||*Namish Taneja* AT#10: *Love Me If You Dare* ||

Laksh Maheshwari is the son of Durgapasad Maheshwari and Annapurna Maheshwari. Irascible, spoilt and flawed - on the best of days, Laksh is difficult and frustrating and hard to like. However, his abiding love for his family, and his willingness to put everything at stake for them, including his happiness, do twinge the heart. Laksh doesn't do things in half measures - he feels everything deeply, be it overpowering rage or overwhelming passion. These are the contradictions that make him such an interesting character.

The inherent contradiction and dichotomy in his character is evident in his two personas - on one hand, there is Lucky, the rich, spoilt brat with a devil may care attitude, born out of his need to rebel against his family and its stifling ways. On the other hand, there is Laksh Maheshwari, devoted son and beloved brother, who can go to any lengths to protect and avenge the same family.

It was the fun-loving, irresponsible Lucky who was intended for Ragini but fell in love with Swara, and it was the sombre, penitent Lakshya with the weight of the world on his shoulders that eventually married Ragini. It was fickle and reckless Lucky's actions, really, that set in motion the events that would make and break so many people and so many lives, but little did he realize it then. Swara embodied everything that Lucky had ever wanted in his dream girl, and he was willing to do anything to ensure that he got his happily-ever-after. In his quest for Swara's love he mindlessly trampled over her sister's Ragini's heart, whose love for him knew no bounds, and destroyed her sanity and her very being. It was guilt and remorse that eventually lead him to marry her, and Lucky gave way to a dutiful, responsible, mature and grown-up Lakshya.

When Lakshya discovered Ragini's betrayal and bore witness to her madness and her ill-treatment of his family, repentant, remorseful Lakshya burnt to the ground and out of the ashes emerged a new Lakshya  - this time forged with rage and a thirst for revenge. Not a man to do anything in half-measures, Lakshya's thirst for revenge blinded him so completely that he decided to break Ragini in the worst possible way - by playing with her emotions and using her body, and leading her to believe that he loved her, before breaking her completely, utterly into tiny pieces.

His pursuit of vengeance blinded him absolutely - so much so that he wilfully ignored what his heart was telling him, that people do change. Lakshya listened to his mind over his heart, and in doing so not only destroyed the one person who loved him absolutely and to the point of madness, but also set himself and his family up for more unhappiness - the same family for whom he had walked down this path in the first place. Heart and mind at war, that is what seems to be Lakshya's curse and one can only hope that Lakshya finds peace, absolution and happiness somewhere along the way

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