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The CVs soothed our hearts and stimulated our minds with last night's episode as Rudra treated Paro to some tender loving care amidst hectic planning and preparations for the upcoming showdown.
Out of public gaze, Rudra dropped Paro's hennaed hand and his taunting act. There was only concern in his entreaty that she must never harm herself again. But Paro was not so willing to forgive or forget. Why should she? Was hurting her his right alone, not even hers? Her eyes whipped to her hand, slathered in green but for her thumb which still throbbed angrily. "I didn't henna the thumb so that if you don't want to sign, you can put your thumb imprint on the papers," Rudra told her. And then she could get banish this pain and the henna. The decision was hers.
He would try again to influence her decision. Walking into her room, he found her dabbing ointment onto her spasming palm, so absorbed that she didn't sense him until he was right before her. Then, she sprang up to evade him. But he made her sit, grabbing her wrist after she had pulled it from his hold. And held on, despite her struggles, while he got the cream. She redoubled her efforts to break free, asked him to let her go, her voice rising in remembered turbulence. But he ignored her, calmly, seriously stroking the ointment on to her palm. It was a moment before she remembered her pain. Her sudden indrawn breath calling his eyes to hers. And she saw his wiped clean of all but concern, empathy. And then Rudra bent, and before her disbelieving gaze, blew a cooling breath over her palm.
"You were fortunate your hands didn't burn seriously," he observed. But she wanted none of his sympathy, would not have her act thought of as a weakness. "It would have been better if they had burnt more." There was steel in her voice as she snatched her hand away. He whipped her hand back to continue his careful ministrations. The flick of his eyes to hers playing out in his soft words: "If you're so keen to get burnt, then jump into our wedding fire after the wedding." "Why afterwards? I'll jump in before the wedding," she shot back.
For a moment their eyes met. Hers defiant. His assessing, tinged with an unwilling admiration. "This fiery nerve, this self respect, this stubbornness, this valour - if you weren't siding with the wrong people, I would laud it. But your trust and in whom you trust are both false."
Paro would have none of that. No, she'd seen how much Raja Thakur had done for her village since her childhood. A child's heart understood love, understood the difference between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong. And when it trusted, it couldn't be wrong. At that, he looked up at her. His eyes filled with gentle mockery. "Really? Children understand? You haven't said a more childish thing." His tone was conversational, without heat, friendly, casually intimate, drawing the tension from her so that she relaxed and listened. And they looked for all the world like a couple, husband and wife, her hand in his, his head bowed over her hand, tending to it, engaging in a bedtime chat.
And he told her a story. "In my childhood my mother used to tell me that if I didn't drink up my milk, she'd leave me. I never believed it. Thought mothers never left their children." His words reminded Paro of his letter as a child. And as if he was reading it, Rudra continued, "So I never drank it. Hated it. Used to throw it down the drain. Then one day," His eyes lifted to hers and Paro glimpsed bleakness before it was wiped out. "One day, mother actually left." And Paro, leaned in to him, her own pain forgotten before the depth of his flat, unemotional words. " I thought I didn't drink milk; was naughty, perhaps, maybe that's why she went," he continued, his eyes looking inwards into the night of his mind, making Paro want to reach out to soothe, heal. "I went to Kakisa; cried a lot..."
He dropped the hand and reached for the other. And caught up in his pain, his anguish, this time around, Paro did not resist. Her hand uncurled, open to his absent touch. "...I told her to give me all the milk in the house," Rudra continued, his mind enveloped by the past, "I'd drink the milk and mother would come back." He looked up. "Children understand!" He moistened his lips. His voice tinged with self-deprecation, a gentle mockery.
"That was not foolishness, but painful belief." Paro didn't know why, but she couldn't let him hurt that child. "You wanted her to return and for that you would do..." "That's not the point," he cut her off, "what I wanted. The point is a child's belief." The pain in his eyes belying the calm, reason in his voice, Rudra made his point. "My belief, which was false. A lie. Just like your childhood belief is a lie." His eyes pleaded with hers to understand, to agree with him. " It's false!"
But Paro looked down, away, refusing to meet his eyes, to answer the entreaty in them.
So he enfolded her hands in both of his, and body bowed like a man in prayer, leaned into her, his head raised to hers in weary, aching, plea. "Paro, don't make this mistake. Don't make it." There was urgency in his plea. "The ache will gnaw at your insides, the regret will eat you alive. And even then it won't be sated." He swallowed, eyes distant, unfocused, looking at something only he could see. Blind to Paro's eyes shining with her need to reach out to him, soothe his ache, heal him. After a moment he shuttered his pain and looked at her, seeking, searching for his answer, and read only compassion. Request denied, he turned, his feet eating up the space to the door.
"Even now you miss your mother a lot," Her words froze him in his tracks. Paro went to him. "That child, who believed in milk, is still alive in some corner of you, waiting for his mother to return." "Enough! Not another word! Quiet!" It was unbearable that she should give voice his hopes, dreams, his ache.
But she wouldn't be smothered. "Why quiet? Because the truth will weaken you. That's why you've made yourself into a rock, so that your belief can be buried under it?" The face he turned to her was the one she knew - tense, fierce, warrior-like. "Not another word! You know nothing; Know nothing about me." He was met with a return of her steel. "I can say the same thing. That you know nothing of me."
Last night Rudra played the good cop, trying with charm, reason, gentleness to sway Paro into signing the papers. But Paro would not give an inch. For all that, she could not remain unmoved by his pain, her own forgotten in the need to comfort him. But in the process, both PaRud let down their guards long enough to show us how sweet life could be for them as a couple devoid of rancour and mistrust. The world forgotten, complete with one another, hearts and minds in tune. A beautiful moment of true intimacy.
The rest of the episode was about getting ready for the showdown on Mahashivratri. Each side working hard to ensure that they won. The wedding date was shifted to coincide with the mela, to all their satisfaction. The Thakur would conclude his gunrunning deal, successfully this time, and also kill Rudra. Whereas, Rudra would catch the Thakur with proof of his cross-border gunrunning. And if he couldn't, and Paro didn't sign the papers, then he would indeed marry the girl. Kakisa had her plan for delivering Paro to the Thakur in place, more or less. It would involve two sets of Paro's wedding outfit, huge amounts of ghee and burning. And Paro only mentioned jumping into the fire before the wedding to defy Rudra. Didn't she?
Everybody was convinced that they would win. How could they not with their meticulous plans and superior cunning. Even though they were working at odds. Their success would burn bright. Nobody considered for one moment that the blaze might be from the bonfire of their combined vanity. How could they? When their eyes saw only the victory torch.
The acting was equally victorious in last night's episode. Ashish's quiet, empathetic Rudra touched my heart. And Sanaya's slow-building sympathy and need to soothe was lovely to see. 👏👏👏 to them for a beautiful PaRud moment. Ananya, Kali Prasad Ji and Tarun were equally convincing in their supporting roles.
Biig thanks to the CVs for closing the Mehendi loop and allowing us to move on and focus on the very interesting plot that is developing. The two sisters' accidental exchange at the end was a master-stroke of suspense. Will either recognise the other? Both? None? Will this throw a spanner into the works at the mela?
Meanwhile, we get to see more PaRud in tonight's haldi. Can't wait! 😃
Note: Sorry today's post is late, but it was a lovely episode, and I could not let it pass without a RReview.
