I think the selection of this young man to play Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar was one of Ekta's casting coups.
First of all, Jalal here is 19 or 20 years old. He has been the Emperor since he was 13. How on earth can one cast a more mature actor? It would be totally unsuitable.
Second, Rajat has the one intangible quality needed to play a young emperor. He has presence. This is something that is either there or not there; it cannot be taught. He looks every inch a king, one born to command, one born to rule. A couple of inches more in height would have been even better, but it does not matter, and Akbar was not tall in any case.
As for the rigidity that seems to be the major cause for complaint, one has to take into account the character to be played. This is a young man who has his world at his feet. So arrogance comes naturally to him, as also the attitude of one who habitually dominates lesser mortals. The stance, the hands behind his back (exactly like the great Dilip Kumar playing Prince Salim in Mughal-e-Azam, incidentally), the slow walk to pick up Jodha's payal, the way he picks it up, with a slight hesitation before he does so, it is all part of the consciousness of being a Mughal ruler.
Jalal is not used to bending at all, for anything or anyone. It would normally never occur to him to stoop and pick up a girl's payal as a token. Women have always been his to take as he chose, he would never dream of chasing any of them. Still he picks it up, which means a lot more than the same gesture would with an ordinary man.
He does not kiss the payal as any ordinary lover would. It would be not be like the Shahenshah at all. He tosses it up in the air, but he always catches it, and when it falls into the fire, he burns his hand to retrieve it. This is not so much, as some have thought, a sign of passion for Jodha. He is not yet aware that he is falling in love with her, he does not know what love means. It is rather the possessiveness towards her that, as the line has it, uske parvaan chad gaya tha. For him, the payal symbolizes Jodha, and he will not let go of it or her, even if he has to burn his fingers to secure it.
It all comes thru beautifully, and far from being unnaturally rigid, it is all spot on for who Jalal is.
Jalal sneers so often because his whole approach to life and to most others is sardonic; he has never had to adjust to anyone at any time. His mirthless smile just before meting out punishment is terrifying, and in his interaction with Sharifuddin, when the latter tries to get him to take rest, he is all smooth menace. Perhaps the sneer is too pronounced at times, but that is a matter of degree, and not too serious.
Rajat has deep set eyes, so I cannot see how such eyes can be 'bulging'. They gleam in their depths when he gets close to another and sneers, and the whole effect is meant to put the interlocutor off balance. It might seem overdone at places, but in an Indian TV show, where hamming is the rule and not the exception, it seems to me that the complaints on this score are excessive.
Surely one does not see a Dilip Kumar or an Amitabh Bachchan or a Balraj Sahni on TV these days? At least I have not seen any. Male leads in most TV serials are routinely shortchanged in what is basically a woman's medium.
This one might be the exception, though the scriptwriter seems to be confusing the young Jalal with either Mahmud of Ghazni or Mohammed Ghori, given to ransacking temples for the jewellery and abducting any female within reach. Probably this was done to give Jodha that much more credit for reforming him. But it is historically totally inaccurate. Akbar was born in a Rajput kingdom where his father had taken asylum while on flight from Sher Shah Suri, and he spent his early years among the Rajputs. It was this exposure to a different culture that shaped the broadmindedness of his policies towards the Rajputs and towards Hindus as a whole once he had begun to set his own course.
To sum up, nothing is really lacking. It is not the actor's fault, and not even the director's. Rather Rajat's performance is related to how Jalal the Emperor is visualized and developed. He is now part an arrogant warrior, used to victory, and part an impulsive young man, following a desire of the heart that he does not as yet understand, and struggling with unfamiliar emotions.
One of the best scenes so far, as Disha has pointed out elsewhere, which showcases the actor's ability to project a complex, emotionally deprived character, was the one between Jalal and his mother Hamida Banu Begum. The bitterness in Jalal's voice as he talks of when and how he remembers her, sears the screen.
Of course Rajat is not perfect, but then what is perfection? There were those who criticized Dilip Kumar's Prince Salim in Mughal-e-Azam as being too, what else, stiff. They wanted him to be like Pradeep Kumar in Anarkali, a besotted lover dragging himself all over the ground to get to Anarkali. But then Mughal-e-Azam is a classic, and Anarkali has been long forgotten!
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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