No change!

On popular demand, the leap in Aapki Antara is being postponed! Which means the kids will be there for some time to come!!! Celebrations!!!

Aapki Antara is also winning awards now. Seems like there IS a market for realistic, simple, sweet and meaningful programs after all.

Now if only I could fine a nice singing talent show like what SaReGaMaPa used to be before all the voters' reality crap came in!

Gunjan's letter

29 Sept episode
Gunjan's letter was very similar to what I had thought it would be. Liked it. Love that girl's voice - it's so expressive and soft. Now if only she would work on her facial expressions and stop looking so worried all the time - give some variety to them. Actually, how many ways are there to look sad? She's doing quite a good job - hope her character becomes less one-dimensional than what it has been recently and perks up a bit in Morena.
Samrat/ Mohit does need to work on his expressions - he looked less haunted and anguished than I could have wanted. I liked his dialoges when he read the letter, but his expressions could have been much better - he could have reacted better to each of the parts where he looked up.
Arjun/Mayank is so expressionless - I understand he's supposed to be the inscrutable strong silent type, who doesn't let his emotions show, but he just looks a little blank in most scenes! In the locker room scene, I thought he was sitting in the loo - maybe constipated! And for once, I was disappointed with his mother scene - you want your son to woo Nupur in filmy style??? Please no! Enough DDLJ rip offs already!
Blooper - Nupur doesn't have a cell phone! So whom did Mayank call??? :)))
I hope Nupur doesn't give in so easily this time. I think the twist in their story should be a break up - they stay apart and that makes them miss each other. Though I still don't really understand their love story - doesn't look like love to me. I mean - Mayank doesn't even let Nupur defend herself, and is perfectly ready to believe Dia-Benji-Uday that she didn't tell them about MN? So their word is stronger than hers??? And look at Samrat - he didn't need Gunjan to say a word to know that what Sheena accused her of was a lie! He didn't hesitate for a second to defend her. Nope, I MUCH prefer SG to MN as a couple.
I hope, I hope, I hope they don't use 'tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam' on Samrat - Gunjan. No way these two can come even close to SRK-Kajol! I would actually like to see a song-less confession. I think they're both pretty good in emotional scenes, Sanaya especially.

As for emotional bonding as many of the MN fans keeps wanting - WHAT emotional bonding??!! do they have any? She's in love with a dream - none of her flashbacks were particularly pleasant, and he - I'm still not sure if he's in love at all!

Free tomorrow onwards - can write more!

youtube links - part 2
part 3 - the letter

Aapki Antara

The ONLY realistic show on Indian tv these days ... shows real issues, handled realistically and sympathetically, with extreme care not to offend any one and a real attempt to educate and enlighten. Deserves all the praise it gets. Every time I watch it, I feel a lump in my throat, I relate to it - and I wonder how I would react if confronted with similar issues.

Helps that the kids are adorable!

A far cry from all the other over the top dramatic entertainment and candyfloss serials on air and a real breath of fresh air. Hope it continues with the same standards and goes from strength to strength.

Thoughts on MJHT - G's letter and Sam's thoughts

I want:
Gunjan's letter to be ambiguous, to only hint at her feelings, maybe apologise for them (so like her!), say it was her fault, he never gave her any such hopes, and so she needs some time away from him but she will come back and be his friend again, that she promises.
I want:
Samrat to reflect on her letter, then have flashbacks of the time they rehearsed together for the play where she let out her feelings for him saying it was her fault she fell in love with him. I want another flashback when during the play while they were arguing about giving up their friendship for Sheena, she told him he was lucky his love was returned, because one-sided love was painful ... I want him to remember that and realise that she has loved him quietly, hopelessly for so long, and never said a word.
I want him to remember that she tried to stay away from him, but he would never let her. Everytime she went away, he would follow her and ask what the problem was - he could not let her alone.
Then ... I want:
Samrat to remember his dates with Sheena both began and ended with Gunjan. The first date - she helped him cook, and after the date, he promptly landed up at her house to thank her. And he wanted some 'Samrat-Chashmish time - no Sheena'. He didn't have any problem talking nonstop about Chashmish with Sheena, though - I want him to realise that Gunjan has always been in his thoughts and on his mind - always.
I want him to remember the second Sheena date, where again he was with Gunjan before the date, choosing gifts for Sheena - but also giving her a gift, dancing with her, calling her his soulmate. And after the date, when Sheena had burst the bombshell of wanting him to break his friendship, I want him to remember he still called Gunjan after he got home, still in shock, the only thing on his mind that he couldn't, wouldn't give her up - his desperate call to her was as though he wanted to talk to her, needed to talk to her - needed only her, as he had always done.
That will make his realisation more poignant and more beautiful, when he realises how long he has loved her without even knowing it - and how long she has loved him, always knowing it.

Thoughts on MJHT - SG

The most cliched, hackneyed start - stud boy meets nerd girl, specs and all. A raw actor with poor dialogue delivery and worse expressions. A pretty heroine who did nothing but whimper with nervousness, or cry - both my pet peeves. So where did the SG story hook me?
Not the start - definitely. I watched the first two-three episodes and gave it up completely! Didn't see it at all the next few months. Happened to see a couple of promos, which didn't really interest me. Then DMG started going down the tubes and I started putting on the tv five-ten minutes before it started and would catch the last 5-10 minutes of MJHT - around the Valentine's Day episodes and MN's Ahmedabad trip.
I enjoyed the MN ahmedabad trip, the lost in the jungle sequences and the night in the house - mainly for Nupur's bubbly acting. I loved SG during the question answer session when they knew each other inside out - this was my idea of love. And I got hooked on SG during Khuda Jaane. Defining moment.
Their chemistry was electric, their thoughts, their feelings tangible, their dance, especially Gunjan's graceful movements, hypnotic. The way they looked at each other and smiled, their comfort levels were obvious. Khuda Jaane to me is still a completely SG song - I had to watch it again to remember where MN even featured in it. It hooked me - so I went back in time and saw the old episodes on youtube and I found that what was the most cliched love story in the book had turned into a beautiful poignant love story which had echoes in my own life and that of people I knew. It was real, it was believable and it was beautfully portrayed.
My favourite moments - Dia telling Gunjan about the bet out of spite, Gunjan, hurt to the core, hiding her feelings, carrying on with her exams, deciding not to tell Samrat she knows about it till the exams are over, because she will help him till the end as she has promised - and she does. The sequence in his house where he knows something is wrong - ah, they have already developed such an understanding - and asks her, she doesn't reply directly, but tells him that she will keep her promise. The end of the exams - Samrat looking for her, his expression of anguish when he says - 'Chashmish, where are you? and what is it that you're hiding from me which is worrying you so much?' And then the break - of friendship, as they call it - but it's already so obvious that they are deeply in love.
These few scenes were the defining moments of their relationship for me. I fell in love with the Gunjan I saw in them - quiet, yet strong, unbearably hurt by someone she had learned slowly to trust, yet dignified to the core even after what she saw as his betrayal. She has not raised her voice even once during this entire year and her personality has been the strongest. Her voice modulation is simply amazing - I hear her on sbs and other interviews and she has a harsh, almost shrill voice. On screen, it sounds as though she has dipped it in honey. Her personality in real life is a complete contrast to Gunjan - they seem to be polar opposites, yet when she plays Gunjan, it's as though she cannot be any different.
As for Samrat - hats off to Mohit, for he has really come a long way in terms of acting skills. He was an unconvincing stud of the college - even now, he cannot really portray anger or even attitude - I feel from his offscreen interviews that he is just too sweet a guy! But he has progressed a long way and emotes really well now - much better than he did earlier. He still has some way to go, but he is definitely watchable and believable now. Helps that his character is a sweetheart as well - though the 'dhakkan' phase irritated the life out of me!
I hated the Weeping Willow phase of Gunjan - to me, that was not Gunjan as I loved her. Am so glad that the quietly strong girl seems to be on her way back, and am thrilled that their love story is finally, hopefully! reaching its climax. Looking forward to Morena!

Thoughts on MJHT - MN

Wonder where the MN story is heading. If I was the writer, I would be doing a compare contrast between SG and MN - one pair building up love through a beautiful friendship, where both are interdependent on each other, both are closest to each other and have complete trust in each other - and the other , a love story which started on the basis of almost nothing and still seems to me to be more infatuation than love. Where is the love story in MN? They started off by fighting - one of the most cliched, hackneyed starts (the other being the stud boy meets nerd girl of SG) which so many stories have used, including the famous Armaan Riddhima story - they carried on fighting and they still continue fighting, on the silliest of issues. Their story has progressed at breakneck speed - they met, fought, got attracted, confessed, fought, made up, fought again, made up again ... and are still fighting.
So my question - are they really in love at all?

Mayank - studious quiet guy, not exactly a nerd - all the girls wanted to get near him, but he wasn't interested. So why did Nupur manage to get under his skin? because she was bold and bubbly, because she was everything he didn't like - loud, filmy, over the top, a chatterbox ... and yet, completely comfortable in her own skin? As he was - is that what attracted him? Or what it something more basic - pure physical attraction to a girl whom he could not ignore? Nupur is the first girl who managed to get close to him, the first girl he couldn't manage to ignore, she got under his skin so he had to notice her, interact with her - so is she just an infatuation? Does he really know her? what makes her tick? And if he doesn't, isn't this just infatuation - and not really love? Add to it his obsessive need to keep their relationship secret ... isn't that a sign that he himself isn't sure where they're heading?

Nupur - is she in love with Mayank? Or is she in love with Raj ... with Mayank's face? Her thought processes are easier to follow if I assume the latter. She was always ready to fall in love, she was on the lookout for her Prince Charming, her Raj all along, unlike her studious, quiet sister. And the first guy who first confused the wits out of her, then aroused strong emotions of anger, even hate in her then started behaving strangely, giving her long deep meaningful looks - at least I think that's what they were supposed to be, but AB is a wooden faced actor, so can never be sure ... no wonder the girl started thinking there was something between them. And he was always the one pushing her to declare her feelings - she was never sure it was love - the part I find very believable!!! It was the events in her sister's life which pushed her into declaring her feelings, which made her feel that she was luckier than her sister to have a boy who loved her and she should probably hang onto him. But does she really, truly love him? Or does she love Raj?

It may build into love ... later. As they get to know each other, flaws, warts and all. But to me, at the moment, it isn't love - yet. And if I watch the story from that perspective, then the MN story still has a long way to go. Because it really hasn't started yet.

Changing Shades 10

Leaving her completely and absolutely stupefied, and for once, totally bereft of words, he disappeared.

Aditya drove home, his brain reeling. He had picked up the phone by a genuine mistake. He hadn't heard the ring – it was never directly transmitted to him in his office, but always went to Anjali's desk first. He just hadn't noticed the green light when he punched the button for a line, and had inadvertently found himself eavesdropping on a conversation he was definitely not supposed to overhear. His first instinct had been to cut the line – but something in the caller's voice, and Mansi's hushed, almost scared tones had stopped him from doing so, and he found himself listening. He didn't hear all the conversation, only the latter half, but it was enough. Enough to make him realise that something was terribly, terribly wrong. That Mansi's life was not the ideal holiday he had assumed it to be, and had found pleasure in savagely punishing with his cruel taunts.

He had known – oh, of course he had known that she was not happy at work, but naively, egotistically, he had assumed her discomfort to be due to his presence there, and to her own guilt at having turned him down so many years ago, a tacit admission that he was right about his reasons for her marrying Manish. He had been blind, blind to her feelings, except with regard to his own, his unrequited love had turned into an almost blind hatred, an unbearable jealousy of Manish; every time he visualized them together, a red cloud obscured his thinking, and he couldn’t look beyond that, couldn’t imagine that she could have other troubles than the ones he had found pleasure in giving her at the office.

He cursed himself for his blindness, his selfishness, his ego. As he drove home, he remembered again and again, the ever-present worry and tension in her face, the dark circles under her eyes, the strain in her voice, her posture…everything he had never noticed in her presence came back to haunt him on that short ride home.

He reached home, and made a few quick calls, one to his travel agent, one to a hotel in Kathmandu, and then one to a special contact, a man who owed him a few favours.

Mansi stretched tiredly as the plane touched down, completely exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to get to the nearest bed, and sleep, preferably for ever, she thought, with a grimace. She had barely slept at night what with the tension of anticipation, and had been up early packing and mentally preparing herself for what she might find waiting for her in Kathmandu. Then the wait for the flight, which had, of course, been delayed, and finally the touchdown in a strange town, where she knew no one, except the person who was supposedly waiting for her. The next few hours promised to be the most traumatic ones in her life, she thought and she braced herself mentally as she left the plane and looked around for the man who had promised to be there.

The man was waiting for her, as he had promised. He was a small, thin Nepalese, with a tired, but kind face, and he smiled at her as she approached him.

“Mansi Dewan?” he asked, and when she nodded, he took her case, and led her out.

“I'm sorry to rush you like this, but we really haven't much time,” he said. “I was so afraid I wouldn't be able to find you in time. You don't know how many Dewans there are in Bombay!”

“Where are we going?” asked Mansi, as he ushered her into a waiting car. Neither of them noticed a man in a long overcoat and cap pulled over his eyes following them, nor did they see the car that he got into immediately behind them, which promptly pulled away from the kerb, and followed them into the traffic.

“To the hospital,” replied the other, and held out his hand to her for the first time. “I'm Raj Bahadur, by the way. Pratibha, my sister has told me about you. You don't know her, but she knows you very well. She…she…” he stopped, and looked away. To her horror, Mansi saw a tear roll down his cheek. He looked back at her.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “Maybe it's better she tell you herself.”

“Tell me what?” asked Mansi, completely nonplussed, but Raj Bahadur shook his head, and didn't say much more till they reached their destination.

Mansi got out wonderingly, and looked around her. It was early evening now, and getting dark, but the hospital was well lit, and she could see that it was not very large, but scrupulously clean. Raj Bahadur led the way in, and up the stairs into a landing, where a young girl was waiting anxiously. As they came up, she looked at them eagerly, and Mansi saw that she was very pretty, but very, very thin, almost as though something had eaten her away, to the point of emaciation. She was also, Mansi realised immediately, very sick. She made no attempt to get up from her wheelchair, and her arm, where it lay on the arm of the chair, had tubes running into it.

“Mansi?” said the girl, hesitantly, and Mansi nodded, and came over to her. The girl shrank back.

“No! Don't touch me! Please!”

Mansi looked at her, then back at Raj Bahadur helplessly. “Why? Will one of you please tell me what's going on? What's the matter? And where is Manish? You called me all the way here at a moment's notice for him – where is he? And who are you?”

The girl looked at her helplessly.

“Please, Mansi, Please sit down. I have to tell you everything, and there's not much time. Not for him, anyway. I'm Pratibha.”

“That doesn't tell me anything,” said Mansi, evenly. Pratibha looked at her miserably.

“Manish and I were married about eight months ago,” she said, softly, watching Mansi's face.

Mansi went blank.

She looked at the girl in front of her, her brain in total shock. She tried to speak, but no words came. Her head whirled, and she actually felt giddy for a moment. She put out a hand to steady herself, oblivious of the worried glances of the brother and sister looking at her.

“Married?” she whispered. “Married you…eight months… married?”

Then, with a supreme effort, she collected her scattered wits slowly. She looked at both of them, her face still mirroring her shock, and Raj Bahadur rushed to get her a glass of water. Pratibha looked at her anxiously.

“I'm sorry,” she said, weakly, and Mansi could see the physical effort it took for the girl to speak, her voice coming in short breaths. “He told me he didn't love you, that you didn't love him, had never loved him. I still would not have married him, it was enough for me to just live with him. He didn't want to go back, you know. But when I became pregnant, he insisted we get married. He wanted his child to have his name, and later, when we both became sick, we knew we had to. We didn't know whether the child would survive, whether I would survive, but we knew he would not. And Raj can't look after a child. His only hope was you.”

“Wait,” said Mansi, slowly, painfully. “Tell me the whole story from the start.”

So Pratibha told her. It was a pathetic story, and a short one. Manish had met Pratibha at one of the hangouts for young drug addicts. They both were on drugs, they both enjoyed each other's company, and they found living together, a natural solution. Manish wired his parents for money – the last letter they had received, after which they had sold their business, and moved to Bombay. He kept wiring them for more money, not knowing that his letters went unopened. He never believed their threats, never believed that they would not, and could not, give him any more. But within a couple of months of being with Pratibha, Manish discovered he had AIDS.

Mansi gasped. Pratibha looked at her squarely.

“I didn't leave him. How could I? He had nobody. His parents were not answering his letters, neither were you. So I stayed with him, looked after him. Then I discovered I was pregnant. I just didn't know what to do. I didn't want the baby to be sick. So I went back to my brother. Manish followed me, and insisted I marry him. He said I needn't stay with him, but if we got married here, in Nepal, at least the baby would be registered as his, under his name. It would be legitimate. We were both hoping the baby would be all right. He even promised to give up drugs, if the baby was okay. He wanted me to stay away till the baby arrived, then test it to check. I agreed. He had already told me about his marriage to you, about his father, and how scared he was of him, everything. So we got married, and I stayed with Raj. Till the next bombshell.”

She looked at Mansi again.

“I got TB. I could take some of the medicines, but not all, because of the baby, and TB here in Nepal is drug-resistant – my infection hasn’t been responding to much. We didn’t know whether I would get better or not. We were both shell shocked – we didn't know what to do. For a while we thought of aborting the baby – what was the use of bringing it into this world, when both parents might be dead before long? But while I was pregnant, without my knowledge, Manish started trying to track you down. He thought his parents would have nothing to do with the baby, but he thought…he hoped that you might. He sent Raj, as he was already unable to travel. Raj, bless him, went all the way to Delhi to look for you. He didn’t find you, of course, the people at the house had no idea where you were. With great difficulty, he traced your lawyer, then found you had moved to Bombay. By that time, Manish was in such a state that he couldn't give any names of anybody you might know in Bombay. So Raj started calling up all the Dewans in the phone book one by one. That's how he found you. We had to find you. You were our only hope.”

Mansi swallowed. “Where…where is Manish now?” she asked, almost in a whisper. Raj got up.

“I'll take you to him,” he said. “But be prepared. He will not know you.”

Mansi smiled bitterly.

“He’ll know me,” she said flatly. “He knows me better than I did myself.”

She followed Raj into the small hospital room. And saw her husband for the first time in two years.

She hardly recognized him. He lay, frail and thin, under the covers, an emaciated hand peeping out from the sheet, into which a clear plastic tube dripped fluids. His eyes were closed, and he breathed heavily and noisily. Wires ran from his chest electrodes up to the shelf behind his bed, where the heart and blood pressure monitors bleeped their warnings, and an irregular green tracing paced repetitively across the screen.

He was sleeping. Or was he? The nurse, dressed in protective clothing, gloves, and a mask, looked up at them, and bent back to her work of adjusting the drip rate.

“Visitors? Now? Visiting hours are over.”

“She's just got in from Bombay,” explained Raj Bahadur. The nurse looked at her.

“You may be too late,” she said, not unkindly. “He's been like this for the last couple of weeks. He drifts in and out, but it's not so frequent now.”

“What's happening to him?” asked Mansi, and then felt foolish for asking. The nurse looked at her consideringly.

“You know he has AIDS?” As Mansi nodded, she went on.

“Well, that means his immune system is knocked out. So he's prone to getting bugs which would not bother normal people. Also some cancers. He's got a tumour in the brain, which is making him unconscious from time to time. Now and then we manage to bring down the pressure on his brain, and he becomes lucid. Then he goes off again. He's got a skin cancer. He's got fungus all over his intestines, and that is not responding to any treatment. Then one of his lungs also has a fungus, a different one. What we're worried about, is that the fungus in the lungs may have infected his heart.”

Mansi sat down. It was too much for her. Pratibha wheeled herself in and looked at her. She made as if to say something, then a sound from the bed stopped them both. They whirled around to the bed.

Manish had opened his eyes, and was staring vacantly around.

Pratibha wheeled her chair to his side, and took his hand. “Manish,” she said, softly. “I'm here. I'm here. Can you hear me?”

The hand in hers twitched, then his gaze seemed to become more focussed. He looked at her.

“Pratibha,” his voice was slurred, laborious.

“Did you find them? Did you find ma and baba?”

Pratibha held his hand tightly.

“Manish?” she spoke clearly, slowly. “Can you hear me? Yes, I did find them. I found Mansi, Manish. I found Mansi. She's here. Can you see her?”

Mansi moved so that Manish could see her directly. She felt numb, incapable of speech. Manish turned slightly, and gazed at her vacantly. Then his eyes seemed to focus, and she saw them light with recognition. He struggled for speech.

“Mansi? It's really you?”

She nodded. It was all she was capable of doing.

He spoke again, slowly, with effort, and she could see the pain and the concentration it took for him to stay there, to orient himself.

“How long has it been? Years? Mansi, I'm sorry.”