25/9 - Epi 350 ... Bomb Blast from the Past

Tuesday 25th September

Not just a blast ... a bomb blast. And it brings the promised devastation in its wake.

Arnav shattered by the explosion ...
On one side the echoes of the past ... the darkness he struggled with for fourteen years, his parents' arguments, his mother's suicide, Anjali's shattered dreams, his torn childhood.
On the other side, the promise of the future ... the woman he loves, the woman who loves him unconditionally, who turned a Beast into man ... who brought him back to life, brought him out of the shadows into light again ...  

And as expected, Dadi chooses her time well ... as Arnav struggles with the explosion, she goes to set off the final blast. And exposes Garima in public. With Arnav struggling with his demons, and unable to upset her plans, the wedding will be called off.

One could ask Dadi why she stayed quiet too ... why she chose this moment to expose Garima.

The Raizadas all ranged on one side against the Guptas ... Nani lost a daughter, Anjali a mother, Mami a sister ...

But Khushi too lost both parents, Garima too lost a sister and brother-in-law ... and Khushi is firm in support of her Amma ... she does not tell lies. And Dadi already admitted to one lie ... she told another one to Arnav earlier, that she had just come across the photograph.

Loved Khushi ... you go, girl!!! And Payal rocks ... finally the Gupta sisters return!

And the burning question still is ... WWAD? What Will Arnav Do?

*edited*

Some rambling thoughts here after an overnight flight ...

It's not a simple choice for Arnav ... Khushi alone is a no-brainer, he will not desert her. Not only can he not betray her trust in him, he cannot live without her.
But Khushi comes with Garima, and Khushi made that very clear today. Khushi will not desert her mother, the adopted mother who took her into her home and her heart when Khushi was lost and alone, who gave her a mother's love and never let her feel the lack of a mother after her own died ... who instilled the morals nad values in Khushi that she holds so dear today ... yes, and who never failed to scold and rebuke Khushi when she felt Khushi was out of line, or in danger of committing a mistake. No, Khushi will not desert Garima, nor will she stand for her insult and humiliation, she has full trust in her mother ... as does Payal.
Garima must have done something very right to raise two such strong daughters.

So Arnav will have to choose between Khushi and Garima together, or no Khushi. And to do so, he ... and Anjali ... will have to come to terms with the past ... they will have to accept that their parents' marriage was not ideal, and that the tragedy was not due to the other woman, but happened because of the parents themselves. His parents were responsible for taking their own lives, no one pushed them into doing so. Unless of course there is more to the story ...

Also, no other woman can shake a marriage if the foundation of that marriage is strong ... and that is what Arnav will have to accept. He has done so already to some extent ... he blames his father more than he does the other woman ... but when he comes to know that Garima too was victim of deceit the same way that Khushi was, will he be more ready to accept that she was not guilty of breaking up his parents' marriage, but was a victim herself?
I think Arnav will come to terms with it sooner than Anjali, because he has started shaking off the shackles of the past already ... he has started trying to forget the bad memories, remember the good ones and move on.

Nani, the wise matriarch ... she also asked Garima why she withheld the truth for so long, and added that they could have ... cut off quickly by Dadi, Dadi didn't want anyone to work anything out, she wanted this marriage stopped, end of story. By fair means or foul. And she used foul.

Anjali definitely the more damaged of the siblings, regresses to five year old ... why did you do this with my Mamma? What harm did she ever do to you? Is this what Anjali feels about Shyam as well? Why did Khushi do this to her, what harm did she ever do Khushi, why did Khushi ensnare her husband? Not her mother's fault, or her father's, only the other woman's.

And finally ... the part I loved ... Khushi, a fierce daughter standing up for her mother, refusing to allow her to be hurt, humiliated, called names ... she trusts her mother, she loves her, is proud of her, knows the sacrifices she has made for her two adopted daughters, and without knowing the whole story, or even needing to, she knows her mother could have done nothing wrong. And she will not stand to hear her insulted. She understands that Dadi lost a son, Nani a daughter ... Di lost parents, Khushi can understand that because she is in the same boat ... but that doesn't mean she points fingers at others, or allows them to do the same.

Not a word about Arnav, not a care for the fact that this was her long awaited wedding day, and the people insulting her mother were her in-laws ... a daughter stands tall, proud by her mother's side, solid as a rock ... and makes her parents faces glow with pride. And Payal joins her.
With daughters like these, who needs sons? Khushi didn't need Arnav's support today to fight for her mother ... she could do it on her own, thank you very much. And neither does Payal want her husband's wishywashy support ... she stood her MIL's insults for a long time because they were aimed at her ... but not a word against her mother can she tolerate.
Nayi Soch indeed ... hope this Khushi - the old fiery Khushi ... is back to stay. And Payal too ... hope Deepali changes her mind and stays on, if this is what she's going to be like.

Sanaya rocked today always love her in such scenes. Low-voiced, firm, respectful yet determined and strong
Payal with her few dialogues, was great support.
Dadi was good ... she was hateful as she was meant to be ... her thirst for revenge driving her into blindly destroying her grandchildren's future ...
Why was Garima holding on to her mangal sutra? There is more to Garima's story than has been let out. She was good, especially loved the way she said so brokenly ..'maa hai hum ...' ... the reason she kept quiet, became weak ... only because of her children ... fear for her daughters' happiness kept her silent. Even now, taking all the humiliation, begging for forgiveness, not raising a finger at the man involved ... only to safeguard her daughters' happiness.

More thoughts

Loved the way Khushi's first thought for Arnav's absence was a worried 'is he all right?' Knowing that only if he was not all right would he be late today ... and cutting off Buaji for saying anything ashubh, yet unable to stop herself from asking the same question the next second.

Arnav's typical reaction when he's hurt - his long lonely night drive ... his personal retreat into his 'peetal bartan' ... hiding away from everyone else till he gets over the worst of his pain.
When Anjali had her miscarriage, he wanted to do the same, he retreated from everyone, didn't even enter the same room ... till Khushi went to him he broke down on her shoulder, and she comforted him ... I'm there with you, you have to console Anjali, you're the only one who can do it, the one she needs ...' Khushi gave him strength, refused to let him hide in his 'peetal bartan', made him come out and face the pain and anguish of his sister, and battle his own feeling of failure ... she gave him the confidence that he had not failed, he had done his best ...
Today will he remember that strength she gave him? Will he return to her because he needs her at this hour? Faced again with the demons of his past, faced with the fear that he has somehow failed the memory of his mother by falling for the daughter of the other woman ... yet the paradox is that he needs that daughter to help him fight those demons, because Khushi is his strength, only with her at his side can he battle his fears and doubts, and find the solution to his dilemma.

Still more ramblings

The way the dhamaka on the second wedding day plays out ... it should show how far the two have come in terms of their relationship with each other, and in terms of Arnav's growth.

On Payash marriage day, Arnav had barely come to terms with the fact that he loved Khushi, or rather, that he had feelings for her ... 'farak padta hai.' That was what he was going to tell her on the terrace that night ... Newly woken emotions, newly recognized feelings, the first flush of love ... the nervousness, the tension as to whether his feelings would be reciprocated or not ... Arnav that day was a young boy in the throes of his first love affair. A stage most of us go through during our teens or early twenties. But he had missed out on that stage completely, because he had bypassed that stage of life when he grew up so quickly. So this love was new, fresh, unsure ... and it stumbled and shattered at the first hurdle ... the sight of his love in the arms of another man.
At that time I wondered if Arnav had seen a similar scene with his dad and the other woman ... now it appears that he had not. But the terrace scene and the words he heard were enough to shatter that fragile new emotion, and to turn it into hate ... compounded by the fact that the man was the husband of his beloved sister, the only living link to his past, to his mother. Saving his sister was paramount ... but throwing away that love was also impossible ... so a good decision made for all the wrong reasons ... he married Khushi because he could not bear to lose her, even though he hated her for what he thought she had done to his sister. Which was doubly hurtful because it was a repeat of what had happened to his mother ... he had lost his mother to infidelity, he could not bear to lose his sister too ...  Did Arnav at that time dimly acknowledge to himself that his sister was as weak and fragile emotionally as his mother?

A child of fourteen is old enough to recognize infidelity, but not mature enough to understand that there can be more than one reason, and more than one person at fault. And a son, especially a son of an adoring mother, will naturally gravitate to his mother, and be protective of her. And so it was with Arnav ... a fierce protectiveness of his mother, all the blame on his father ...
The damning words he heard from his mother 'You never loved me at all, you didn't stop to think about our marriage, even about our children ...' ... these were enough to paint a picture of his father as the one at fault, the mother as the one wronged. And he never saw the other woman, so no real feelings towards her ... although as he grew older the realization came that the other woman should share the blame for his mother's suicide.

And Khushi's feelings for him were at a similar stage ... new, unexplained, unacknowledged ... but very much there ... trust in that feeling of love was lacking, absent.

Today ...
The love has been acknowledged. So has the trust.
Promises made, exchanged ... 'Khushi, promise me, you will never leave me, I can't live without you.'
And the significance of that promise shared ... she knows all about his mother's suicide, his vulnerabilities, his promise to shield his sister from the pain his mother suffered ... she has seen the vulnerable boy under the hard coat of the man ...
He has seen how much he has hurt her, by time and again misunderstanding her intentions, by failing to recognise the real woman under the bright, smiling exterior she shows the world ... like she has blown his cover, he has blown hers. She is the emotionally stronger one of the two, no doubt ... but she has her vulnerabilities too ... her fear of being abandoned, her fear to trust in love for fear it will be snatched away is almost as strong as his.

He has started to slowly come out of the shadows of his past ... started to look forward to the future, to hope that it will be bright, with a strong woman by his side ... a woman who loves him unconditionally, who has the strength to be mother, wife, lover, the strength to help him battle his demons, his sense of failure, his almost paranoid need to control his destiny. A woman who understands him and his flaws, and who loves him despite them ... a woman with whom he doesn't have to be Arnav Singh Raizada all the time, but can be the scared fourteen year old Arnav as well ... a woman who is truly his soulmate.
And he needs her ... Arnav has acknowledged that he needs Khushi in his life, that he is incomplete without her ... then when this new storm has hit, how can he battle it alone?

So Arnav will come back to the mandap ... to claim his wife. Not his bride, his wife. His ardhangini. Because she said she would wait for him. Because she trusts him, trusts his love. And because he cannot sort out this dilemma alone, he needs her help. And he is not afraid to ask.
And she will never turn him down, because she promised. She made a promise that she would never leave him ... she will be with him, because she knows he needs her.