I’ve always been confused about Khushi’s behavior in the Diwali track in Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?. After the almost-kiss with Arnav, she acts surprisingly normal around Lavanya, even though Arnav is still Lavanya’s boyfriend/fiancé at that point.
Then later, Khushi strongly criticizes Arnav for breaking Lavanya’s heart and ending the engagement. But if Arnav had openly confessed his love for Khushi earlier, do you think Khushi would really have stepped away knowing Lavanya would be heartbroken? Or would she eventually have accepted the relationship despite feeling guilty?
At the same time, Khushi was also under pressure from Buaji to marry Shyam, and she was desperate to get out of that alliance too. So emotionally she was already trapped and confused.
I know this storyline never actually happened in the show, but I sometimes wonder how Lavanya would realistically feel if she knew about the emotional tension and almost-kiss before the engagement ended. Would she still have been as understanding and graceful as the show portrayed her?
It feels like the show wants Khushi to be morally upright while also pushing the Arnav-Khushi romance, and sometimes those two things clash. Was this intentional writing, or just inconsistent characterization?
Okay let me get going into this *cracks fingers*
None of this was inconsistent characterization. Rather, in my eyes, this is when we got to see the meat of the show because it treated each character as multi dimensional - the way people are. And spoke about contradictories.
Arnav - the man who is always clear - made a dubious choice. Now, he has always had great foresight and barely makes impromptu decisions (barring Khushi). Yet he's been on a disaster serious of impromptu decisions. He's also always been a man who has exactly spoken what's on his mind, even straight up cancelling an alliance in front of the family stating the obvious - this would lead to a very unhappy marriage and it's unfortunate his grandmother wasted everyone's time. Yet... yet... with Khushi and this situation he didn't have any answer or almost control over his actions. He literally panics when later the whole family - justifiably - start planning the wedding, that's when it dawns to him on what he has said yes. And when he's able to get back his rationale, he breaks off with La because no matter what, no matter how bitter, he never steps away from the truth. And the truth is Lavanya deserves better, and not be a consequence of his confused mind.
Khushi - who is always morally making the right choice (it's the one of the few dignities she has) - has started a soft emotional affair with a committed man and is trekking on absolute grey waters. She tries to dramatize, fantasize, separate her reality from what she's doing (even in her head) but she's not being the always right heroine we're sold on. She's actually being human. Desire has taken its ugly root in her stomach and there's nothing she can do about it.
And dearest Lavanya - typically the childish, self obsessed woman - for a change knows exactly what's going on but is not verbalizing it. Like Khushi, she knows as long as she does not speak it out loud, it's not real. She knows Khushi means something more because of Khushi's effect on Arnav but she'd rather - happily - have Khushi around her as a band aid solution to her broken relationship with Arnav. Which is why she's not surprised when Arnav breaks off with her. She's just sad that what she feared is what happened.
So as you can see, this is when all of these characters got another dimensionality to them. Delicious!
Diwali Khushi is my favorite Khushi because post the guesthouse/resignation/teej sequence do we see her fleshed out as a complete human being.
I like to think that somewhere down the line given Arnav's own disinterest in pursuing this relationship to marriage, Khushi felt that the relationship between La and Arnav was not going anywhere - so the subconscious fantasy of attraction + pull found a dubious ethical loophole to grow in.
He's not committed - he said so. Lavanya will actually not get married here. Whatever is happening is almost an act by Anjali to keep the peace between Chotte + Nani.
And mind you, it's subconscious, not an active thought of Khushi.
Almost like building a sandcastle - you know it's not a real thing at all but you indulge in it full heartedly with all your passion.
Now Arnav publicly declaring Lavanya as his fiancé hits like a whiplash. In the sense that Khushi's romance was the sandcastle fantasy - not Arnav and La's relationship. And sometimes the easiest way to deal with intense grief is to never speak a word about it.
Pretending that things didn't happen is the only way to heal. Because it also keeps up Khushi's morality. And of course with reality in front of her eyes - Khushi is correctly angry on Arnav.
What was the point of committing to Lavanya if the whole intention was to humiliate her? It's the only time also where she can get angry at him, hate him, for hurting her. Cause this entire situation has been incredibly, socially, terrible for La.
Now if La had seen them almost kiss - of course she would have been angry. Her little reprieve in this entire matter is that Khushi does not know. And Arnav knows, but does not want to accept. This gives her dignity that neither of their two are working on deceiving her actively.
This is a rather lengthy response - hope it answers your questions.
