@Maham:
All right, my dear Maham...Since you've been waiting, waiting, waiting for this...😆
"...if he comes running back from Lucknow and tells her that hey I got an epiphany while I was gone, and now I am in love with you, she'll think that he's completely lost it..."
😆 I love the way you wrote this! If this was any other show except for PV, that could have been a possibility (the mindless rushing back from being out of town, the frenzied and equally mindless blurting out of the epiphany that is often too sudden) but since this is Punar Vivaah, and our author is Mira, I have a feeling that we'll be saved from that sort of thing! At least I hope Yash's adrenaline won't prompt him to go that way...
I went back and read through the first bit of Part 9 to refresh my memory...Aarti, bless her, went about happily until the encounter in the bathroom; offered to help him - yes! Like you said, she stepped beyond the role that was expected of her...- and then when he refused, naturally she drew back and realized that she'd transgressed that boundary that she had been so carefully staying away from for so long. The result? It makes her mentally chide herself for behaving so...it made her depressed and drove out any happiness she'd felt earlier.
What I loved about this part was that Yash and Aarti are both suffering from the same sorts of feelings...Both are miserable, both are restless and disturbed because thoughts of the other person occupy their minds. It's so sweet that Aarti acknowledges again how perceptive and kind Yash is/has been, but then she also blames herself for whatever happened in the bathroom and after that...That makes me think of how awful it must be for her to have gone through the experiences that she's been through in the past - she's been conditioned into thinking that she's the one at fault, that she's the one who isn't mindful of others...And so here, she's being extremely careful, stepping as daintily as possible to avoid provoking Yash because all that she knows is that he loves Arpita so much. It's painful to see how Aarti even reprimands herself for asking if Yash wanted help packing. Such a spontaneous, natural gesture, I assume - and she blames herself for being presumptuous and intrusive. At the root of all this, it's evident that she is sensitive to Yash's actions and words; it matters to her how he reacts to her actions, even if he doesn't say much. His dismissal when she asked about helping him pack probably hurt her as well, since the same questions keep playing in her head over and over: How could she have possibly done this, how could she have presumed...? And since she doesn't know why Yash is so disturbed, naturally she thinks that she's the cause of it all...No wonder he'd been so short with her. Rightly so.
The humorous irony of the situation is that Aarti is indeed the cause of Yash's miserable, restless, irritable condition! For a very, very different reason, of course - but our darling Aarti doesn't know that! *sigh* Yash's thought processes are always SO much fun to read, because they're just like how I'd imagine him to think: short and to-the-point. When he's irritated, the thoughts are punctuated with very obvious frustration, and that's why I end up grinning every time I read parts where he's angry at Aarti not being around! 😆 On on hand, he's so affected by her presence that he refuses to let her help him, although he's secretly hoping that reverse psychology will kick in and Aarti will insist stubbornly to help him, like any other woman-who-is-a-wife would, but Aarti hasn't been given that liberty yet, so she leaves, thinking that she has overstepped her boundaries. "Another dose of the cold reality" indeed! Of course, this ends up irking Yash more, since she DIDN'T stay like he'd hoped she would, and he keeps hoping that she'll be watching from the house as he leaves...The systematic and adorably hopeful way Yash goes through a checklist of sorts, looking desperately for Aarti from the car (which he drives slowly to buy himself and Aarti more time, just in case she comes to see him 😆 ) is TOO cute, my god!
Where the hell was she? The least she could do was to say goodbye. That was not too much to ask, was it? It's just common courtesy.
"Where the hell was she?" AHA, that again!!! Such desperation, my goodness! Completely a LMAO moment! Since she doesn't show up, that makes Yash even more angry, poor man! He just gets angrier and angrier, and the innocent car has to suffer for it! 😆 The effect that you have on this man, Aarti...You have no idea just how much is hidden behind that silent, composed exterior.
Now that I've somewhat compensated for not posting a comment for Part 9, I will progress to actually responding to your post, Maham, even though you've basically said everything that I had on my mind. I agree that Yash needs to take the initiative in acting on his desire to move beyond that mutual compromise that is creating a distance between them since he was the one who silently enforced the demarcation lines through his passivity and/or silence. I love how that agreement, which was supposed to be convenient for both of them, is actually stifling them and almost suffocating them, so to speak. Both Yash and Aarti want to break free of those shackles (hey, the handcuff metaphor!) to varying degrees, and that's something I'm looking forward to seeing. Yash definitely needs to take things slowly, perhaps beginning with those darned pictures in that shrine of his. I can imagine how Aarti might react to seeing blank walls in that room...Hopefully somehow or another she'll start being a little more relaxed around him.
Haha, I wonder how long Yash will be able to stay super slient and terse around Aarti. That's the impression I have of their interactions so far: we're seeing more of their thoughts and less of their words, but it's such an integral part of their characterizations that it didn't really strike me until now just how much they keep their feelings and thoughts to themselves. In the show, this is also the case, but there are other people for Yash and Aarti (especially Aarti) to interact with, and that's how we get to see their reactions to things. After the marriage, I'm wondering how these moments of thought are going to be portrayed in the show...If it's though silences and voiceovers, then we're in for a treat, I'm sure, because I love love love reading their silences!
I forgot about the anniversary! I think that means I need to read all of this again before Part 11 is up...Oh well, that'll be more fun! I wonder what Prateek and Paridhi are planning! Hopefully something sweet and not too typically Hindi serial-esque...What a surprise it will be to those two if Yash comes forward and expresses some interest in the anniversary instead of avoiding talking about it!
Bigg Boss 19
