Tuesday 31st Dec 2013
On the last day of the year, the second episode.
Pace was a little slower than the first, and a few more characters were introduced, starting to flesh out the story. The Bollywood feel stayed, and was reinforced by the grandeur of the scenes, especially the haveli scene and the temple scene. Loved the sweeping shots of the haveli ... I love the grandeur of Rajasthani towns, these were shot most lovingly and beautifully.
So the fire was Paro's dream ... or rather, a recurrent nightmare. One in which the bad guy is a BSD officer with red eyes and a hatred filled heart. She wakes up panting, this is apparently a regular occurrence. So much so that her maamisa sees her fear at a glance ... 'it happened again?'
Her maamisa tries to comfort her, fire can be destructive, but it can also be beautiful ... Paro meekly accepts the comfort ... but that dream was closer than before, too close for comfort, and she is shaken.
Sanaya's accent is already settling into place ... so much so that I want the Rajasthani words to be cut down! Again love her voice modulation ... Paro is a simple, gentle village girl, and Sanaya's voice is soft, her tone and demeanor mild and sweet.
Also loved her clothes ... the white lehnga choli and bright colored dupatta in the first scene, and the purple on in the latter part of the episode.
And as she murmurs to herself, 'those eyes were closer than before, redder than the fire ...' Rudra makes his entry ... or rather, his eyes do.
His battalion scurries to and fro with new information ... five terrorists have entered and killed five jawans. The CO wants Rudra ... Rudra is already out riding his bike across the desert.
Paro and Bindi make their way to the temple where the wedding of a village girl is to be fixed ... to be paid for by the Thakur. A yearly occurrence. Apparently the villagers don't know the wedding is a cover for arms smuggling.
Thakur is busy in his pooja ... the grandeur of the temple and the costumes was impressive. Purple brocade jacket?! And matching purple turban ... kurta and jodhpurs ... the thakur seems to believe in blending tradition and modernity :)
His wife is the Rajmata, Sadiya Siddiqui ... a fine actress, I like her! She's better dressed than her husband.
Thakur has to leave the puja to attend to some pressing matters of treachery in the village ... a trifling matter of executing a guy for becoming informer to the BSD. He is wonderful and the annadaata of the village, doing good for everyone .. if only people would let him get on with his gun smuggling in peace.
While the girls get on with the process of getting their name chosen to be the next bride ... Paro's friend
proclaims that her groom is on the way ... and Rudra's motorbike zooms across the desert.
The temple rituals continue ... and Paro is the chosen bride. The Rajmata is happy ... she can fulfill her promise to Paro's dead mother.
So Paro has grown up surrounded by loving relatives and guardians, all aware of her tragedy, united in their hatred for a common enemy, she is the victim of the same enemy ... she gets all the sympathy and affection she needs. But it doesn't rid her of that recurrent nightmare and fear of the dreaded BSD.
And Rudra, an officer in that BSD, is riding across the desert into her life.
On the last day of the year, the second episode.
Pace was a little slower than the first, and a few more characters were introduced, starting to flesh out the story. The Bollywood feel stayed, and was reinforced by the grandeur of the scenes, especially the haveli scene and the temple scene. Loved the sweeping shots of the haveli ... I love the grandeur of Rajasthani towns, these were shot most lovingly and beautifully.
So the fire was Paro's dream ... or rather, a recurrent nightmare. One in which the bad guy is a BSD officer with red eyes and a hatred filled heart. She wakes up panting, this is apparently a regular occurrence. So much so that her maamisa sees her fear at a glance ... 'it happened again?'
Her maamisa tries to comfort her, fire can be destructive, but it can also be beautiful ... Paro meekly accepts the comfort ... but that dream was closer than before, too close for comfort, and she is shaken.
Sanaya's accent is already settling into place ... so much so that I want the Rajasthani words to be cut down! Again love her voice modulation ... Paro is a simple, gentle village girl, and Sanaya's voice is soft, her tone and demeanor mild and sweet.
Also loved her clothes ... the white lehnga choli and bright colored dupatta in the first scene, and the purple on in the latter part of the episode.
And as she murmurs to herself, 'those eyes were closer than before, redder than the fire ...' Rudra makes his entry ... or rather, his eyes do.
His battalion scurries to and fro with new information ... five terrorists have entered and killed five jawans. The CO wants Rudra ... Rudra is already out riding his bike across the desert.
Paro and Bindi make their way to the temple where the wedding of a village girl is to be fixed ... to be paid for by the Thakur. A yearly occurrence. Apparently the villagers don't know the wedding is a cover for arms smuggling.
Thakur is busy in his pooja ... the grandeur of the temple and the costumes was impressive. Purple brocade jacket?! And matching purple turban ... kurta and jodhpurs ... the thakur seems to believe in blending tradition and modernity :)
His wife is the Rajmata, Sadiya Siddiqui ... a fine actress, I like her! She's better dressed than her husband.
Thakur has to leave the puja to attend to some pressing matters of treachery in the village ... a trifling matter of executing a guy for becoming informer to the BSD. He is wonderful and the annadaata of the village, doing good for everyone .. if only people would let him get on with his gun smuggling in peace.
While the girls get on with the process of getting their name chosen to be the next bride ... Paro's friend
proclaims that her groom is on the way ... and Rudra's motorbike zooms across the desert.
The temple rituals continue ... and Paro is the chosen bride. The Rajmata is happy ... she can fulfill her promise to Paro's dead mother.
So Paro has grown up surrounded by loving relatives and guardians, all aware of her tragedy, united in their hatred for a common enemy, she is the victim of the same enemy ... she gets all the sympathy and affection she needs. But it doesn't rid her of that recurrent nightmare and fear of the dreaded BSD.
And Rudra, an officer in that BSD, is riding across the desert into her life.
the BSD officer coming and lighting her in fire.. an echo of the BSD killing her parents and lighting them on fire.. we saw last epi how traumatic it was for young parvati , seeing her parents set on fire for no understandable reason.. i can see how it became a recurrent nightmare. nice segue there.
ReplyDeleteand i was thinking.. i am imagining young veera (ranvi's veera) as the actor playing the little girl.. she was something around five or six.. her parents died..she had no idea about death.. she saw her parents being set on fire.. she is sad.. but she is easily distracted by imli.. and she feels bad for the crying boy and gifts him the doll.. and the boy , seeing the cute care of a little girl, accepts the doll. would have been perfect casting. (not saying that the actual choice was bad, just imagining.)
Happy new year everyone! May this new year bring everyone loads of happiness, success & laughter*Hugs*
ReplyDeleteNice take Dia. They are taking it slow...that's good. I hope the marriage segment will come this week itself. The landlord was apt, though seems to be more colorful.So far i'm impressed with all the side characters. Bindi, Mamisaa & Rajmata..They should give space to all characters, instead of over working the leads. Hope this PH will do that.
ReplyDelete@ Jaya i agree with Veera, that girl would have nailed it..But i'm impressed with the doll scene, those kids were good. And she'll be too small for a young Paro...Rudra has to be in the start of adolescent...only then his mother's absence will have more impact. That age is a crucial point in a child's growth. So far me this age seems to be fine.
@ Shwetha wish you the same!! Hugs back:)
Happy New Year to all the wonderful ladies of RR:)
happy new year everyone!
ReplyDelete@ lakshmi yes, i was impressed with the kids scene too. beautifully executed and acted. this was just a khwaab :)
I don't agree about the little girl in Veera ... in a single episode, I think this little girl nailed Paro ... I can't imagine anybody else doing Paro, and I don't even want to. Both the kids were brilliant. I hope they come again in flashbacks, they were so good. I'm actually disappointed we won't see any more little Rudra-little Paro interactions.
ReplyDeleteI followed Veera for a long time and by the end, I did not like Veera ... she was too brattish. So I'm very happy she didn't do this role, even though it was just one episode. Besides, the emotions required were too complex, I don't think Harshita could have got them. This girl was a little older, so she did them beautifully.
I'm impressed with the side characters too, Lakshmi ... all good actors, and doing their parts well. Hope they keep the tempo, and equal space for all characters ... yesterday we had more of the kids, today was definitely more Paro/Sanaya ... but also the thakur/thakurain. Hardly any Ashish/Rudra ... he just rode his bike across the desert! I hope they will balance it out evenly ... I guess today was Paro's day ... soon we will get more background to Rudra. But they have a lot of characters, they do need to give them all space. Whatever little I saw of Madhubala, this PH does seem to be better organised, and also 200 episodes have already been written with a definite story in place. I think every character will be given its due importance, with the focus being on Rudra Paro, of course.
To everyone here ... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I came across a post in IF analogy between Rudra- Paro & Shiv -Parvathi. Loved the post. If so much thoughts have gone behind the story , i'm sure it will be a treat to watch.. I too hope the makers will do justice. Saw your comment too...I'm so happy to read more lovely post about this show. That's what made be enjoy IPK.
ReplyDeleteSanaya was brilliant in her scenes yesterday. She's already Paro...i didn't see any traces of her earlier characters. Even i felt her voice modulation in different. But In the first epi, when she talked to camel, i couldn't understand anything in first watch. Yesterday it was better.God!! their dialect, i'm finding it difficult. May be after few more episodes, I'll will be used to it. Her Maamisa is calling not by her mane...what was that?? Is it some endearment for beti?? I did get that. Her conversation with Paro was endearing...
Maamisa is very sweet, she exudes a warmth and a motherliness which is heartwarming. She seems to love Paro a lot, so does the cousin, Bindi. So Paro doesn't have the typical wicked stepf -amily ... she has a loving foster family, and the Thakur and thakurain also appear to have taken her under their wing.
DeleteSanaya actually manages to change her voice with her characters. When she was doing Gunajn, I was shocked to hear her voice offscreen ... she has a typical Mumbaiya way of talking and a very firm, loud voice ... with Gunajn, she was soft, low toned and musical. Cannot believe how she does it! The dialect will take her a while to get ... she was already noticeably better in the second episode. But I don't get why she has to talk that way ... in BV, the older Daadisa talks in the local dialect, all the others speak normal Hindi, and they are also small town/village based. It has to be easy for the general audience ... authenticity can take a back seat here! As it is, they have built the atmosphere beautifully with the locales, the authentic temple and havelis ... the costumes are all beautiful and very authentic ... except for Paro, of course, she does stand out, partly because of her less traditional looks, and partly they have kept her costume different from the rest. Have to ... she's the heroine! :D Reminds me of Deepika Padukone and her tiny blouses in Ramleela! Both look equally gorgeous!