Posted:
Rebels Mythili and Paro took on the system today with interesting consequences.
Rebel M, confidence shored up by a pep talk from Rebel P earlier in the day, decided to challenge the system over dinner. However, she made a strategic error in the schedule of the fingering, which she initiated along with the dinner service. A craftier rebel might have slipped in the request after dinner, in between the sighs and snores brought on by an almost-suspicious surfeit of good food and drink, which would have ensured a super-quick addition to the dining table.
But no that would have been too easy, and unexciting. Plus it was Valentine's Day. So, it had to be a dinner date. The hungry establishment, many of whom had not partaken at breakfast, had barely broken bread when Rebel M announced that she had something to say.
That announcement immediately put paid to her partner's appetite. Samrat rejected his roti and rose from his seat to physically quell the uprising. But the establishment, unused to Rebel M's voice, least of all indulging in public speaking, decided to hear her out.
Rebel M, assured of an attentive audience, eased into her spiel. She was coming up to her fifth anniversary, she said. And was promptly heckled by the putative Head of the Table, "Did she want a pension?!!" Realising the nature of the beast she decided to cut to the chase. She and her partner had tried any and every means possible to ensure a fruitful alliance, she said.
Around the table, ears perked up immediately as the Honourable Members immediately visualised the very many ways, some of them very creative indeed, in which mergers could be made to bear fruit. To eliminate doubt, Rebel M ticked them off her fingers: medicine, magic wands, herbal concoctions, prayers, priests...Till the establishment collectively (barring the youngest member, who was inexperienced and in any case more known to talk than think) realised that she and her partner had made no reference to honest, back-breaking, sweat-beading labour that bore fruit.
BUT she and her partner (who was standing like a white-board beside her) had not succeeded, continued Rebel M, and she now despaired that the marriage could ever produce a child. At this, the bewhiskered, eligible bachelor at the table, who tended to be touchy on the subject of marriage and children, winced and paled, and eyed his dinner as though it were a cribful of sextuplets.
And now for the solution - because Rebel M had come equipped one. They would have to acquire new fruit! If she had paused for breath she'd have seen the congealing debris of what once had been a fine meal littering the plates of the establishment. But Rebel M didn't want to give the assembled company time to protest and rushed on. She'd done her homework and scouted out a suitable party who could be acquired in a matter of months. She'd even picked a name for the new project.
That's when the putative Head of the Table lost her head. In a tearing rage, she bounded up to Rebel M, snatched the brochure and tore it into bite-size fragments (strongly resembling her cold roti) and strewed the confetti over the head of the alarmed partners.
The Head who'd lost her head then listed all the reasons why Rebel M's flight of fancy was...just that. But Rebel M had not come this far to leave without taking in the sights. She urged the Head to calmly use her head, after she'd found it, of course. There were many parents without children and many children without parents equating to happy matches made on Earth. Case in point: orphan Rebel P who, by her own admission, after her parents had passed on, had been raised happily by another.
The bewhiskered bachelor frowned at this public outing of the intimate history of Rebel P, in whom he had of late acquired a vested interest. He tightened his hold on Rebel P, who looked like she wanted to go and knock some sense into the Head's head, having forgotten that it wasn't there. Meanwhile, the Head was railing against the fates for the misguided merger that had landed them with Rebel M in the first place.
At this, blood firing up, Rebel P broke free of the bewhiskered bachelor and decided to butt heads with the Head whose head was still out of town. Adoption was the right solution, a win-win situation for parent and child, a match made in heaven, she stressed. Not heaven, derided the Head, who was searching low now for the missing part of her body, 'gutter' was the word she wanted.
An insult!! How could she insult a child, a precious fruit? Rebel P was impassioned. But the Head, who'd given up searching for her own head, could do more than insult. She could and would in a moment knock Rebel P's block off. All the members of the establishment saw the swing coming, and closed their eyes waiting for the thwack. And the Head, not having one, could be forgiven for not seeing straight. Which is why the almighty thwack landed on quite another bewhiskered cheek altogether.
Thank you for your patience. My comment and analysis now for what it's worth:
Yesterday, Mythili took a major step in standing up to 'the establishment', her entire family of in-laws, to go against their thought. But then that's what a desire so strong, an urge so visceral, a need as hard-wired into our genes as motherhood does once it takes hold. And with Paro shielding her flame, Mythili was able to shine a very bold candle-light on the option of adoption.
It almost gave me a heart-attack to see Paro disregard her own safety and stand up to Kakisa!! A crazily rash move, in my opinion, but then people with pure and good hearts often do things like that. For me, I found it quite out-of-character for Paro, the girl who wouldn't meet the eyes of the man she was about to marry, to tell Kakisa that she hadn't finished making her point. I also wondered what Rudra was doing in letting her get away with it - a momentary lapse in his witness protection abilities, which will have serious consequences.
I also wondered why Rudra didn't get up and walk away from a conversation that was so patently not to his liking - his embarrassment and awkwardness when he heard Mythili's speech was quite palpable, perfectly in character for the 'bewhiskered bachelor', and absolutely delicious to watch.
The CVs yesterday unveiled another major event, the fall-out of which will give the story new direction and more layers. The fall-out: Mythili's problem is out in the open now, and her road to adoption may become smoother as a result. Rudra will tear a strip off Paro for her indiscretions, and rightly too. But, it will bring them closer too (I've been watching to precap too, you know. 😆) Kakisa will become Paro's lifelong enemy, not content to know about her background, but now needing to give her grief and worse.
Acting honours shared between Ananya, Sanaya and the actress who played Mythili. Ananya was delightful as the kakisa who lost her head. And Ashish's expressions added to my enjoyment of the scene. 👏👏👏 to CVs, cast and crew for a satisfying episode.
With apologies to Jane de Suza who wrote The Spy Who Lost Her Head
Anupamaa
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
Indian Mythology
Sampoorna
