29/3 Analysis Unit: Prashant Karega Kanyadaan

If I had to use one word for today's episode: BEAUTY.

I was completely enraptured with the way they carried things out right from the first frame. I liked that Aarti and Prashant met in such a matter-of-fact way and I thought it was significant that the conversation started out just like in Aarti's dream. This becomes important for a character trait contrast I noticed in Yash and Aarti and a theme which I think permeated the episode as a whole and here it is:


Simply put, Yash listens and Aarti does not. I will explain further with reference to what happened to each of them in yesterday and today's episodes..

In Yash's case, he asks Arpita for guidance and then just listens for her answer. He doesn't have any pre-conceived notions or ideas about the answer that he is going to get, only complete faith that Arpita will answer if he listens closely enough. Now I don't know whether you can call it Arpita's aatma, destiny or god but something is talking to Yash and he, being in a position of complete faith and surrender is open to receiving it. Yesterday he asked for guidance and immediately heard the temple bells. Because he listened and had the faith that this was part of his answer he put pieces together and went to Arpita's favourite temple.

There again he caressed his name with Arpita's in stone and begged her for an answer and again he just waited patiently for his answer, fully aware to the signals and signs around him, his senses on high alert. It is for this reason that he catches among so many names etched in stone, those of Aarti and Prashant (he knows Prashant's name form the engagement) and he gets his first answer, Aarti was in love with someone else in a deep and permanent way, enough for their love to be etched in stone. Secondly, he hears the bangle tinkle as it falls to the ground and he knows that Aarti will not take Arpita's place but will in fact voluntarily desist from doing so. When he tried to follow the sound of the bangle when it was on Aarti (after the haldi disaster) he could not find it. But here, the bangle, separate from Aarti leads him to her. So once again, Aarti will make her place in his heart by being not-Arpita.

Finally, as soon as he sees the bangle, he has a flashback of Arpita but as soon as he comes close and examines it, he rushes to find its source. The bangle leads him to Aarti and Aarti's state locates him firmly in the present, all thoughts of Arpita wiped from his mind. So just by being open to signals, having faith and listening when he gave a plea, Yash was given a glimpse into the future though he has only interpreted the parts that make sense to him at this point, that is that Aarti also does not have a heart to give and has no expectations from him as a lover, and that she will never try to take Arpita's place.

Yash even listens to silences and is able to read into them which is why he is able to know of Aarti's misconceptions. This is the flip side to his aggravating silence and it is worth it, I should say!

On the other hand, we have Aarti, who takes an idea into her head and builds her reality around it, whether the idea is true or false. So far we have see the ramifications of this on Yash where she refuses to listen to him because she has already decided that he is only out for one thing. If she would listen, it would save her a lot of heart ache and anxiety because she would know that he was in the same position that she was. But she refuses to listen.

Similarly, she has an idea in her head that one day Prashant will come back to her and everything will be ok so when he calls to meet her this is the only expectation she goes with, not considering any other possibility. She refuses to listen to Shobha who has her best interests at heart and forges on with her preconceived notion going strong in her head. Because she blinds herself and closes her ears to any other possibilities, Aarti sets herself up for pain because reality never mirrors exactly what we want and she is not open to reality's signs and signals being so wrapped in her own head.

Now again, we see that when Prashant is talking to her she refuses to listen, not just to his words but the very obvious undertones (I don't want you). Granted it is a hard truth to swallow but she has had five years to do it and instead she has chosen not to listen to Shobha, not to listen to the emptiness in her own life and not to listen to the undertones of Ansh's letters to his father, in which really he is asking for the presence and not the gits she plies on him.

Now I am not discounting the fact that Prashant is a b🤬d but he was much more decent than I had figured. and quite close to my prediction for a positive Prashant. Is he weak? Yes definitely but is he outright negative, no, just like his papa. If Aarti had just shut her mouth and opened her mind for one minute she would have actually heard what Prashant was saying. But she was so hell bent on communicating her own desires and driving her point, the whole time assuming that it would magically work at some point, that she pushed Prashant to the accusations of her of being selfish and only thinking about herself. In one way that is true. It's not that she won't let go of Prashant, it is that she won't let go of the reality in her head, even when faced with actual reality, unless it is spelled out for her, which Prashant had to do.

I think this zeroes in on the problem in Prashant-Aarti's relationship. She didn't listen. He was clearly trying to be tactful and seemed genuinely happy that she was moving on. He didn't want to mention Nida or tell Aarti that he didn't want her but she drove him to make all these confessions because she refused to read between the lines of his polite approach. In one way I am glad because it drove him away but if she had listened from the outset she would have heard his selfish intentions and been spared a lot of pain and dignity. But until she shuts her mouth,unburdens her mind of prejudgments, and opens her ears and her mind to listen to what people and the universe are trying to tell her, she will always learn the hardest way and will keep facing the same painful punishments.

Finally, I loved the fact that Aarti too got a glimpse of her past and future in that temple. The scene with Prashant leaving her replayed almost literally and she became unconscious, I think symbolic of the state she has been in since he left her. But it is Yash who picks her up and finally wakes her up and he is the first person she sees when he does. Naturally there will be some hesitation when she realises that he has woken her up..😉 So the universe is giving Aarti just as many signs as it is giving Yash but Aarti refuses to listen for them and keep her mind open.

This is why when the episode ends, Yash feels emotionally satiated while Aarti is left feeling empty-handed. Her hands are empty because she refused to stretch them out to receive what was given. She is stubbornly tying her hands behind her back and saying that they are empty!

I will end here for this episode and discuss all the fun things as they come in the thread! 😃