RKB: Forced Solitude
‘Tou phir girte hue haath bhi nahi pakarna chaye tha’
Raman Kumar Bhalla, on one of many occasions frustrated by Ishita Iyer.
That’s it. It just clicked for me.
Rewatching the first thirteen episodes again, I realised one thing. From the minute Raman and Ishita enter the same vicinity, their apartment complex, she starts to seep into his very black and white way of looking at the world. Before marriage is a possibility. Before they both ever consider becoming friends yet falling in love.
Long before that, he can’t just dismiss her like he does everyone else he believes is inconvenient to his way of life.
She forces him to react, whether it’s a clash in thinking, or a misunderstanding.
Consider this:
Without seeing her, he walks past her lamenting at an employee for prioritizing his child over work.
Then she speaks.
A polar opposite point of view, she’s rushing to get to a child in need.
And yet the impenetrable force field that is RKB, cannot help but reconsider his position on the matter in that moment.
Someone like Raman, a man who has dismissed women completely, written them off is confronted by a woman that doesn’t just challenge him, she doesn’t recoil when he spits fire.
He appears dismissive when she reasons with him, gets angry at the mention of parenting Ruhi or when the word his ‘wife’ enters the heated debate.
But the moment Raman utters the the words opening this post, in one of my all time favourite scenes after ‘’ek duje is vaaste” played it struck me that the undoing of his facade began way before I initially thought.
He, despite himself can’t ignore her.
For the rest of the world, he thinks that if he spews enough venom or just refuses to engage meaningfully, the world will leave him alone.
His family, he can ignore when he feels like it
His daughter, he can’t even face.
But Ishita vishwanathan Iyer. She’s something else.
She confronts him unapologetically. Forces him to engage. Leaves him no other choice, gets completely in his face.
Tit for tat.
Yin and yang
Initially when I watched the show I thought,he’s the typical Amitabh Bachan inspired angry young man.
This time I’ve realised how much of it is just his efforts to disengage from the world. The anger is a defence mechanism. He doesn’t ferment in it on purpose, he needs it to keep functioning.
But the frustration, that’s an emotional response he doesn’t need, Ishita forces it out of him.
Before they’re even under the same roof, her just being around him begins to resurrect the real Raman, one who hasn’t secretly locked himself away and shut everybody out when it actually means something.
And that folks, the depth in these two characters initially, the golden period of the show, is why I can never quite let go.
THIS IS ZOYA MALIK, signing back on to the forum, for an encore.
Ps. I missed this place. I missed the vibe. I hope I didn’t just waste your time by posting this! Felt inspired after a long time that’s all!
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