Originally posted by: -HAA-
Diya,
lovely post 🤗. Sharing my thoughts again here :)
My first reaction on epi:
"Dushman na kare dost ne woh kaam kiya hai
Umr bhar ka gham humein inaam diya hai.."
Episode 360 - well well well indeed a faceoff 360!
Sandy, you're breaking your own rule 😆
And I never realised it till you wrote it ... episode 360 ... what a 360 indeed!!! 👏
Between a man clad in a 3 piece suit & another in an Indian kurta
Between the devil seeming hero & the god seeming villain
Between a brother & a husband
Between Arnav Singh Raizada & Shyam Manohar Jha
On a dark night, 7+ months ago, a dark side of Shyam's life was revealed to Arnav. He confronted his jija who without shame & any compunction confirmed the truth:
I never loved Anjali. But I am head over heels in love with Khushi. Khushi is my life, my junoon, my everything. She & my love for her are now a part of the blood coursing my veins. And only one woman stands between us - Rani Sahiba!
When a brother reacted in anger, at the deceit to his Di, to himself & his family from the man they all had loved, accepted & respected, Shyam had mocked Arnav.
Shyam had taken pleasure in the chatpataana of the caged Arnav. He told Arnav that he could no longer hide the truth of his love for Khushi from Anjali & perhaps time had come to tell Anjali the truth.
Shyam had challenged Arnav to stop his ghisi piti dhamkis / threats to Shyam & go & try to tell his Di everything. He said what can you do at the most? tell your Di the truth about me & my love - go make haste go tell her he mocked. And finally twisting the dagger he had moments ago plunged into Arnav's heart, Shyam very confidently & mockingly said, even if you do manage to tell her do you think she will believe you?
The challenge thrown by Shyam that day was received & today ASR gave his response in a manner befitting a Gladiator! Sau sunaar ki ek lohar ki!
Arnav did not have to tell his Di anything nor did he have to try & make her believe him over her husband. Shyam did all his work for him. Once the circumstantial proof collected had been showed to all, Shyam was quick to refute it all as a falsehood, a plan to malign him.
Did Arnav then accuse him of what was on screen ... Oh No! For whatever his emotional faults maybe, shaatir Arnav learns from his mistakes. He knows what happened the last time Khushi asked Di to believe her words. The attempt failed. So today he goes for the jugular using Distract & Attack. Arnav accused Shyam of another bigger crime knowing in his haste to deny Shyam will let slip his complicity in the actual one ... of killing the baby! Automatic confession!
Yep, we discussed this so many times, didn't we? That Shyam HAS TO CONFESS HIMSELF ... only then will Anjali believe it. And they did the perfect set up ... shake his confidence thoroughly first with all the repeat incidents ... and then the final set up. That was Khushi's idea all through, and Arnav carried it through to the final conclusion ...
Arnav who all evening sat through the drama of seeing his Di's life replayed before him ... (am sure that fateful night would have crossed his mind when she was smiling only to have her smiles wiped out by death & defamation). He knew where this was all heading. It was torture for him to sit & relive every moment knowing he would be unable to change any single one & thereby influence the eventual outcome of pain for his loved one. So he sat & chose to inflict pain on himself by suffering manifold, for his Di, for his failure to protect Di & her happiness. Just like the other day when he stood by to see Khushi being maligned & slammed by Shyam because he had not proof & hence no other way to bring out the truth.
And once the last card had been played, he swiftly pounced on Shyam making sure Di heard 2 vital messages ... the family never believed Shyam after the earlier tamaasha at home. Nani & Arnav let him in only for Di's sake.
When Shyam confessed to killing the baby and his evil intention, ASR stepped back letting the man hang himself for he had won his challenge.
About Shyam confessing
This has been coming for the past 7 months since that night of the Payash wedding. That night he had told Arnav that he was fed up of living a lie, doing this drama. So it was better to tell everyone especially Anjali the truth. He may not have meant it then.
But since that night, Shyam has gradually been suffocated and frustrated. He has lived with the fear of being exposed and with all the psycho attack on him in the past 2 days, he is on edge. Besides knowing the family hated him, seeing them do all this only for Di's sake seemed amiss because he also knew Arnav tolerated him but would never condone a celebration of a dead relationship ideally.
Since that night, money and Khushi his primary likes were taken away from Shyam. His hope that perhaps Khushi was bending towards him also died when she saved Arnav by duping him. Perhaps with the loss of the child he hoped for that one more chance to make a dent in Khushi that perhaps he was feeling remorse and had changed.
But after the play, after what he had seen, knowing what the family knew, understanding that his only hope of still continuing in the family would be as an eternal slave to Anjali whose belief in him had also been shaken today. So slave by lie or some maan by truth? Then Shyam took a deep breath allowed all the frustration of the months past to seep out and let his true self emerge. He said what he had always wanted to say what he was actually feeling because after today the family would in no way let him be with Anjali how much ever she begs and pleads.
So why pretend now? Instead the anger at the spate of defeats recently and his perceived self victimization / selfish utilization by the family (nani and Arnav dialogues of Anjali ke liye) came to fore. And he accepted his deed. Besides I have always wondered if Shyam had actually welcomed the baby or since that day seen it as a hindrance in his plan to be with Khushi. Because Arnav did tell him in the 2nd face off that night that if Di had not been pregnant he would have chucked Shyam out of her life forever.
Interesting points ... do you think it was Shyam's true self emerging? Or was he play acting the psycho madman? Or a combination of both?
He was not in the least attached to the baby, that's for sure. It was only a means to keep Anjali tied to him, a means to stay in RM, especially once Khushi was also under the same roof ...
And yes he knows that after the confession that even if Anjali begs and pleads, he won't be allowed to stay in RM any more. And Anjali knows that the dhol player was him ... he can't even deny that ... his own plan backfired on him there ...
Anjali and Khushi - 2 victims of Shyam:
I am speaking of Anjali and Khushi's reactions at the end when Shyam accepts his hand in the deed of killing his child:
Anjali was indeed sleeping all this while. Her wake up gong has been sounded. She was resolutely blind and deaf to everything around her in her desperate need of a happy family. Only if that was in place she was able to be happy. She need both a doting brother and a loving husband all this while. From hereon what happens, we will see..
But it was Khushi who though awake had not truly woken up.
Jaanke anjaan hum banein
Dekh ke andekha humne kiya
Rightly she should not have been shocked when Shyam confessed to his crime of killing his baby but she was. Because someplace within her, she still believed he could change.
I watched again after I read this ... I felt she was not shocked at his confession, but more at the gloating and lack of guilt and regret with which he said it ... She already knew that he had killed the baby, she accepted it to Arnav the other day in the car park, when she apologised for bringing Shyam back. The others, Mami, Nani, Payash were shocked at the revelation that he had killed the baby ... not Khushi.
Despite knowing how he had duped her, misled Anjali and the Raizadas, tried to kill Arnav, lusted after her in Arnav's absence though she was married - all because he said that one line at the hospital about pain at the loss of his child. She again chose to forget the past and looked only at the present.
Khushi has been the bigger victim at Shyam's hands yet she allowed herself to be swayed at his words. The attack on babuji will have to have a bearing in the context of Shyam victimizing Khushi.
She tells Arnav to accept the past and its lessons and make it a part of his life, but has Khushi indeed done so in her own life? I think not.
I don't think she will trust Shyam ever again, But has she learned the bigger lesson? That there are some people who cannot change ever? I don't think so ... she will continue to look for the best in everyone ... and this is Khushi's core belief, when you look for goodness in people, they show you goodness, when you look for the bad in people, that's what they show you. And it's true in most people ... there are a miniscule few who are bad to the core. Which is why we keep looking for reasons for Shyam to behave the way he does ... we also believe his evil has to have a reason behind it.
Shyam spoke of the allure of Shantivan - I believe it was the allure of wealth and nearness to Khushi. A chance to fleece Anjali and perhaps earn a better image in Khushi's eyes.
He had once told Babuji that he needed Rani Sahiba for the money but in his other hand he would always have Khushi. He told Arnav on the night of Payash wedding that Khushi and his love for her had now become a part of his very lifeblood. "ragon mein samaa chuki hain.."
And therein is the potential next act of the play. We will know more once we see the epi tonight play out
We will know more after tonight ... but I agree with you ... the curtain has only fallen to change the scene ... picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost 😉
Anupamaa
Real Estate
