Yudh 7: The clearing and the clouding

Folks,

There were just 2 moods in this episode, and they bookended the rest, like the bread slices in a sandwich. There was the complete clearing of the air at Yudh's press conference at the beginning, and at the end, there was the clouding of the air due to the kidnapping of Rishi by the Naxalites.

In between, flotsam and jetsam appeared and swirled around: Mona and her creepy brother in law, Anand's son and his destructive antics, Taruni's worries about her dad and her boyfriend's jealousy, Dharmendra Malik's now savage hatred of Yudh, and then the Joker back after quite while...

A laurel wreath: But first, I have ordered a small laurel wreath for myself, for predicting accurately that the chap who attacked Mona in her car had to be her missing brother-in-law Kapil . I had written yesterday: But taking the show as a giant jigsaw puzzle, I would hazard the guess that the attacker was Manju's missing husband Kapil!

Since it is but rarely that I guess anything like this correctly, it is surely an occasion for a modest celebration! 😉I think I got it right because this is a logical screenplay, whereas with the usual lot of CVs, whose thought processes are allergic to logic of any kind, I was always falling flat on my face with my predictions!

Smelling of roses: Yudh came out of the press conference washed clean of any taint, and as they say, smelling of roses. The coup de grace came when Mrs. Mehra turned up unexpectedly to clarify the last remaining question, about her son's statements implicating Yudh. That was the icing on Taruni's cake; one could see the sudden surge of relief in her face when Mrs. Mehra had finished.

This little segment illustrated the age old belief that goodness begets goodness. Yudh had deliberately shushed Anand and assured Mrs.Mehra that they would never use the video of Rahul Mehra's dealing in banned (prescription, really , I think) drugs, and that all he had wanted to do was to assure her that he had never at any time done anything against Dr. Mehra. She must have been moved by his generosity, and that was probably why she came, and firmly and authoritatively refuted all the canards against him, despite Yudh's urging her not to do so.

Question of the day: Where, oh where were the journalists at the press conference? One could not see even a single one, for they shot the whole scene centred on the podium. If Arjun had, at the beginning, not seated himself among some people, one would not have known whether the hall was empty or not! It was bizarre.

Not one question from a single journalist after the webcam statement by Dr. Ganatra and Yudh's closing statement? If I know anything of the press, the first question would have been :"Well, YS, when do you expect to die?" , followed by "Now that you know that you are going to die in less than 5 years, how do you feel?"!!😡😡

The new CEO: Much more than Nayantara's predictable ranting against Taruni becoming the CEO of Shanti Constructions - and it was comic that Rishi was completely cool and unaffected by the news, to his mother's despair - what was fascinating was the scene between father and daughter after the press conference.

There was an argumentative, assertive, and finally, pleading Taruni, trying desperately to get out of this new tangle, and a cool, amused, and at the bottom, confident Yudh, who alternately teases and cajoles her, but never backs off and never lets go.

First he tries to brush it aside as something meant to keep the ( invisible!) journos from mobbing Mrs.Mehra. When she will not buy that, he assures her that she can learn the ABCD of business from him, and in no time, she will be better than he is. All this while, he is fiddling with his books and does not look at her; classic negotiating tactics!

He turns to face her only when he cites the parallel with his own reluctance to enter the business world when his mentor Gautam had urged him to do so. When she cleverly counters that too, and says that he already has Anand and Mona and many others to assist him, he plays his trump card.Wo sab mere jaise sochte hain, par tumhari soch alag hai, fresh hai. See how you sorted out everything with this press conference?

As she picks up her papers and leaves, determination still writ large on her face, Yudh looks unruffled. His face, as he looks after her, is still, but quietly confident as well. He knows that she knows that he needs her, and that will bring her back to him.

And so it does. The little exchange at Taruni's place, with a jealous Arjun/ Abhir (what the devil is the chap really called?), who is afraid that Yudh will soon eclipse him in Taruni's life, is revealing.

Arjun argues that Yudh has made Taruni the new CEO to whitewash his own image, and that he is using her. This jibe, sadly for him, backfires, for Taruni is now worried that people at large will also think like this, and she starts lamenting about how alone and afraid Yudh is (I seriously doubt the latter, but it is the good old maternal instinct at work here!) and how he wants people near him who will not use him and whom he can trust. Like herself.

See, did I not tell you that the most powerful draw, with a woman, is the belief that she is needed by the other person?

My heart went out again to the tactless Arjun, and if I could have advised him, I would have told him to completely stop criticising Yudh to Taruni, for nothing could be more counterproductive for him!

The nature of faith: It is not that Taruni has no doubts of her own about Yudh. I could not understand the point of her exchange with Dr.Ganatra , when she learns that there was only one copy of Yudh's medical report and that had been with Dr. Mehra (and is now presumably with MM). She seems to be having one herself, probably the one printed off the file sent by Dr. Ganatra's secretary to Arjun, in the belief that she was sending it to Queen's College, Birmingham.

These subterranean doubts of hers surface when she talks about Yudh to her mother, whose response, initially reassuring, then becomes more nuanced and indecisive. Still, on the balance, Taruni will not believe, as of now, that there can be anything dubious about Yudh, either as a person and as a businessman.

So Yudh's confidence is justified when Taruni turns up at his office again, and he gives instructions that she should be shown some files. But deep inside him, he must be worried about whether she can take the cutthroat pressures of his world, and the dirty tricks that have to be played to keep the bad guys in check. What Lord Krishna, in the Gita, calls aapaath kaal dharma, which lies between pure dharma and pure adharma.

Whence the sudden reappearance of his alter ego, or his subconscious, the Joker. Like Yudh, I too did a double take when his shrill voice , with its childish sing song, hit my eardrums unexpectedly. Yudh negates the Joker's fears, which are in fact his own, for he is now determined to have this daughter of his with him, and nothing is going to stop him from getting what he wants, not even his own subterranean fears.

The geet leit motif: Mandy my dear, you had wanted my take on the Joker's geet symbolism. I now seem to be closer to understanding it.

The geet is the divine music that is inside every human being, embedded in his DNA. It is the pure song of his pristine soul, which encapsulates his hopes, his desires, his goals, and defines his real nature. This real nature might, under the pressure of circumstances, be corroded, and then the geet, originally pure like his soul at birth, gets buried under all this dross.

But if the person is determined enough, he can dig it out and rediscover himself, his real, uncorrupted nature, his geet. Sometimes, unable to do this by himself, he might need a catalyst, another person whose goodness can revive the goodness that once defined him completely, but no longer does so.

Whence the Joker's question as to whether Yudh is trying to open his geet by using Taruni. This is as much as I could make out. Does it satisfy you?

The turbulent triangle: This is Nayantara, Yudh and Taruni. Nayantara is as catty and rude as she can be to Taruni, but it is worth noting that both Yudh and Taruni, in their different ways, treat her like an obstreperous child, whose tantrums are best ignored, with the adults behaving normally.

So Taruni neither tries to defend herself by saying that she never did and still does not want the CEO's post, nor does she ignore Nayantara; on the contrary, she coaxes her to take her medicines. Yudh too is patient with Nayantara's taane, till he reaches the end of this tether, and then he bluntly tells her that what he has done is well thought out and is the best for all of them, and he would now like to have his dinner. And he is extremely casual about the way in which he dismisses Nayantara as a factor, and insists that as his doctor, Taruni has to come with him to rescue Rishi.

I suspect that for all her animosity towards Taruni, when the going gets really rough with the Naxalites, it is to her that Nayantara will turn for support and strength.

The clouding of the glass: The scene where the local kids take Rishi out to the mountain to see the glowworms, and to listen to the patton ka sangeet, is eerily lovely, and the point that the glowworms cannot be caught seems like a summing up of the evanescent nature of magical loveliness.

Earlier, the scene of the party perfectly captures Rishi's essentially childlike (not childish) nature.

I am looking forward to the future exchanges between Rishi and the Naxals, especially the Nandita Das lookalike. Surely they will move beyond her slapping him every now and then and tossing him empty water bags?

Silence that speaks: The silence in the guesthouse, thru the night before the police can start operations to hunt for Rishi , is almost palpable, like a shroud in its heavy, enveloping quality. The total absence of speech between the three - Yudh, Nayantara and Taruni - as each hunkers down in his or her private emotional trench, makes the silence almost another character. That whole scene is beautifully conceived and shot. I only hope it is not dubbed slow!

Cynical strategy or pragmatism?: The negotiator, Govind, seems cynical and opportunistic at first sight, but at another level, both the tactics - of not accepting defeat and not caving in to the demands without a fight- and the strategy- of creating divisions between the local forces - that he recommends are sound and practical.

Any extortion money given to the extremists only goes to foment still more extremism, promote more kidnappings for more extortion, and so on, in an upward spiralling circle. Nor are the extremists benefactors of the common people, not any longer. Extremism, often brutal, has be now become an end in itself, and a way of life to which they are now wedded. And their targets now, more often than not, are the very common people whose interests they claim to defend. This is the rule with all extremist movements, no matter how they start out.

In the final shot, as Anand leads the interlocutor away, Yudh looks after them, and his face is still and watchful. The eyes seem to be looking inwards. He is debating within himself, and he is not sure of what he should do and how.

The precap shows that something has gone badly wrong after Yudh decides to go along with Govind's recommendations. As it often does in all kidnapping cases, and not just those involving extremists. Let us see how bad it is, and what is happening to Rishi, shown rolling down a slope amidst gunfire

The rest: Malik:The encounter between Yudh and a distraught Dharmendra Malik, whose rejoinder to Yudh's condolences is savage in its open threat: Doosri aulad jald se paida karlo. Pehlewali zyada din nahin tiknewali, leaves Yudh deeply disturbed. It also misleads Anand into concluding that the plotter in chief is Nikhil Pardesi. He could not be more wrong.

One presumes that Malik means Rishi, not Taruni, and this leads to the question of whether the kidnapping of Rishi was in any way linked to Malik and Nikhil, with MM manipulating both of them from behind the scenes. I would think not, for the Naxalites operate on their own, and it is not easy to penetrate their tight knit circles. Let us see.

Mona: The mess she finds herself in now is the direct result of her letting her heart -ie her desire to protect her sister from the shock of learning that her husband Kapil is a child (or teen) abuser - rule her head. It is a typically stupid decision, of the kind all soap heroines take. What is it doing here in Yudh?😡

How did Mona assume that the creep was going to stay away for keeps? By letting him run away, she not only helped him evade punishment for his crime, but left him free to commit more of the same, while making sure that Manju continued to adore her husband because she was kept in the dark about his real nature.

So Mona deserves what comes to her, and the only thing that bothers me is Kapil getting hold of her laptop and her mobile. For now, I am very pleased that it was Kapil, as I had guessed, and if he turns out to be MM's henchman, I shall be even more pleased!😉

Preeti and Aditya: A sad little vignette, which underlines the travails of Anand's wife while caring for an autistic child who is becoming dangerously destructive. It was heartbreaking to listen to her helpless sobbing after she has slapped the boy in frustration and fear, fear of what might have happened.

So here we are, folks, 7 down and just 13 more to go!

Shyamala B.Cowsik

Originally posted by: apple64

what lucid writing Shyamala... lovely lovely piece of writing(s). what is your profession, if I may ask?

Apple (the juicy one 😉)

PS: on a sad note: just 13 more to go. we will be left wanting for more. just like 24 - the series left a void

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Folks,

Smelling of roses: Yudh came out of the press conference washed clean of any taint, and as they say, smelling of roses. The coup de grace came when Mrs. Mehra turned up unexpectedly to clarify the last remaining question, about her son's statements implicating Yudh. That was the icing on Taruni's cake; one could see the sudden surge of relief in her face when Mrs. Mehra had finished.

This little segment illustrated the age old belief that goodness begets goodness. Yudh had deliberately shushed Anand and assured Mrs.Mehra that they would never use the video of Rahul Mehra's dealing in banned (prescription, really , I think) drugs, and that all he had wanted to do was to assure her that he had never at any time done anything against Dr. Mehra. She must have been moved by his generosity, and that was probably why she came, and firmly and authoritatively refuted all the canards against him, despite Yudh's urging her not to do so.

May be Yudh knew that Mrs.Mehra would come out. It was a risk he took. Had he spoken about Rahul it wouldn't have been half as convincing. But with Mrs.Mehra clearing the air, he came out in trumps.

Question of the day: Where, oh where were the journalists at the press conference? One could not see even a single one, for they shot the whole scene centred on the podium. If Arjun had, at the beginning, not seated himself among some people, one would not have known whether the hall was empty or not! It was bizarre.

Not one question from a single journalist after the webcam statement by Dr. Ganatra and Yudh's closing statement? If I know anything of the press, the first question would have been :"Well, YS, when do you expect to die?" , followed by "Now that you know that you are going to die in less than 5 years, how do you feel?"!!😡😡

Since it is an unheard disease, the journalists didn't know what questions to ask. Dr.Ganatra in his talk didn't speak of impending death. He only spoke of mood swings and that it was a neurological problem. By the time they checked the net and wanted to ask him, the pc got over.😆

The new CEO: Much more than Nayantara's predictable ranting against Taruni becoming the CEO of Shanti Constructions - and it was comic that Rishi was completely cool and unaffected by the news, to his mother's despair - what was fascinating was the scene between father and daughter after the press conference.

There was an argumentative, assertive, and finally, pleading Taruni, trying desperately to get out of this new tangle, and a cool, amused, and at the bottom, confident Yudh, who alternately teases and cajoles her, but never backs off and never lets go.

First he tries to brush it aside as something meant to keep the ( invisible!) journos from mobbing Mrs.Mehra. When she will not buy that, he assures her that she can learn the ABCD of business from him, and in no time, she will be better than he is. All this while, he is fiddling with his books and does not look at her; classic negotiating tactics!

His smile never lessened. He was so confident!

He turns to face her only when he cites the parallel with his own reluctance to enter the business world when his mentor Gautam had urged him to do so. When she cleverly counters that too, and says that he already has Anand and Mona and many others to assist him, he plays his trump card.Wo sab mere jaise sochte hain, par tumhari soch alag hai, fresh hai. See how you sorted out everything with this press conference?

As she picks up her papers and leaves, determination still writ large on her face, Yudh looks unruffled. His face, as he looks after her, is still, but quietly confident as well. He knows that she knows that he needs her, and that will bring her back to him.

The geet leit motif: Mandy my dear, you had wanted my take on the Joker's geet symbolism. I now seem to be closer to understanding it.

The geet is the divine music that is inside every human being, embedded in his DNA. It is the pure song of his pristine soul, which encapsulates his hopes, his desires, his goals, and defines his real nature. This real nature might, under the pressure of circumstances, be corroded, and then the geet, originally pure like his soul at birth, gets buried under all this dross.

But if the person is determined enough, he can dig it out and rediscover himself, his real, uncorrupted nature, his geet. Sometimes, unable to do this by himself, he might need a catalyst, another person whose goodness can revive the goodness that once defined him completely, but no longer does so.

Whence the Joker's question as to whether Yudh is trying to open his geet by using Taruni. This is as much as I could make out. Does it satisfy you?

Thanks a ton😊

Preeti and Aditya: A sad little vignette, which underlines the travails of Anand's wife while caring for an autistic child who is becoming dangerously destructive. It was heartbreaking to listen to her helpless sobbing after she has slapped the boy in frustration and fear, fear of what might have happened.

So here we are, folks, 7 down and just 13 more to go!

And I won't be here next week.😕 Will catch up next weekend.😊

Shyamala B.Cowsik

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

Aunty

In the TRP news segment, there was a glimpse of Priya all gagged up. Wonder what it means.

Who knew that Taruni is going to come back to Yudh's office and placed the file in Dr.Mehra's possession on Yudh's table?

Was the 20crore demand made by Gopal without it being demanded by the naxals? He looks utterly untrustworthy.

Yudh's explanation of 20 crore paid as ransom to free Rishi was probably the result of his lost Geet that the joker wants him to find again. It was like hitting below the belt.

Yudh's joy at the decision to free the boys, as suggested by Taruni, that turned beneficial, was absolutely transparent. It gave him the satisfaction of the rightness of his decision to appoint Taruni as CEO. Also it reflected a father's pride.

Anan's statement that Rishi dil jeetna janta hai was very true. The boys who found a super rich guy make friends with them unreservedly, risked their lives to save him. Sometimes simple acts of goodness works more wonders than the best strategies.