The things that Pooja endured as a child are unimaginable for the majority of us. She saw her father burning to death in a flaming house that was set on fire by his close friend. She, along with her sister, could only watch their father's last moments helplessly. To top it off, after such a traumatic incident, she was also rendered homeless by the same people who killed her father.
It's often said that the minds of children are like clay - they can be molded and reformed based on the teachings they receive from their elders. With such education, they grow up and use those lessons to improve their own life as well as the lives of people around them. For Pooja, there were only 2 lessons to be learned:
1) Love hurts. Love is painful. Loving someone means welcoming the possibility of losing them. And the pain of losing a loved one is incomparable to any other pain in life.
2) People can't be trusted. Even if they are your closest friends...they WILL ultimately betray you. And that betrayal will lead to your downfall.
The result of these two lessons was this: always be stronger than your opponent. Never trust anyone enough to show them your weaknesses. Life is a constant battle - it's always you versus the world. Thus was born Jahnvi Mittal.
When an individual goes through an extremely traumatic incident, often times, in order to cope with whatever the incident was, their mind evokes another personality. This personality can be completely different to how they are in reality. It is simply a way for them to channel their angst, pain, hatred, fear and other strong emotions into one "part" of themselves. In psychiatry this is called dissociative identity disorder. An important thing to note is that this disorder is not permanent and with enough therapy, care, love and the help of family members, the alternate personalities can and will disappear over time. While Pooja is NOT suffering from this particular mental illness, the REASONS for her to create Jahnvi Mittal are the same. Jahnvi is someone who always has the upper hand - she has power over her opponents and she is always one step ahead of everyone around her. She makes her moves with caution and thinks every move through a thousand times before executing it. She doesn't love anyone. She doesn't trust anyone. She is no one's wife, daughter-in-law or sister-in-law. At the end of the day, she was created to exact revenge from the Mittals and she is in every sense of the word, a coping mechanism for Pooja. Jahnvi is the character she created because she believes that's the way that life works in this world - kill or be killed. Jahnvi is not Pooja.
Pooja is different. Pooja is weak. She's broken. She's fragile. There are so many parts of her that are shattered. In her role play of Jahnvi, she forgot who Pooja really was - she forgot her own essence. Pooja is still that young, naive girl who loves and trusts the people around her. She feels the pain of her father's death. Though she's scared to love and trust, she ends up doing it unknowingly because her heart is still childlike and pure.
In the past two episodes, we were really able to catch a glimpse of Pooja, in her true form, without the shadows of Jahnvi. When the worker dropped the box full of clothes in front of her, she felt for him...she understood and sympathized with him. She allowed herself and the workers the liberty to enjoy a cup of tea. And the best part of all. She didn't want to sit alone to eat her dinner. For me, my heart swelled hearing this. As I heard this, the only thought that came into my mind was the young and innocent Pooja who is just longing for love and affection from the people around her. She's starting to open up to the workers and believe that good really exists. Like with dissociative identity disorder, with the support she's getting from Kabir and the workers around her, she's starting to trust again. As a result, the colors of Jahnvi are slowly fading from her personality and a stronger Pooja is emerging.
I have never seen Pooja as happy and excited as she was when she was serving the workers her food. She finally feels like she has people around her who she can treat as her family. It's also clear that she craves to fit in with them and be part of the group - that's why she told the workers that she didn't feel like eating her own lunch and wanted to eat what the workers were having. Pooja, the girl who has always been left alone to fight her battles, is finally...finally understanding that life ISNT just a relentless battle.
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