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kunalkarankapoor · 5 years

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The character study of Mohan Bhatnagar.

This is the seventh part of the character study of Mohan Bhatnagar. Tomorrow I will be posting the final parts which revolve around the character of Vasu.

17) Mohan and Megha

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Video Link: Mohan/Megha Relationship Study

I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.

Plath

This. This was a relationship that I thought a lot about, turning every scene and spoken work in my head, scrutinising it all to figure out if perhaps I was being too harsh when I concluded that Megha was Mohan’s bane. But regardless of how much I wanted Megha to be good for Mohan, to be right for him, it was not happening. The song choice was on purpose, of course. Because there were times when I wondered if perhaps Mohan was wasting his life, his young years, on a woman who was not worth the fight, in the end. Harsh? Yes, perhaps. But I would like to start from the beginning.

The initial clashes between Mohan and Megha were not of a romantic sort. Mohan would be chasing Koyal around Indore, distracted, impatient, and Megha would somehow end up in his path. He would be sarcastic, provocative, and not bother with any explanations. Frankly, it was refreshing. It was refreshing to see a character that was not swayed by external beauty; to see a character that was incredibly passionate about his work. Their collisions never ended well. They ended with Mohan flapping sarcasm in her face and Megha insulting him in return. Provoking her quickly became Mohan’s favourite pastime, more so when she was employed at the exact same publishing house as him.

However, Mohan was not a cocky bastard despite being downright rude at times. There was a giant heart inside his chest; one that empathised with others – even if he masked it well. Mohan could not ignore someone’s pain, regardless of how hard he tried (e.g. Nanhi in the elevator, Papaji when he lost the case in court and had an asthma attack, Megha when Nanhi “ran away from home” and she could not find her, or when the parents of the victims in the crash came to Mohan for justice). Mohan had to help. It was in his blood, in his nature.

A friendship soon formed between Mohan and Megha despite his article on Amar. However, much like their romantic relationship, it did not stand on a solid foundation, but often crumbled. In its initial phase, there were some quite entertaining situations where Mohan and Megha bonded without even realising it. An example would be the “elevator” episodes in which they were both stuck in an elevator at the mall, forcing them to spend “quality time” together. Mohan almost convinced Megha that if they jumped, the elevator would move. It was one of the rare times that one saw Megha with a childish spirit as she jumped alongside Mohan in order to reactivate the elevator.

What provided a feistier side to their relationship was their opposite world views, e.g. when they debated the content of an article and Mohan was much more focused on the story whereas Megha focused on the people in the story. (However, this did not fit into Mohan’s characterisation because being a reporter of crime, his mission was justice to the people. Thus Megha was given a dialogue that actually should have come from Mohan. The other reporters might have been mechanical and cold in their approach with news/articles, but Mohan was depicted as a reporter with an extraordinary empathic ability.)

Yet Mohan respected Megha despite her opinionated nature, even though her pride tended to hijack her emotions and she refused to admit it when she was in the wrong about something. The fact that Megha made mistakes did not deter Mohan. Instead he would confront her (e.g. when she slapped Nanhi in front of him and later scolded her after they found her in a park). Mohan was always very patient with Megha’s stubbornness and pride, even when he reached a breaking point. The only time that he took the choice out of her hands was when he confessed his love in front of her entire family (and even then, he did not force her to choose him). He had stayed silent because he did not want to put Megha in hurtful situation. But when he confessed for both of them, it was one of the most courageous and right decisions of his life. Waiting for Megha to break the news would have been hopeless since she would have married the doctor (that is, if her family had not demanded the truth from her in the wake of Mohan’s confession).

I was immensely frustrated with Megha at this point. I realised one essential thing about her character. She always victimised herself. She pitied herself. It was a habit that she might have developed around the time that she lost her husband. But either way, it was a frustrating habit that simply made her desicions so completely irrational and inconsistent. When she refused to marry Mohan, she made his mother the reason for it. Then, later, she changed her mind, making Mohan’s happiness the reason for her refusal. Yet she would continue to send him mixed signals – pulling and pushing him with a look, a word, or a question. Mohan would find hope and lose it and find it again and lose it again. Megha’s reasons for rejecting him were barely even circumstantial. If she rejected him because because of his mother, then she could have simply been honest with him about it and given him a chance to deal with his mother. With time, she would have accepted Megha (and she evidently did — despite how Megha treated Mohan). If Megha cared for Mohan’s happiness, in the first place, then she should have said yes since Mohan’s happiness was her. But perhaps she failed to grasp that.

To be honest, I would have liked and/or respected her more if she had rejected Mohan because she did not trust him with the responsibility of her children. I would not have branded her an evil witch for having trust issues. In fact, single mothers might have been able to relate to her situation based on the reason mentioned above. Mohan was young and restless. In fact, he could barely even take care of himself. How would he take care of a wife and two children? For Megha, it would have been a fair question. More so, it could have been shown that Megha wanted him solely for selfish reasons, i.e. she wanted to marry him for her own happiness and the guilt of it could have kept her from surrendering to his proposal. If that had been the actual case, then she might not have appeared a selfless and self-sacrificial saint, but she would have been human. And we do not relate to saints. We relate to humans.

I wondered about Mohan; about why he fell in love with Megha. I enjoyed their chemistry. They had some beautiful moments together, some quite memorable moments. But why did he fall in love with her to the extent that it became an obsession? In his drunken state at her house, he confessed that he noticed her strength, her ability to love unconditionally and sacrifice her own happiness for other people. Yet I failed to see all of this in her. I did not see remarkable strength for a widow (e.g. she was not on her own with her children, but she had a support system in her in-laws); she was not uneducated or jobless (and she had a best friend who was more than willing to help her in any case); she was not exceptionally sharp (often she would be oblivious to her surroundings and Mohan’s emotions); she could never see past her own grief (e.g. every time she rejected Mohan, when they lost Addu, when she fed Nanhi’s resentment toward Mohan for 12 years simply because sheresented him, et cetera). Megha had an untouchable aura about her that could make even confident Mohan insecure. There were times when he did not dare to touch her, or as much as look her in the eye.

I concluded that he must have fallen in love with her because of 1) his bond with Nanhi and 2) Guru’s many stories in which he drew comparisons between Mohan/Megha and his own parents and 3) Megha seemed to represent the warmth/purity of a loving woman, a home, and finally 4) Mohan’s own nature.

1) His bond with Nanhi was his first reconnection with the world. It was a breach of his wall. It was his mind opening up to the possibility of allowing people to enter his heart again. 2) Guru’s stories incited the notion that perhaps his admiration/sympathy for Megha was something more. 3) Mohan always craved a stabile home and female warmth. Someone who needed him in return. 4) Mohan as a person was unable to simply relinquish his love/concern for someone that he came to care for, e.g. it took him six years to move on from Rashmi and only because Megha replaced her.

Furthermore, I wondered about Megha’s love for Mohan and concluded that a part of her – at least on a subconscious level – wanted Mohan to herself. If she had actually wanted to share him with anyone else; if she had wanted him to become a part of her world, then she would have introduced him in her family as an authority figure, as the father of Nanhi and Addu, explaining to Nanhi that she could no longer refer to him as Spiderman because what we name a thing or a person matters to how we perceive/view them. Added to that, how was Addu supposed to accept Mohan as a father figure if his sister addressed him as Spiderman (not father) and his mother allowed it? E.g. Megha would rarely reprimand Addu when he disrespected his father and if she had enough presence of mind to do so, she told him not to “speak that way”. She did not tell him not to speak that way “to his father”, which was an essential point to make.

Another reason that I reached the abovementioned conclusion about Megha was that she would playfully question Mohan about how much he loved Nanhi in comparison to her. In my opinion, it was an odd question. I could not understand why she would want to ask her husband who he loved more – his wife or his child. How do you measure and compare love for your own family? And why did it matter to her if he loved her 8 year old daughter more than he loved her? Should it not have been a positive thing that someone loved your fatherless child as much as her biological father would have? Mohan never questioned her love for him, nor did he compare it to her love for her children. In his case, he could never compete with them. But more than that, the idea of it never even crossed his mind.

The scene in which he showed up drunk at her house and confessed his love was when I realised – for the second time – that Megha did not deserve Mohan or his love. Not only was it absolutely frustrating to watch her treatment of him ever since she had blamed him for the Rashmi incident (which she initiated on her own as well as continued the charade despite the fact that Mohan asked her to stay out of it), but I could not comprehend how (as a woman who claimed to love him deeply) she could stand and watch in silence while he stumbled around in her living room, wept, and dropped to his knees in front of her in-laws. Was this the same woman who had defended her dead husband in a court house, face to face with his killer? Was this the same woman who did not shy away from shutting up Renu when she crossed a line? This woman who could not back up the man that she loved as he swayed on his feet – broken and bruised from her consistent and baseless rejection, battered from fighting for her and from the fear of losing her.

Often I could not rationalise Megha’s actions/reactions, e.g. when she wasted 12 years of her life believing that Mohan physically and emotionally abused her son and caused his disappearance. Later, she suddenly realised that since Addu might have been kidnapped, Mohan could not have been abusive – as if Mohan’s abusiveness and Addu’s kidnapping related to each other; as if both incidents could not have taken place, but that one made the other void. There was never a point when Mohan received a clear admission of guilt from Megha. To blame a father of abuse is a severe accusation. Mohan lived with that accusation for 12 years, and ninety-five percent of the reason behind his return was that he needed to prove his innocence – to prove that he was a good man. It would have been nice to see Megha unable to forgive herself for believing such a thing, and perhaps even revealing some amount of self-hatred, e.g. when the truth about Rimjhim being adopted came out and Mohan told her how he found (that he was alone and broken), it would have been the perfect opportunity for Megha to look guilty and blame herself for Mohan’s suffering.

The most prominent issue with Megha was her hypocrisy. Most of the time, she would lecture others. She would preach about love and trust, but when it came to her, the same rules did not apply, e.g. she would claim to have blind faith in Mohan (when Mohan exposed Manav’s past) and yet she was the first one to waver if he was prosecuted (when he handed over the proof of Amar’s innocence to save Nanhi, or when Megha found out about Riddhima). She would be the first one to doubt his intentions. She would be the first one to shut him out of her life. She would be the first one to disown him. Her trust in him and her love for him was not cemented even after he proved his loyalty to her, nursing her back to health in season one. He could have abandoned her. He could have divorced her, washed his hands clean of any kind of responsibility toward her and her children. But he stayed. He adopted the role of a husband, father, mother – and a nurse. It broke him to see her in such a horrid condition, to not be able to fix her. He would cry for her, lie for her, fight for her. Yet she easily distrusted in him.

Perhaps if the channel/writers had not attempted to make her appear a saint, then Megha’s selfishness would not have been so disturbing. It might even have made sense. Why should she not be selfish? She was married young. She was not accepted by her in-laws for a long time. She was alone with two children. She could not shed her dutiful/pure daughter-in-law skin because she lived with her in-laws. She always had to prioritise others before herself; her husband, her children, and her in-laws. Then a young man charmed his way into her heart, making her feel ridiculously free-spirited. He would draw out the child in her. He would draw out a bolder side of her that perhaps she kept suppressed in order to be what others wanted her to be. There were no expectations from Mohan. She did not have to be selfless and strong. In fact, falling in love with Mohan was probably the most selfish thing that she ever did. Mohan breathed life into Megha, but she never realised his value. If she had, she would never have let him walk away from her.

In order to show Megha as a saint, the channel/writers neglected the character/relationship development between Mohan and other people in his life. They would often write Megha into scenes where she had no business being, e.g. when Beera brought a drunken Mohan home and Rimjhim called Megha for advice on how to take care of her unconscious father. Firstly, Megha had not been around every time Mohan had hit rock bottom in the wake of Addu’s disappearance. Guru had. Secondly, since Guru had always been there to pick him up in his alcohol-induced state, Guru knew exactly how to take care of Mohan and he would have removed his shoes, and so on. In addition to that, he would not have allowed Rimjhim to be in the room with him. Personally, I loved the scene in which Rimjhim removed his shoes and tucked him in. But somehow it would have made a much stronger and realistic impact if Guru had been the one to guide her hand, not Megha.

There was love between Mohan and Megha. But it did not run deep (on Megha’s side). Their relationship stood on a shaky foundation of trust-distrust (e.g. there was a moment at Nanhi’s wedding when Renu questioned Mohan about why he had tried to stop the wedding, and Megha told her that Mohan did not need to explain himself to anyone — however, as soon as Renu turned away, Megha questioned Mohan herself, asking him for a reason).

I could tell that the channel/writers were attempting to make it seem as if fate had pushed Mohan and Megha into each other’s lives. Perhaps it had. But every single choice that they made in relation to their relationship was not predestined. They made the choices and they faced the consequences. At one point I wondered about the concept of fate on the show. Perhaps they were not even meant to fall in love. Perhaps Mohan was only put in Megha’s path to clear her husband’s name. People believed that they were separated again and again only to have their bond strengthened when they found each other. What if they were separated again and again because they were not good for each other? What if the separations were really opportunities for them to move forward without each other? It is a matter of interpretation, really.

Something that I always found interesting was how Mohan thrived when Megha was not in his life, e.g. in Bhopal, he became a social worker, he became rich, he raised a beautiful daughter, and he was happy. Yes, there was guilt over what happened to Addu and there was longing for Megha, but looking at Mohan as a character, I believe that he could have found love again and moved on under the right circumstances (e.g. if he did not have to deal with the guilt and if he was not legally married to Megha).

In the end, I believe that Megha destroyed him. That he let her destroy him.

Concluding the study on Mohan (and before moving on to the study on Vasu), I would like to add that Mohan as a crime reporter could have been explored on a more intense level. He had a desire to save the world, to aid those in need of justice – this could have put him in all kinds of dangerous situations which naturally would have put a strain on his and Megha’s relationship. Precious time was often wasted on unnecessary drama when some situations could have been depicted in a more believable manner – and one that stretched on for a while, e.g. when Mohan investigated the case on drug dealing. It was an incredibly disappointing episode that was stitched together in an illogical way (again because the focus was Megha worrying, Megha seeing him getting shot, Megha saving him, et cetera). From the very moment that Mohan entered the warehouse to fix a bulb (something that even Megha knew how to do on her own, but apparently drug dealers did not), snooped around unseen by any of them, to the moment that he ran from them.

There was never any real focus on Mohan as a top-notch crime reporter, his work (at times as a whistleblower), or his methods.

#kunal karan kapoor #artist #actor #ana

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