things.

What he does need is her antipathy, her disgust, her rage, her contempt.

He needs her to feel she won't tolerate being anywhere in his vicinity.

He needs her to think he is no longer *worth* proving a point to, even about her being indifferent to him or having moved on.

From the reactions in the precap, Dipali was the only one of the three who seemed to be enjoying herself.😕😊

Madhu appeared to be on edge, not with jealousy, but with her latent possessiveness about RK flaring and banking, holding her teetering on the edge of yet another emotional tempest, so soon after the previous night's.

And RK seemed as comfortable, pleased and relaxed (Not!😳) as he has ever been while holding a woman who is the antithesis of all that makes Madhu so exceptional - dignity, virtue and a loyalty that holds firm even long past the point where it should not.😳

It was a move which one would be shocked to see succeed, simply because the player is unwilling to play this particular move with his all.

The believability of his antagonism for Madhu that RK's performance at the mandap carried - and indeed to an extent his interactions thereafter with Padmini, Radha, Bittuji and Madhu herself - has been singularly lacking in his interactions with Dipali.

Dipali is the only person that RK makes no pretence about mocking or speaking ill of Madhu in front of.

He has not so far felt himself induced - in front of Madhu - to bring himself to believably convey *any* sort of close interaction with Dipali that does not fall into the contemptuous, cold and distant range spectrum.

So Madhu gets to see clearly - whether she will perceive it is for the eps to reveal - that RK is uncomfortable with Dipali but placing her in situation after situation to get a rise out of Madhu.

Basically, a chess game where you tell your opponent your entire strategy for a particular phase of the game.

The opponent would have to be an unthinkable dimwit not to completely total you in that phase.

The *only* potentially successful point in this phase - considering how inaccurately RK estimated his ability to briefly radiate warmth towards Dipali in Madhu's presence as opposed to in her absence - had been not Dipali's seductive dance, but rather the time she got alone with Madhu, with several points that only RK could have told her, to provoke Madhu into leaving.

One cannot be certain whether Dipali was aware that such was the endgame as her fee for getting to humiliate Madhu and perform, even in a cameo, in RK's film.

But she failed utterly in the face of Madhu's formidable and indomitable dignity and poise.

And the next move was sure to fail before it ever started.

RK had been right in his realization that Madhu would be indifferent to anything - people and situations - that don't actually matter to him emotionally (eg: the romantic dance with the heroine).

And he was right in knowing that his using Dipali instead - with the overt apparent intent of showing down Madhu - would provoke and alienate Madhu, invoking her antipathy at his willingness to stoop to accepting Dipali as a crutch in his battle with Madhu.

What RK was completely and utterly in error about was that his enduring Dipali and giving her reasonable rein to offend Madhu would result in Madhu angrily and contemptuously quitting her current employment.

Dipali was a tool nearly blunt and ineffectual for the purpose, and RK's own revulsion against using that tool as despicably as would have been needed ensured that he might as well not have played this stage, and just given in.

RK may - for whatever reason or not - want Madhu entirely away from him, but the CVs cannot afford to have the leads apart.

So, that pretty much guarantees RK's three-days goal will go in Madhu's favour, and she'll hold her ground.

What may happen in Madhu's projected 27 days beyond that seems terrifyingly likely to stretch into the MEIEJ's actual compensation for all the tracks they wrapped up swiftly.

Hopefully, they won't actually drag us through 27 MEIEJ-verse days.

3-4 of those days translated into 12 episodes.

And while RK's dialogues were uniformly terrific as always, everyone else had very good lines as well.

While Madhu's poised and yet hardhitting retort to Dipali about the horse and the donkey was superb, her next comment was a snippy one and a delight to hear but also a worrying reminder of the tactical imprudence of her character.

When the antagonist is for the first time ever floored into complimenting you directly, take it as a victory.

Unfortunately, Madhu is very peaceable for far too long, and chooses the most injudicious moments to get confrontational.

RK's scene (with Bittuji and Dipali worked in and out) - when he got home after the studio-debacle that was his private scene with Madhu - maintained the damnable ambiguity for this ep.

Every word, every nuance can be taken in either one of two ways.

Could the CVs not *please* have put this much of effort into suspense into a show actually having suspense element as a hallmark?

MEIEJ never gave a forewarning of becoming a suspense mystery thriller, and yet we might as well be piecing out puzzles, riddles, mysteries and enigmas all interwoven for any sure headway that has been made in 13 episodes now.

And there had better not be a "Oh, we just wanted you to crest the wave, so we said the shore was in sight beyond that."😡

It would be outrageous even by entertainment standards.😭

Reason, reason... My rose-tinted glasses are getting a bit frosted over.😕 Anyway, they'll last a few days longer yet.😛😳 Please, CVs, a good reason of 13 episodes worth so far. Please?😊