Rites of Passage - Page 3

Originally posted by: aimf

If tonight's episode had a moral, it would be "You cannot understand or appreciate a person without walking in their shoes." By some accident or should we say divine intervention, Ishita found herself in the very situation that she despised the most in Raman and his family. Priding herself for hailing from an educated (read cultured) family, who have a perfect presentation of self, and who never err in public, Ishu had zero tolerance for Raman and his drunkenness. She despised the public nature of his intoxication and saw it as a personal burden and insult, each time she had to go play the rescuer and extricate him from what she considered to be unacceptable and highly embarrassing situations. We are all familiar with the endless tirades that Ishita regularly unleashed against Raman, which were aptly termed by him as "bhashans" due to their judgmental and self-righteous tenor. The problem with these bhashans was that they were delivered from an ivory tower of righteous notions of culture and family values. This put Ishita in the role of the moral police of Raman and the Bhalla family in general, as is evidenced by Toshiji's increasing annoyance against her. We used to think that Toshi's competition against Ishita fell in the "saas-bahu" category of kitchen politics, typical Ekta-style. Be that as it may, I think Toshi's recurrent one-liners to the tunes of of "we have also raised children; we know how to run a kitchen --in fact we have done it for the last 35 years" etc. were also retaliations at what she perceived as Ishu's aloofness arising from her refusal to get off her holier-than-thou hobby-horse of sort.

That Ishu continued to cling on to her morals and judge everyone through her own lenses is not something we can hold against her. After all, she was stuck in an unfamiliar cultural milieu, and a hostile marriage that was not of her own making. When people are in such dire straits, they tend to cope by holding on to whatever they can. This was the only way Ishu could cling on to a sense of self imparted to her by her culture and upbringing. However, this very culture that served to uplift her in the past, gift her with an education and make her a highly regarded dentist in her profession, was slowly beginning to strangulate her chances of discovering a shared sense of self in relation to her new family. This was because Ishu's moral policing obfuscated her ability to differentiate between the person and his or her behavior. Ishu was quick to conclude that Raman's behavior equals Raman himself, and this non-separation made her more alienated from him, and vice-verse. Because of her own pain and the circumstances of the wedding Ishu lacked the emotional maturity and the tolerance to even discern the possibility that behind these exhibited self-destructive behaviors, behind the pain of his own broken marriage, there was a person called Raman the man, who perhaps shared the same set of values that she herself had enshrined as sacrosanct.

Today's episode was a definite marker for things to change. It was a well-crafted rite of passage for Ishita where she found herself totally out of control and completerly unprepared for all that she did, and everything that came out of her mouth during her parents' anniversary celebration. Still, despite this, her first reaction was to blame Raman and slap him, jumping to the worst conclusion that he must have set this up. Once she began to ruminate about her actions and the cool waters of discrimination washed over her, she was able to see herself in a new and fallible light. Fallibility is the precursor of compassion and emotional growth. If she, Ishita Iyer, the moral police of the neighborhood could be so fallible, what about others? If she, a good and law-abiding person, could behave so undesirably, perhaps others with undesirable behaviors were also not bad people? Perhaps they were just misled?

I loved the light banter and casual demeanor with which the Bhalla family greeted Ishita's hangover. They did not shove it in her face, or make her feel bad about it, but they also were not beyond heartily enjoying her predicament. It seemed as though they were truly welcoming her into the family, as she was now part of their secret, their secret of coping with the pains in their lives. Therefore, when mother Madhavi entered the house, she was truly the outsider --Ishu was, in this moment, more a Bhalla than an Iyer, puzzling Madhavi to no end. Madhavi's innocent offer to make Ishu curd-rice for her condition set off peals of hidden mirth in the Bhallas, in which Ishu also ruefully found herself partaking.

Ruhi's enquiry about what constitutes a "loaded drink" at the end was the cherry on top of the episodic cake. The Ishita of the past would have responded with a horrified retort, sent off Ruhi to her room and chastised the entire Bhalla family for spoiling an impressionable child. The Ishita of today's episode is more accepting and gentle, both with herself and the rest of the family. She not only acknowledges Ruhi's question but answers it with a grace that lovingly cloaks the entire family with acceptance. Immediately she is joined by Toshi, who embellishes and builds upon Ishita's response to Ruhi, and for the first time we see both the mother and the grandmother on the same page, parenting the child together as a team. I do think that an important factor of Toshi's mellowing towards is the absence of another moral police from the Bhalla's side --the elder daughter Simmi, who has her own skeletons to hide. Did Simmi's heightened judgment and intolerance for Ishita stem from the fact that Ishita subconsciously reminded her of herself? Now that Ishu is soon going to blow Simmi's cover, it remains to be seen whether the two sisters in law will be at loggerheads or will forge a pact of confidence.

Thanks to all for reading this post. Comments and thoughts are welcome.