#right from the get go i was hoping he mentions aditya and he did eventually lololol

[chinaar]

crazy update: saw ranbir in person today :D i've been a fan for at least 10 years now (this blog's first url was "ranbirs" lol) so this was (very!!!) cool! <3

[hirakdesherrani]

“Besharam, Battameez, Khudgarz hota hai....par pyaar toh aisa hi hota hai”

***Caution: The views given below might be highly offensive to some. Please do not read if you feel you will burst a vein. Volenti non fit injuria***

One good thing about catching Bepannaah in the hotel tv this week, is that I could ignore most of the fandom drama. It gives scope for understanding the show without any prejudice, though I can guess the usual female lead bashing that must’ve happened. 

Anyways, so, I dunno about others, but I immensely enjoyed the show this week. Finally, there is story of the affair is out in the open. But umm, their affair doesn't make sense to me, like?? I am not totally satisfied with the explanation given in the show, but that is more due to the sad acting capability of both actors (esp. Namita) than weak writing. 

Let me make it clear that I don’t support cheating or adultery. Not because I hold the institution of marriage in high regard, I don’t. But because, I don’t support lying, dishonesty and subterfuge. Specially lies which will cause everyone involved a lot of pain in the long run. 

I do understand where Zoya’s coming from though. I don’t support her claiming Yash and Pooja’s relationship as “paak” or “pure”. No relationship in this world is pure, except that between a parent and a child (Even that is selfish sometimes, take Kunti and Karan, for example). 

Love and purity are in effect, antonyms. Much as I love DDLJ and the sweet/selfless notion of romantic love, cinema/television likes to propagate, love is actually pretty different. Most of us should be pretty glad that we haven’t experienced true love. Love is terrifying. As a child, I used to like the enchanting melodies of Rabindra sangeet, but as I grew up I understood what the lyrics meant and further, I read quite a few stories penned by Tagore. The more I read, the more I understood that romance is not the utopia we make it out to be. Love is this uncontrollable fury, which does not recognize right or wrong. Love is scary, because the first sacrifice it demands is love itself. Then it demands the sacrifice of respect, for others and and our own-selves. 

Lets just face the fact, that majority of people are enraged at Zoya saying “Yash and Pooja deserve their happy ending” because Zoya’s ideas of love endanger the carefully controlled society governed by its set of rules. As much as our generation wants to pretend that we will rebel against the rules, we really don’t know or want to face the consequences of breaking the society’s rules. 

Question is if Yash and Pooja’s relationship was wrong, then why is it wrong? Is it wrong because it is out of wedlock, because it insults marriage? But is marriage right? Who says so? The society? The law? The fact is that a substantial number of marriages in India are nothing but an euphemism for modern slavery. I would even say that prostitution is better, because at least the woman is paid for offering her body. The opposite happens in marriage where the girl’s family pays the boy’s family to take off the girl from their hands. The girl becomes an unpaid slave of the boy’s family, serving his physical needs at night and doing gulaami of him and his family during the day. The only ray of some joy in that girl’s life is when she becomes a mother. Situation gets better if she gives birth to a son, which is why mothers of sons are always on a “mera heera beta” high. 

Lets take Zoya and Yash’s relationship for instance. Yash kept Zoya separate from his family, from Mumbai, tucked away in the hills. He provided for her with luxuries, no doubt, but never really shared his problems, or even his life with her. Zoya had no idea what was going on in his life, beyond the surface. In this scenario, its going to sound offensive, but Zoya was no better than Yash’s mistress. Yash shared more of his joys, his problems with Pooja. A marriage is based on mutual affection, respect and understanding. No doubt Yash loved Zoya in his own way, but his true marriage was with Pooja, and not Zoya. I’m not defending Yash, or putting the blame on Zoya, but these are the bare facts. One thing I really appreciated was when Yash tried to convince Pooja that they are doing a great disservice to Zoya and Adi by keeping the truth from them. They are depriving Zoya and Adi their shot, their chance at finding true soulmates/partners who would give them the love they deserve. Not only are they deceiving AdiYa, but also being unfair to them. Zoya would definitely hate him when she comes to know the truth, but later she would understand. 

And Zoya understood. Sooner or later, even without Pooja’s existence or intervention, Zoya and Yash’s relationship would’ve broken apart. There was no respect, understanding or trust in their relationship. Yash never trusted Zoya enough to share his problems with her, and Zoya never understood Yash enough to see that he’s in a mess. How long could such a relationship last? Zoya would have to eventually wake up from this dream. Its just unfortunate that Zoya rudely woken up from that dream and thrown straight into a nightmare, but that’s how life is. Its brutal and unfair. 

I always appreciated Zoya for her emotional maturity and empathy. She still has her grudge against Yash, but that has not blinded her to what is right and wrong. Yash was a bad businessman, he cheated his wive, he cheated his mother and sister too in a way, but the bottomline is that he did not commit suicide. And he did not drive Pooja to her death; he is not a murderer. Zoya is not trying to prove Yash innocent, even if she manages to prove that Yash and Pooja had an affair, Yash is going to be slandered, his name is still going to be in mud. But a person should be punished for crimes he committed, not for crimes he did not commit. Zoya and Arjun are actually doing the right and ethical thing in this scenario. How are we judging them for standing with truth and justice?

Also, more importantly, I’ve mentioned before that Zoya was like a sixteen-year old in love but nonetheless her love was bepannaah, limitless. A love like that is irrational and unreasonable. So, even if Yash is dead, and it probably makes no difference to him whether he is accused of murder or adultery, Zoya is still going to clear his name, because of her bepannaah mohabbat for Yash. She has to do this final thing for Yash so that she can be free from her guilt of failing as a wife, and because she loves him. What she is doing will most definitely endanger her own freedom, and might put her behind bars, but love is irrational. She does not want to endanger Aditya’s freedom as well. Which is why she is hoping that Aditya will cooperate with her and try to find a way in which they don’t end up in prison again. 

But Aditya also cared for Pooja. Yes, Aditya always, always thinks of himself (and now his family) first. But Pooja is his best friend. If it is proved that Yash and Pooja had an affair, then Pooja’s name will be slandered. And Aditya does not want that, which is why he almost raised his hand when Zoya merely suggested that as an example, to show how wrong it was to charge Yash with something he had not done. Aditya just loves himself a lot. Don’t get me wrong, he cares for others also, take a complete stranger like Bella for example, or saving Zoya’s life multiple times. But essentially Aditya is a self-centered person, and his point of thought is how things are affecting him. Like Zoya said, Aditya thinks he is perfect and if anything bad happens to him, then it is someone else’s fault, and they’ve betrayed him. Its always about him. Only in his most vulnerable state, like when he was high on meds, did Aditya confess that if Pooja loved Yash she should’ve told him, its the betrayal, the lies that have broken him. 

At this point, the story is about Zoya’s bepannaah mohabbat for Yash, however stupid it might seem to us, and Aditya’s bepannaah mohabbat for himself. And I’m curious to see how the writers proceed with the narrative from here. Just hoping they don’t ruin it.