Folks,
The title is ok, for that is how the episode end and the precap play out.
But the episode could well have been called Chaos. There was a distinct impression of chaos beyond anyone's control, and as the action proceeded, it became more and more implausible and unrealistic. My fears seem to be moving closer and closer to being realised, with a bombing in the Shanti Constructions auditorium apparently in the works in the last episode, courtesy who else, Ajaatashatru the Omnipotent.
Melodrama unlimited: We were treated to a series of increasingly melodramatic scenes, as Ajaatashatru's plots get more and more complex and intertwined. In fact, by now he resembles Dr. Octopus of the Spiderman films. He is able to have a finger in every pie going around, controls an assortment of henchmen, and one henchwoman, and when things go wrong, he is ever ready with alternate plans without batting an eyelid. Whether it is the streetsmart Nikhil running away in the nick of time (thanks to the utter helplessness of non-technical persons vis a vis techies like Nikhil when there is a system breakdown) or Anand escaping when he should have been incarcerated in Police Headquarters, apna Ajju is one cool cat, never at a loss. His mool mantra seems to be Main sambhal loonga.
I am sure that if all the 18 earlier episodes had been like No. 19, the TRPs would have been much, much higher. This kind of masala is what the TRP/TVM audiences want. Why, I had underestimated Anurag Kashyap when I wrote yesterday :
The one thing they cannot have is the routine 10 minutes of fisticuffs at the end, with the hero getting bashed up for the first three quarters of the time, and the villain for the last quarter. For Amitabh in his heyday, this would have been a piece of cake, but not at nearly 72.
I could not have been more wrong. The precap shows Yudh racing Ajju to get something or to get to some place first, and he is shown making a giant leap thru the air, like a flying squirrel. I could not believe my eyes! Who knows, he might even beat Ajju to a pulp on his own, without Rishi's assistance!
Now, since Yudh was completely ready with all the 20 episodes before the telecasts started, this could not be a tweaking of the script for TRPs. I think Anurag Kashyap is a great fan of the vintage Amitabh Bachchan of the 1970s. and the end game is going to be his homage to the AB he adores. Perhaps I too should shed my reservations and join him!
Taruni: a great disappointment: We have got used to thinking of Taruni as a cool, capable, unflappable professional. So, when she faces perhaps the greatest disillusionment of her life, the revelation of what Ajju is and what he has been up to, making clandestine, prurient video recordings of them together, I would have expected her, after the initial bout of weeping from hurt and humiliation, to act as the Taruni we know would have done. That is to say, pick up the recordings and her own laptop and leave, locking the door behind her. It would have been a while before Ajju discovered anything at all. In the meantime, she could have contacted her father and alerted him to what Ajju was up to. And her mother as well.
What does she actually do? She weeps authentically, the abject misery comes thru very well. But then she sits there in front of the laptop, like Patience on a monument, till Ajju turns up and finds her. What was she doing staring at the laptop all that while? How long would it have taken her to read those 3 newspaper clippings?
Ok, what was done was done. But once he is there, can she not pretend that all is normal and still get away, which is the vital step she has to take? No, she does not do anything so sensible.
Instead, she gets up and accuses Ajju of faking love for her and using her, ending up with Mere dad ki kya galti thi, if a madman ran amok? (Mishti, I could not quite make out her last sentence, but she was not referring to Ajju, but to Sanjay Mishra). It is the single worst thing she could have said, and when Ajju retorts Tumhare dad ne hi us se wo pagalpan karvaaya tha, we finally have, from the horse's mouth, what is it that is driving him in his insane quest for revenge.
Taruni is not done yet with her folly. Like a typical 1970s Hindi film heroine, she next declares Main tumhare bare mein sab ko bataa dungi..She has been staring into Ajju's demented eyes for a long moment, and can she not grasp that this man is possessed and beyond control? Even if he had been normal, what would be the inevitable response to the kind of threat she utters? Why, exactly what happens to her.
I winced at the viciousness with which he kicks the prostrate Taruni, and the way in which he caressed her cheek after that was distinctly creepy. Ajju is a very nasty bit of goods.
So now we have the one mandatory prop for a dhamakedaar finale, the abla naari tied to a chair in the time honoured fashion. All that is missing is for Gauri too to join the lot at the mall site, like Basanti's mausi in Sholay!
What I could not understand was how Ajju planned to use Taruni to get at Yudh. We can understand this only when we know for how long Taruni has known Ajju, and when exactly he got to know that she was Yudh's daughter. One possibility, since he is clearly planning to lure Yudh to the showdown, is that he had slotted her long since for the abla naari's role, and would have hit her on the head and lugged her to the site even if she had not discovered his guilty secrets.
Rishi: coming into his own: The boy is blossoming by the day, and is now amazingly quick on his feet. Remember the occasion when Taruni, just before going into the OT, calls Ajju using Rishi's mobile? As she is leaving, Rishi calls after her Taruni, number save kardoon kya? She does not respond, but it seems now that he saved it anyway.
So, when Dabra points out that 5 minutes after Nayantara had been shot, the fake inspector who did the shooting had called this number, Rishi first starts to call it, but as soon as the name Taruni's friend, comes up on the screen, he cuts the call. He does not want to alert the guy, he explains to Dabra, but in fact, he has made the instant connection between the man behind the shooting and Taruni's fiance. So he calls her, but of course it is too late.
Next, Rishi is seen in Ajju's flat, inspecting it and studying the press clipping open on Taruni's laptop. Before you wonder as to how he got there, it must have been thru Dabra's contacts with the landline service provider. who would have the address at which it was registered. As it is not a clandestine instrument, Ajju would have given his genuine address, and so Rishi gets there.
NB: The number is a landline, not a mobile, as Dabra dictates only 7 digits to Rishi, 9173652. The city code would make it the standard 10 digits. A mobile phone would have 10 digits to start with.
It is a bit of a puzzle as to how Rishi got inside, unless our cool cat, Ajju, was not so cool and chilled out after all while dragging Taruni's limp body outside and loading her into his car, and he simply forgot to lock the door.
As I had wanted him to do, Rishi, in the precap, is also at the mall site. He is facing Ajju without showing any fear, and he is also to be glimpsed in the doomed auditorium, or at least so it seemed to me. I hope he has a solid part to play in the climax.
Yudh: Stoic courage: It is remarkable that even after learning from the Municipal Commissioner about Anand's apparent Judas act (the MC's nasty crack at Yudh is typical of this corrupt, cunning man. But the role did not have as much for KK Menon as I had hoped it would), and being unable to contact him. Yudh faces his predicament with such calm stoicism. He cannot make head or tail of it, but he tries to gently prepare Nayantara for his likely imprisonment.
Next, when the Taruni crisis hits him, and he heads to Ajju's place after an otherwise fruitless argument with Gauri, who seems not to grasp the ser iousness of the situation, Yudh is almost crippled by a sudden attack of his Huntington's syndrome. His left hand seems to have developed a will of its own, and apparently wants to ditch his mobile. As he struggles to regain control of the rebel hand, using his right to clamp it down and cling to the mobile, one can practically feel the strenuous battle his will is waging against a part of his own body. I felt like cheering when he did manage to tame it, and retained his grip on the mobile.
Which was just as well, for the call that comes in then is from Ajaatashatru. The rest of the scene - up to the point where Yudh, having taken all those stairs 2 at a time, and with puzzlement writ large on his face, faces Ajju, jo thoda mazaa lena chahta hai - is merely the ouverture for the end game. The real masala will come tonight.
Inspector Choudhuri: Amazing integrity: If there is a guardian angel - for Anand, many times, and once for Rishi as well, and thus at one remove for Yudh - it is the honest, intelligent, capable and clever Inspector Choudhuri. Intelligent people are not always clever, but he is both. His mind and heart are never at odds, and he trusts Anand and acts on that trust, right up to the point where he lets him escape on the way to the Police Headquarters.
I did not quite believe what he told Anand about Ajju having such high up contacts in the police establishment that he could accelerate the efforts to pin Anand down on the murder of the fake housekeeping staffer, whose tooth was found in Anand's car. This would hardly be possible for a mere corporate lawyer. I do hope that Ajju is shown to have had a powerful backer, for otherwise, we will have the omnipotence of this weedy Ajju shoved down our throats willy nilly, which would be a great pity.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for Inspector Choudhuri to be merely injured, and not dead. I also could not understand where was the necessity for Ajju's henchman to fire on him, or on Anand, thinking that he was still in the jeep, at all. Surely Anand would have been stuck with his confession anyway. Perhaps he had spotted the inspector letting Anand escape, and had fired on him in revenge.
Star of the day: Anand's wife Preeti. She was amazing as a woman who, even while facing such horrendous circumstances, still manages to keep her her head, very cleverly frees herself from her bonds, and gets to safety. What a contrast to Taruni! The actress gave a superb performance as a very brave and resourceful woman, who manages to not only save her own life, but also to save her autistic son from the sin of matricide. As soon as I saw that target pinned on to Preeti's chest, my blood ran cold.
Where does Ajju find these kinds of monsters who are prepared to commit such crimes without the least hesitation? Not just the usual gundas, but this fresh faced and pleasant looking nurse? And how does he pay them all? That is another big question that needs an answer.
Puzzle of the day: I can hear you folks exclaiming: What, only one? I mean the 2 adults and 14 children killed in the orphanage massacre, as mentioned in the press clipping, which would leave out one of the 3 adult Mishras, and then the other on about a lone survivor, which would of course have been the little boy under the table, our Ajju. To my mind, Sanjay might have not died and might have escaped, but of course I am not sure. I do not propose to turn my grey cells into scrambled eggs trying to unravel that, so I shall leave it to the enthusiasts among you!
Question of the day: How many rounds does the automatic assault weapon that is given to Aditya have in its magazine? I thought it was 30 rounds for those sorts of guns - the AK-47 Kalashnikov fires only 30 - but the kid fires on and on and on!
So on to the real end game, folks, as we bid adieu to Yudh tonight.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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