Originally posted by: sashashyam
Shyamala Di as usual your post was as good as it can get in the defence of Jalandhar...I have certain concerns though which I am certain you would be able to address ...here I go (can you not tell I love talking to you😊)
A young member was lamenting here about having fallen in love with Jalandhar, for now she was not sure how she was going to cope with his inevitable destruction.
I want to tell her, and all those who feel as she does, "You fell in love with him because he is not a villain. He is a tormented, twisted, tragic soul, whom no one helped when he needed it "
There are many characters in the mythology who have endured much worst circumstances and survived it and come out of it in flying colors...Eklavya comes to my mind...so does Karn ...all great in their own right and then some...none became what Jalandhar did...why were they not a tragic soul...how could they retain their inherent righteousness but not Jalandhar...was Karn's situation any better than his?? I see a tragic hero in Karn always some how Jalandhar's supersized ego puts me off...
For that is the plain truth. There is much that many of the protagonists - Shukracharya above all, Narada, Lakshmi and even Mahadev - could have done to prevent Jalandhar from turning to this self-destructive path, and threatening to take everyone and everything down with him. But none of them did anything. Instead, each of them seems to have made matters much worse.
shukracharya has already done a whole lot for him already he forgot all that in a moment ...you know I feel the failure of Shukracharya was In his upbringing...he was instilled with a strong sense of supremacy by shukracharya as he was a part of shiva his lord...and this became the reason of Jalandhar's failure. I actually pity shukyacharya...poor soul has tried everything with the asura .(manifestations of Tamogun) but something or the other goes wrong every time. If I put my self in his shoes and if I ever had a son who was a shivansh I would hide this fact from him like anything...for
1) fear that the reverence that Shiva gets my son would feel entitled to it ...though he is not unless he attains complete shivattva. This sense of entitlement will be his down fall.
2) Shiva according to me is in layers in ascending order that is tam,rajas, sat, and then nirvikar...above all unconditional love...how do I know which part of shiv is my son a part. SHukrachrya being as learned and aware as he was I quite certain he was aware that Jalandhar was a part of tamogun ( born because of anger) means he knew if not today then tomorrow he is bound to become I don't know how to write like you do but I hope am making sense...The very realization that he is shivansh brings him closer to his doomsday
Jalandhar is a basically a tragic figure, as vulnerable emotionally as he is invulnerable on the battlefield. Right now, he is being eaten up from inside by, as Nikhila pointed out correctly, insecurity. But not insecurity vis a vis himself, for he is fearless, as Mahadev himself notes. Rather insecurity vis a vis his loved ones, once his mother and now Vrinda.
Insecurity...I understand that...but the way his insecurity is manifested does not makes sense...what is visible is mainly his ahankaar rather than insecurity...
Plus he has a sense of having been profoundly humiliated in front of his subjects by Mahadev, when he announces that Jalandhar is his ansh, and thus inferior to him (or so Jalandhar sees it, not without reason). It is this which drives him now to declare war on the Tridev, with the aim of regaining the respect of his subjects.
I understand that he was disturbed to know his Identity but ...he was humiliated why so...because people bowed down to the ultimate nirvikaar swaroop...or because that nirvikar shiv did not cave in to his humiliation...I felt he was rather intimidated by shiva Than humiliated...my POV
The same sense of humiliation makes him act extra brash and arrogant vis a vis Mahadev, whom he sees, wrongly but unwaveringly, as the fountainhead of the inequality between the devas and the asuras that has always prevailed. As Shukracharya has by now lost all credibility with him,
@ bold so true but so unabsorbable...any reasonably sensible person who would have been in a predicament like Jalandhar would have remembered every act of kindness done on him by Shukracharya...so easily his love and kindness was all forgotten...Years of goodness all thrown down the drain...I cant imagine how lost shukrachrya would have felt...that tells how well he could take someone who did not conform to his vision of righteousness...this is like a personality flaw rather than circumstantial...he looks governed by typical asuri pravrittis...main hi main hoon...aur mere saath hi galat hua hai keval...aur main hi sab kuch sahi karoonga...ahankaar personified.
Jalandhar pays no heed to his guru's praise of Mahadev's sense of fairplay vis a vis the asuras.
So he marches up to the Brahmalok, and confronts Mahadev like an angry teenager spewing contempt for the world of grown ups. He taunts Mahadev in a manner that seems more childish than anything else, and his continuous advance in defiance of Mahadev's warnings is a typical, brash dare.
One has also to remember that Jalandhar seems to have come straight from the age of 8 to adulthood, without the interim years of slow growth, mentally and emotionally, which leads a child thru the troubled teens to maturity. He is thus like an artificially ripened fruit, with all the defects inherent in such a product.
Thus, the disastrous outcome of this first encounter with Mahadev does not sober Jalandhar any more than a rough encounter with the law would have sobered James Dean. It only makes things worse, and stokes a burning desire to get his own back.
Now much of this could have been prevented, in the first place, by Shukracharya. A guru has the duty to guide, correct and protect his shishya even when he is misguided. Shukracharya should have told Jalandhar all about the Tridev and explained the essence of Mahadev a long time before he finally comes clean a week ago. He should also have simultaneously assured Jalandhar that he cared for him like a son, and that he would stop him from going on the wrong path. Then things could have been very different.
@ bold I doubt that mainly because he tends to forget love very easily ...even though Vrinda is his shield and he is aware of that...he seems to be so lost in himself that he has literally forgotten her...would Jalandhar have cared about any assurance I doubt that too...his driving force is not love but revenge...anger...dvesh...Shukrachrya's Failure does not rest in the fact that he did not explain the trinity to him or the essence of Shiva but it rests In that he brought him up to be the uddharak or the benefactor of asurs. In the course of this special nurturing Shukrachrya was successful in creating a ruler who is just and a strategist and fearless warrior but he lacks objectivity and compassion.
The trust deficit produced in Jalandhar by the sudden revelation that his guru is a Mahadev bhakt is like a child suddenly learning that it has been adopted.
He had been adopted he knew that always...a part of any guru is always personal to him...a guru is not bound to impart all his personal imformation to a shishya ...mahadev bhakti to shukracharya is a personal choice...it should have never been put to question...this also shows one more aspect Jalandhar...had he ever cared to learn more about his teacher... the first thing he would have learnt would have been that he is a shiv bhakt...a known fact as transparent and bright as day light itself...but he never cared to know who his guru is as a person, his ideals, his life, his goals...he is oblivious to all that...this shows that Jalandhar hardly cared to look into anyone unless that one threatened him...the extent of his efforts to learn about the weaknesses of shiva is worth a clap ...but did he ever try to find out anything about his guru...why??
There is a double anger and fear that surface then - anger at what he sees as abandonment by the birth parents, and fear that the adoptive ones do not love him as much as if he had been their own child. Jalandhar now feels betrayed by the guru he had totally trusted all his life, and this pushes him to even worse follies. The blame for this is as much Shukaracharya's as Jalandhar's, if not more, for the guru is wiser and has to be more responsible than his pupil.
@ bold absolutely true but my reasons are different
Even when things are going from bad to worse and Jalandhar approaches him for his advice, Shukracharya does not tell him that he will come to the court provided Jalandhar promises to respect his advice and follow it. That just might have worked, and the march on Brahmalok prevented.
@bold This would have been too little too late...having said that Shukracharya has more than ample time proved to him that he will come to his rescue he brought Vrinda to the battle field is the latest one that I can recall...if he still needs words...then words will never suffice for him.
Instead, Shukracharya turns his back on Jalandhar at the moment when he is needed the most, and when he could have exerted a moderating influence. He was treated with total contempt by most of the asuras earlier, but now when he has the shishya he had waited for all his life, it is he who fails him.
The irony of Shukrachrya rests in the fact that he is a Guru to asura's who are guided by the worst of all the dark qualities...ahankaar...and the desire of power...that clouds one's reason.
by gentle and reassuring persuasion. She does manage to some extent, but as he will not turn to her for advice on strategy or tactics,
@ bold agreed but my question is why does he not ...is she beneath him being a women...or what else...
he is left without any worthwhile support at the most crucial juncture. Moreover, his resentment at her having pleaded with Mahadev to spare him rankles deeply, and undercuts her influence over him.
Nor is Mahadev free of blame for what Jalandhar has become. Having let Indra off for the cold blooded murder of Trishira, an ascetic engaged in tapas, it is Mahadev who gives birth to Jalandhar, so to speak. Why then does he not take any responsibility for his offspring? Why does he not punish Indra for murdering Jalandhar's mother? What does he mean when he declares that he will be responsible for all of Jalandhar's actions, good or bad? One does not see him doing anything to demonstrate this sense of responsibility.
again anamolies in our mythology...now shiv never meant to say he would be responsible for his good or bad actions... what he meant to say was he will be uttardayi...or answerable...I again hope I was able to bring out my point here ... In hindi Dayitva is responsibility and uttardayitva is answerabilty...shiva is right he is and will always be answerable as he is a shivansh so why was he not looked after by shiva...the question will always be put up to shiva...
Not that this comes as a surprise, for when it comes to parenting, Mahadev is clearly of the Victorian school of sternness and rigid rules. If it had not been for Parvati's intervention after Kartikeya leaves Kailash in a huff about Ganesha have been declared the pratampoojya, Mahadev would have left him to get back home or not as he chose. Again when, after Parvati has lost her memory, Kartikeya argues with his father demanding that Mahadev bring his mother back, he is dismissed curtly, with little understanding for his anguish. But later, the same plea from Ganesha meets with a far more indulgent response and Mahadev gets set on the ashtanga yoga path to help Parvati regain her memory.
Since you have brought about a difference in shiva's dealings with both his sons I would like to point out the difference between both his sons too...not only in the show but also in real( as per the purans) For Ganesh shiva and parvati are not only parents but also his Guru...Ganesh has and will always have a better understanding of what shiva stood for... he was far more devoted than is kartikeya...Ganesh acts more as a disciple than as a son...Ganesh as such is very dependent on shiva and parvati...he seeks more guidance from them... where as kartik is far more independent and assertive...ganesh never wanted to seek an identity independent from shiva or parvati...where as kartik at a very early age wanted to carve his own nook...not that it is bad but what I am trying to say is they are different individuals they cannot be dealt in the same manner...he is indulgent towards Ganesh because Ganesh indulges his dad too.
Jalandhar, if one considers him as a sort of child of Mahadev's, clearly falls into the Kartikeya category, or perhaps into that of the very arrogant and difficult original Ganesha. No wonder he is going to end up decapitated as well!
while
To revert, why does Devi Lakshmi not announce her kinship with Jalandhar to him as soon as she stops Narayan from using the sudharshan chakra on him, as requested by Indra? If she had done that, it would have made a huge difference to his blind hatred of the devas.
Why does Narada go to Jalandhar's coronation as King of the Asuras and provoke him with barbed remarks?
Instead of doing anything to give Jalandhar a sense of emotional security and proper guidance,and thus try to avert the looming disaster that threatens, all of these personages seem to be waiting for an excuse to justify killing him.
It was not Jalandhar's fault that Mahadev accepted Brahaspati's fraudulent arguments in favour of his charge, Indra, and did not annihilate him for the murder of Trishira. If Mahadev had not gone soft at that juncture, there would have been no Jalandhar, and none of the present crisis.
Now Jalandhar is caught up in a vortex of paranoia, and not even Vrinda can reach him and pull him out of the darkness into which he is slipping deeper and deeper. Consumed by a raging desire to get even with Mahadev, he is losing the sense of right and wrong, the very nobility that prevented him from attacking the unarmed Kartikeya after Indra murders Vritrasura by treachery.
So he will have to be destroyed, in an awful and avoidable waste of such a tremendous potential for good, of so much courage and so much energy.
And if the Vrinda story is going to develop as in the puranas, Narayan's deceit would be the worst of all. It is no use excusing it saying that he was defending dharma. Mahatma Gandhi would have been categoric on this; one cannot defend dharma thru adharmic actions, and what Vishnu is said to have done with Vrinda is inexcusable.
defending dharma is not a debatable issue...we have made it debatable is the reason behind all our downfalls...Narayan's deceit is exactly the same what Jalandhar attempted with Parvati...now if Parvati could identify Jalandhar...then why could Vrinda not...Satitva is measured with the same yard stick for all...Vrinda saught protection from Narayan for Jalandhar...but she never saught enlightenment for him from Narayan...she could request mahadev to excuse jaladhar but not ask him to give him the light of supreme knowledge...would Shiva have denied it had she asked for it...I don't think so...so far Mahatma Gandhi goes he is not free of faults either...while he advocates Dharma his action were not always free affliction and did not always sided Dharma...so In his case I would say easier said than done...plus it is topic of some other debate...Mahatma Gandhi can never be compared to what Vishnu or Shiva are
In the end, after Vrinda has been deceived and Jalandhar satisfactorily disposed of, the Tridev will of course reinstate the sleazy Indra, with the blood of two innocents on his hands, as if that did not matter at all. And when he commits his next crime, Brahaspati will plead again on his behalf, and Mahadev will let him off again, after another lecture on the role of a guru that Indra will not even have been listening to. Guru?? I have never before seen as weak and as contemptible a character as Brahaspati.
Again it is a misrepresentation that this show has created...neither is Indra a manisfestation of that much of selfishness and jealousy...nor is Brihaspati that weak...that is why I say interpreting purans in the right light is not in the scope of a show...
No wonder the asuras harbour such a deepseated resentment against this favouritism shown towards the devas by the Tridev.
I dare say many of you might not agree with much of the above, but I hope you will at at least find a contrary take of some interest.
But I am sure you will all agree that it is Mohit Raina's superb, layered and subtle take on Jalandhar that has made this track so very special. Mohit has always been a master of facial nuance, but as Jalandhar, he has surpassed himself.
Finally, it is remarkable how much time is being devoted to this track, much, much more than even for the Samudramanthan track. And I love it.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
