Ābhāḷācī Māyā on Sun Marathi

Ābhāḷācī Māyā on Sun Marathi - I am unable to figure out what the creative team thinks is the appeal of this story!

Sagar Ankush Jadhav is credited for the story and screenplay. I don't know his qualifications, but this story suffers from meandering and clumsily contrived plot points and characters who aren't relatable, sympathetic, or consistent.

Plot:

The protagonists Jayadev and Ambika, brother and sister, are utterly devoted to each other, but every astrologer predicts dissension between them after Ambika's marriage. 

Raghav, their paternal aunt's son, joins his father Rangarav in drinking alcohol (prohibited in their village where Jayadev is Sarapañca) and openly ill-treating his mother Sarasvati. 

Raghav wants to marry Ambika and claim Jayadev's ancestral property, so he harasses Ambika and Jayadev in every imaginable way: making Ambika the prize in a stick-fight ... trying to put a hidden maṅgalasūtra on her ... telling Sarasvati not to come home without Ambika ... attempting to murder their and his common grandmother ... plotting to get Ambika injured at sports ... faking suicide attempts ... kidnapping Ambika ... 😡

Shekhar, the new bank manager, gets into mishaps with Ambika and her gang of much younger male friends, but just before Shekhar and Ambika can tell each other "I love you," Jayadev arranges Ambika's marriage to Alok from Singapore without telling her his name. 

Ambika guesses that Jayadev chose Shekhar to marry her, and only discovers her mistake at her sākharapuḍā with Alok, but goes on pretending to be happy with Alok while crying over Shekhar. 

Vidya, the new Tahasiladāra, blocks Raghav's illegal business, so Raghav attacks her, goes to jail after a fight with Jayadev, gets out and sabotages Vidya's car and Jayadev's motorcycle, so that they spend a night outdoors together. 😔

Meanwhile, Shekhar seizes many villagers' livelihoods for not making payments on their loans, insults Jayadev who patiently assures him of repayment, and threatens to foreclose on Jayadev's house and property, which makes the villagers hate Shekhar.

After Raghav and Rangarav frame Vidya with a bribe alleged to come from Jayadev, Vidya moves in with Jayadev, scandalizing Alok's fussy mother and Vinita, the quarrelsome wife of Jayadev's maternal uncle Vishvanath.

Despite attending many public events with Jayadev and Ambika, befriending Alok when Raghav picks fights with them, repeatedly pleading with Ambika and her friends, and even stepping over the sleeping Jayadev on his way sneaking into Ambika's bedroom, Shekhar is unaware that Ambika is Jayadev's sister until his boss, showing up with police at Ambika's wedding to Alok, announces imminent foreclosure on Jayadev's house.

After Alok walks out of the wedding because Jayadev had signed over all of his property to Alok's parents for Ambika, and foreclosure means it's worthless, Jayadev beats up Shekhar, and convinces Ambika to marry Raghav because Sarasvati says Raghav truly loves Ambika and will reform himself for her. 😡

Vishvanath points out that Raghav doesn't earn enough to provide for Ambika, so only Ambika's engagement to Raghav is announced, and Raghav expresses his deepest gratitude to Sarasvati. 😔

Shekhar goes to Jayadev's house to apologize, but when Shekhar is accused of following Ambika home, Jayadev leads a dozen men to beat Shekhar mercilessly, with Ambika watching silently and not trying to stop it, until Shekhar lands in the hospital with a plastered leg, unconscious. 😡

Shekhar's stepmother Shalini arrives and has Jayadev thrown in jail, but she has a nagging feeling that she knows Jayadev from somewhere ... a court hearing at which Ambika had testified. 😳

The loyal villagers want Jayadev to go free, and Vidya, Ambika, and even Shekhar's favourite Vahinī hope that Shekhar will shield Jayadev, so Shekhar magnanimously lies that his injuries are from a motorcycle accident, not a beating, but Jayadev refuses to forgive him for Ambika's disrupted wedding. 😡

Preview: Shalini arrives at Jayadev's house to announce her approval of Ambika marrying Shekhar, and Jayadev rejects the proposal. 😎

Characters:

Jayadev, the male lead, was introduced as the village's exemplary Sarapañca, an implausible combination of brilliant innovation, childlike innocence, and fighting prowess. Yet Jayadev acts like an inattentive pushover, always ready to hand over the land on which he lives.

After months of platitudes, all of a sudden Jayadev has a clever plan to convince the anti-corruption agents that Vidya didn't take a bribe from him. Then, as soon as the agents finally check the CCTV footage from weeks ago, which proves that Raghav framed Vidya, Jayadev asks Vidya for Sarasvati's sake, not to have Raghav charged until after Ambika's wedding.

Knowing that Raghav could be charged by the anti-corruption agents without Vidya's input, or simply thinking back to Raghav's prior arrest, prior kidnapping of Ambika, prior suspicion of trying to poison Hira Ājī, prior suicide attempts ... what kind of brother is Jayadev to take Raghav's proposal to Ambika?

Time after time, situations are contrived to foreshadow a divinely blessed marriage between Jayadev and Vidya, and yet the actors are not being directed to express any mutual attraction.

Ashvini wanted to put haḷada on Jayadev for one of the show's countless marriage-centred superstitions, but she acted unwilling when Vinita demanded that Jayadev agree to marry Ashu.

Throughout Vinita's rants against Vishvanath's attention to his nephew and niece, she never once wanted Ashvini to marry Jayadev. But as soon as Vidya put her teeth to the shirt on Jayadev's chest, Vinita decided that this was the man for her daughter!

Why does Ambika, a girl old enough to marry, run around playing with boys who look too young to shave? At sports events, suddenly she's the captain of girls of similar age.

After months of pining for Shekhar, as soon as she's finally free of Alok, how can Ambika instantly commit to marry Raghav? If Ambika can't tell Jayadev about liking Shekhar, and trust her brother to let her marry her choice, does Ambika really love Jayadev, or believe in his love for her?

If Ambika's resentment of Shekhar means that she doesn't care about his injuries, isn't upset with Jayadev for beating Shekhar, and visits Shekhar in the hospital not to comfort him but for the sole purpose of witness tampering, did Ambika ever really love Shekhar?

Shekhar was rude to Jayadev from the moment they first met. He pointedly spoke of foreclosure just to make Jayadev uncomfortable at Ambika's pre-wedding events. Then how can Shekhar, all of a sudden, patiently take Jayadev's beatings and apologize to him?

Shekhar wakes up in the hospital and speaks his lines into an oxygen mask. The production team could have had the doctor remove the mask because Shekhar is obviously able to breathe on his own. Or, if they didn't want to reshoot, they could have dubbed. But no, they left his lines muffled, inaudible.

The most relatable character may be Ambika's goldfish, but she hasn't been on screen in ages.

I have never lived in a village in Maharashtra, and only briefly visited one, so I can't tell if the portrayal of life in Narasingapur on this show is accurate. I suspect that it is not.

My expectation from a show set in a village is that the target audience is either villagers or outsiders, and preferably both. For those who live in rural communities, it should feel authentic in the way characters talk to each other, how they deal with common problems, what festive occasions they celebrate, the technology that they use ... For outsiders, it should be eye-opening, helping us to understand the characters' lifestyle, neighbourhood, daily routine, values, motivations, prejudices, etc.

On Ābhāḷācī Māyā, serious issues like domestic abuse, insurmountable debt, dowry demands, and vigilante attacks are being presented as if there is no remedy. The inheritance law that a daughter's claim to ancestral property is equal to a son's is cited, but instead of enriching Sarasvati or Ambika, Jayadev's land gets signed over to Sarasvati's husband or Ambika's future parents-in-law. Instead of using these stories to encourage viewers to get in touch with NGOs for support, the show is sympathetic to characters who let the abuse go on without consequences.

Maybe it's the creative team's conscious decision to be non-judgemental of the characters' weaknesses. However, I don't see its artistic value.

Jayadev's family has just heard of his death, the actors are doing their best grieving to tug at our heartstrings, and what background music do we get? Funny and quirky music!

Is it bad judgement, sabotage, or just indifference?

It's funny that Raghav doesn't think to check the corpse's arm for a tattoo of Ambika's name. Just a couple of episodes earlier, Raghav had noticed that tattoo on the vagrant Jayadev's arm. Does Raghav know that his cousin Jayadev has such a tattoo, or does he think that random homeless men are tattooing themselves for his bride-to-be?

Who is responsible for continuity on this show? On the November 1 episode, Vinita read the invitation to Ambika's makharāta basavaṇyāçā kāryakrama without any difficulty and took offense because Sarasvati's name appeared before hers. But when Ashvini found the letter planted by Maya, suddenly Vinita complained about being so illiterate that she couldn't confirm her suspicion that the letter was from Vidya to Jayadev!

Speaking of Vidya, where is she? Wouldn't the Tahasiladāra be informed of the Sarapañca's death? Never mind that she used to live with the bereaved family!

If I were Jayadev, falsely accused of sexual assault because I rescued a woman from a randomly biting snake 😛, I would naturally think it was karma-vipāka for that time I led a dozen men to beat Shekhar mercilessly, just because he followed Ambika to my door. Wouldn't you?

Neither Jayadev nor Pitya noticed the parallel - on a show where every character is terribly superstitious. It has only been a few days since the saṃnyāsī informed Jayadev that he had to expiate heinous sins from a past lifetime. Wouldn't Jayadev question whether his slate is really wiped clean after his adventure as a beggar? Have the writers forgotten what they wrote just a short while ago?

The villagers gathered for Jayadev's punishment don't seem to have much to do, the way they decided to hop over to an unspecified village on a whim to catch and pillory an anonymous man. Do I have the wrong impression that gangs of hot-headed men are capable of punishing a man's perceived sex offence by "showing him what it feels like" upon his sister? Does anyone find it realistic that Ambika, a young woman raised in a village, would walk up to them all alone and volunteer for punishment?

Originally posted by: HalleNJ

Jaidev is a close to perfect character, there is nothing much to dissect. It’s a remake and It’s basically copy pasting as I’m following the original a bit here and there.

Thank you for bringing it to my attention that Ābhāḷācī Māyā is a remake of a Tamiḻ series, Vāṉattaip Pōla. That's interesting.

Does the original also shrug helplessly at domestic abuse?

I did not understand what you meant by "perfect character." Earlier in this topic, I have pointed out what I see as inconsistencies in Jayadev's character.

Originally posted by: BrhannadaArmour

Thank you for bringing it to my attention that Ābhāḷācī Māyā is a remake of a Tamiḻ series, Vāṉattaip Pōla. That's interesting.

Does the original also shrug helplessly at domestic abuse?

I did not understand what you meant by "perfect character." Earlier in this topic, I have pointed out what I see as inconsistencies in Jayadev's character.

I noticed that u have highlighted some inconsistencies in the show. I guess it happens because it’s a remake and they add a bit more screenplay and that affects the logic overall. For example, jaidev in disguise as beggar is in the original but the whole family mourning assuming he was dead was added in AM.

Secondly I got to know the serial itself is an extended version of movie called namma veetu pillai which was produced by sun pictures, and also some scenes are taken from famous and hit tamil movies. I wonder what u meant by domestic abuse…Are you referring to mangya being stepped by ambi? It was a popular comedy scene taken from a movie. Beggar scene also inspired from a hit  movie. Like this there are many examples from the series. The screen play was adjusted based in availability of actors, in fact both actors who acted as brother and sister in original version have quit the show and it’s running with replacement actors. I don’t know why AM is copying blindly. 

I said jaidev is close to a perfect character because he is shown as righteous and helpful, yes he does mistakes but those mistakes are justifiable. 

I have big problem with the actress playing his pair, I thought she was casted as his aunt but shocked to see her as his pair. 

Thanks for the clarification and interesting information.

What I meant by domestic abuse was this: Rangarav constantly insulting his wife Sarasvati and encouraging their son Raghav to do the same; Rangarav threatening Sarasvati with his walking-stick pressed to her neck; Rangarav publicly dragging Sarasvati by her hair; Rangarav refusing to let Sarasvati come home; Rangarav refusing to let Sarasvati visit her family ... and all Jayadev with the power of government can do is ask him nicely to treat her better in the future. Rangarav demands Sarasvati's share of Jayadev's ancestral property, and Jayadev signs it over to Rangarav's name, not Sarasvati's!

Also, Vinita is quarrelsome and cynical, so Vishvanath raised his hand to strike her.

More recently, Shalini and Maya intimidated Kavita (Shekhar's brother's wife), took her phone away, took credit for her cooking, knocked a pot of boiling hot water onto her ... and Kishor (Kavita's husband) only scolded Kavita for being careless.

Is any of this copied from Vāṉattaip Pōla?

Yes they are copied. I didn’t watch every single episodes but it’s similar. No major change. 

A little bit of spoiler. The original version has a good character graph for raghav, and eventually he will marry ambi. But in AM, I’m yet to see the character graph.

As a bank manager, wouldn't Shekhar know that cash is routinely passed from one person to another?

Unless I fell asleep and missed a scene of Raghav asking Shekhar if Raghav was carrying cash when Shekhar found him drunk, Shekhar has no idea that Mr. Khapre denied receiving the rent money from Raghav. So, when Shekhar recognized Raghav's cash in his landlord's hands, why would he say that it doesn't belong to the landlord? How does he jump to the conclusion that Raghav was drugged?

This is Raghav's first sincere suicide attempt, right? He faked it twice before, and Ambika also jumped into a well on a dare. I wonder if it's responsible to show a character swallowing poison on TV. Research into the copycat effect (people attempting suicide after hearing about someone else's suicide) indicates that real news has an effect and fiction may not have any effect. I guess I'm desensitized to the usual jumping-into-a-well and setting-oneself-on-fire scenes, and poison just seems more serious.

The scene of Shekhar refusing to let go of Ambika's wrist as she tried to pry his fingers away was assault. Romantic feelings on both sides do not justify forcible romance from one side.

TV shows have immense visibility that could be used to confront and challenge toxic masculinity. Instead, Ābhāḷācī Māyā decided to perpetuate it with that "I know what's good for you" smile on Shekhar's face. His confidence that Ambika loves him (whatever that means) does not give him any right to hold her against her will. No man should assume that a woman's desire for him means consent to display affection everywhere, all the time.

Jayadev reacted too violently, but he did not misunderstand what he saw.

When Jayadev told Ambika to pretend that it was a bad dream and forget about it, I didn't like that either. Yes, he means well, but what if he had offered to listen instead of telling her what to do? It should be Ambika's decision whether to forget about it, make a police complaint, or shame Shekhar in front of the Pañcāyata.

Yes, Shalini pointed out to Shekhar that what he did was wrong and punishable, but that conversation quickly turned to invalid excuses with Shekhar saying that Ambika was frightened (Admit it, she was unwilling!) and Maya suggesting that Shekhar could have said that he loves Ambika. I don't give the show much credit for putting the righteous view in the mouth of Shalini, a villainous character who was disparaging Ambika and falsely claiming her consent by the end of the same episode.

What if Ashvini had made the same points gently, without shouting at Ambika? Yes, Shekhar has made self-sacrificing gestures, and Ambika could forgive him for grabbing her wrist. Yes, Ambika should tell her indulgent brother that she wants Shekhar, and even if she doesn't want Shekhar, she should say that she doesn't want Raghav. And yes, if Ambika had been showing affection to Shekhar, that would have been natural. There's a difference between pointing out Ambika's stupidity and implying that she doesn't have the right to make stupid decisions about her own life.

Why is Vinita saying that we trust Ambika, she would never have a love affair? Not long ago, Vinita was the one making crude comments about Ambika holding someone's hand and running away from her wedding.

Could Shalini's approach be any more counterproductive? Her motivation is to trick Jayadev into delivering Ambika into her power. She shouldn't be antagonizing him before that happens! If she had brought an apology and calmly explained that Ambika loves Shekhar, Jayadev might have walked into the trap. But no, for the sake of the plot, Shalini gives Ambika a choice to humiliate Jayadev with the truth or save him with a lie.