Weekend Analysis Thread 1:Jalal & His Discovery.. - Page 10

i wonder if I will be able to add anything special i this wonderful discussion thread. Still, let be post my bit too 😳
To me the Jalal of this week sseemed different from the Jalal of the last week. He seemed more humane being away from his mentor, his daring rescue of his servant, then joking with him about abducting Jodha, his obvious loving welcome of Maha manga, his anger towards his mentor for the punishing his loyal soldier, his affection towards his first wife, all seemed to be so different from the ruthless Jalaal who ordered cutting off of a thief's legs and who took a fancy to another's wife.
the much discussed arem scene didn't feel so repusive to me, may be i was prepared for it being a Malayalee who has seen movies like Parinayam where a 60 + Namboodhiri was shown to take a teenager as his 3rd wife.
and for that matter Lalaal didn't seem to have eyes for any one but Ruqiya whom he considered more a fried than lover.
i would love to see the equation between Ruqiya and MAha manga... both seemed to be enjoying emperor's favour.
Jodha -Suryaban wereas Surya sees to be laddo over Jodha, jodha doesn't seem as smitten. 😆

Good, Mansi, and if Jyoti is absent for any reason, I will stand in for her and regulate the quantum of drooling you are permitted at any one time!😉

Jokes, apart, that Jalal-Jodha encounter was very one-sided even in the film, and here it will be a real test of the scriptwriters' skills. Plus, I do not think it will this week. It will be postponed, as Jalal will dally with Ruqaiya in Agra, and the Rajputs dither, and then finally Jalal moves in to the attack. My guess would be another roughly 2 weeks, but let us see.

To answer one of your old questions, I think there will be a genuine threat of war and the threat of complete defeat for Amer and the rest. Only then, when Jalal offer his bargain, will Jodha, or her father, though that seems less likely to me. be brought to contemplate this fate-worse-than-death for Jodha in order to save Amer.

This decision of Jalal's is also likely to be his second major clash with Bairam Khan, who will want an all out attack and the crushing of the Rajputs. But Bairam Khan seems to be busy, judging from the Friday precap, shooting himself in the foot once again.

I think the problem with many in the forum is that they see this as a standard young man-young woman hate-turns-to-love story, told in a simple, linear fashion, as in the film. But with about 500 episodes as Ekta's likely target, there is bound to be much, much more here, and many side offshoots to the tale. Plus Jalal is the head of an empire that is still being consolidated and expanded. He is not likely to be spending all his time mooning over a girl - not even in Ektaland I am waiting to see how much of politics - Rajput and Mughal - she brings to the show.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: skanda12

Oh don't worry about me being a closet romantic!

I always start out this way till my best friend Jyoti brings me back to earth with a big thud!😆😆😆😆 Her strict rule for me is to "Drool, but have no expectations!" so I guess in the end that's what I will do!😉

I have no doubt that Jyoti is waiting with stick in hand to push my inflated expectations back to ground level and to straighten my head!

I also always promise her that I will change my ways, but kya karen ... control hi nahi hotha ...!😆😆😆😆

Originally posted by: Amy-

i wonder if I will be able to add anything special i this wonderful discussion thread. Still, let be post my bit too 😳
To me the Jalal of this week sseemed different from the Jalal of the last week. He seemed more humane being away from his mentor, his daring rescue of his servant, then joking with him about abducting Jodha, his obvious loving welcome of Maha manga, his anger towards his mentor for the punishing his loyal soldier, his affection towards his first wife, all seemed to be so different from the ruthless Jalaal who ordered cutting off of a thief's legs and who took a fancy to another's wife.
the much discussed arem scene didn't feel so repusive to me, may be i was prepared for it being a Malayalee who has seen movies like Parinayam where a 60 + Namboodhiri was shown to take a teenager as his 3rd wife.
and for that matter Lalaal didn't seem to have eyes for any one but Ruqiya whom he considered more a fried than lover.
i would love to see the equation between Ruqiya and MAha manga... both seemed to be enjoying emperor's favour.
Jodha -Suryaban wereas Surya sees to be laddo over Jodha, jodha doesn't seem as smitten. 😆

i guess the greatest achievement i hold for the show reagarding it's impact on me is that i do not tend to compare it to the movie at every point, which i had expected to happen coz, i simply adored the movie.
Ermm, since i have already brought in the topic, i felt disappointed that Jalal already *ate from the same bowl* with Mahamanga that was such a cute romantic gestur e in the movie. the one that was sort of established Jodha's victory over Mahamanga's attempt to humiliate Jodha.

@Shyamala:

Dear Amy

You are spot on about @blue,except that, to my mind,

- it is more a case of our being shown hidden facets of his personality than of his having changed,

- I do not think he took a fancy to another' wife in that instance.As I wrote in my first post on this thread (page 3 above), he was there only practicing the psychological warfare thru humiliation taught him by Bairam Khan. Not that he might not have taken her if she had pleased him so much; Jahangir had Noorjehan's husband sent to an assignment where his death was certain, and then married her when he was gone.

Again, as I mentioned in the same post, the feet cutting was horrible, but that was in a much more overtly brutal age. During the early 19th century wars against Napoleon by the other European kings, cities that held out were often sacked by the besieging army, and all the inhabitants killed (Akbar did the same with Chittor), just to set an example to others and make sure that the others surrendered quickly. Here too, I felt that the making an example of one man to deter the rest was paramount in his mind, but he could have been caned publicly with equal effect, there was no need to maim him for life. This is one of the bad side effects of absolute power, it also corrupts absolutely.

I too had no issues with the harem. It was like that then, and even today, how many young women does a Hugh Hefner, or any other superrich tycoon, have hanging on to him? At least Jalal is young and handsome!

As for Ruqaiya, she is not some ordinary kid who was married to Jalal at 9. She was his first cousin, and a Mughal princess by birth, and in that sense Jalal's equal in being also of the nasl-e-Timuri by which all the Mughal emperors swore, of being a descendant of Timurlang. I cannot understand why the commentary here carefully hid that vital fact.

Ruqaiya would thus look at Mahaam Anga as an upstart to be tolerated because Jalal loves her as a mother, not as an ally. In any case, she is confident that she can handle him on her own. But when Jodha arrives on the scene and the chips are down, who knows? Adversity can produce the strangest alliances!

Shyamala B.Cowsik

Originally posted by: Amy-

i wonder if I will be able to add anything special i this wonderful discussion thread. Still, let be post my bit too 😳
To me the Jalal of this week sseemed different from the Jalal of the last week. He seemed more humane being away from his mentor, his daring rescue of his servant, then joking with him about abducting Jodha, his obvious loving welcome of Maha manga, his anger towards his mentor for the punishing his loyal soldier, his affection towards his first wife, all seemed to be so different from the ruthless Jalaal who ordered cutting off of a thief's legs and who took a fancy to another's wife.

the much discussed arem scene didn't feel so repusive to me, may be i was prepared for it being a Malayalee who has seen movies like Parinayam where a 60 + Namboodhiri was shown to take a teenager as his 3rd wife.

and for that matter Lalaal didn't seem to have eyes for any one but Ruqiya whom he considered more a fried than lover.
i would love to see the equation between Ruqiya and MAha manga... both seemed to be enjoying emperor's favour.
Jodha -Suryaban wereas Surya sees to be laddo over Jodha, jodha doesn't seem as smitten. 😆

Talking of harems, I am reminded of a sightseeing trip I took some years ago to Agra where we all visited the Fatehpur Sikri. That is the place being shown in the serial as the headquarters of Jalal and also where his harem was.

Mansi, you are priceless!😉

This is what is called bringing the arguments firmly down to earth, or rather to the toilet queue. In fact, Ekta likes to show water queues in the chawls in her soaps, so maybe she might go in for realism here and show a harem toilet queue. But I think not, imagine how disillusioned the viewers would be if Mughal grandeur was reduced to a toilet queue!

You would be interested to know that in the Grand Palace of Louis XIV , the 16th/17th century Sun King of France, and his successor Louis XV, at Versailles, there were no bathrooms for any of the courtiers at all! I do not suppose they bathed more than once a week of more, whence the great popularity of French perfumes!

For the toilets,of course, all over Europe and England and America, they had only chamber pots till the early 19th century. It was only then that rudimentary water closets made their appearance. In that sense, even in the 16th century, . we were much more advanced than the West in the matter of personal hygiene.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: skanda12

Talking of harems, I am reminded of a sightseeing trip I took some years ago to Agra where we all visited the Fatehpur Sikri. That is the place being shown in the serial as the headquarters of Jalal and also where his harem was.

A couple of really funny things about this harem. There wre some 300 women or so there apparently, all with their entourages. There were also a couple of jails with iron bars and all that (which our tour guide said were ladies jails built adjoining the harem). These were apparently for the solitary confinement of the rather violent harem inmates who had tendencies to scratch other women's faces with fingernails etc etc.

For this whole battalion of women and their staff there were some two "baths" or "swimming pools" about quarter of the size of our modern swimming pools, so you can guess it would have only accommodated about 20 of the women ata time. Plus there were just about two or three toilets for the whole battalion.

I seriously don't know how they all had the time to fight over Jalal when they must have been standing in the toilet queue for most of the day!🤣

Originally posted by: skanda12

Talking of harems, I am reminded of a sightseeing trip I took some years ago to Agra where we all visited the Fatehpur Sikri. That is the place being shown in the serial as the headquarters of Jalal and also where his harem was.

A couple of really funny things about this harem. There wre some 300 women or so there apparently, all with their entourages. There were also a couple of jails with iron bars and all that (which our tour guide said were ladies jails built adjoining the harem). These were apparently for the solitary confinement of the rather violent harem inmates who had tendencies to scratch other women's faces with fingernails etc etc.

For this whole battalion of women and their staff there were some two "baths" or "swimming pools" about quarter of the size of our modern swimming pools, so you can guess it would have only accommodated about 20 of the women ata time. Plus there were just about two or three toilets for the whole battalion.

I seriously don't know how they all had the time to fight over Jalal when they must have been standing in the toilet queue for most of the day!🤣🤣

Very well and persuasively argued, Mansi. You now have my vote; I am always open to sound logic!

The only thing is that I seem to remember some sort of promo where Jalal was shown telling Bharmal that he could keep his kingdom and all his privileges, and then Bharmal asks what he wants in return. Jalal responds in one word: Jodha.

This would seem to indicate that Jalal made the offer, but perhaps Bharmal went over quietly to meet him and effectively surrendered, and then Jalal made that offer.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: skanda12

@Shyamala:

I have a slightly different take to the words you have written i.e.:

"To answer one of your old questions, I think there will be a genuine threat of war and the threat of complete defeat for Amer and the rest. Only then, when Jalal offer his bargain, will Jodha, or her father, though that seems less likely to me. be brought to contemplate this fate-worse-than-death for Jodha in order to save Amer."

From my study of Jodha's father I think he will pre-empt Jalal's offer by making the offer himself!

There's a reason why I think of him thus.

Firstly, I saw him name Bhagwandas as his successor rather than Sujamal simply because he sees Sujamal as a bit of a war-monger (especially one likely to war-monger within the Rajputs themselves), whereas Bhagwan Das is more of a pacifist. This tells me that he could be a closet-pacifist himself, without too much of a stomach for war.

Secondly, when Suryabhan and the rest of the "choodi-wearing Rajputs" stir themselves to righteous indignation and utter oaths of a revenge war on jalal at Raja Bharmal's court, I saw the Raja himself wearing an ambivalent expression. The young turks were all indulging in hot air and dagger-drawing but for a fleeting moment I was thinking that the Raja himself was "in the sabha but not part of it".

When push comes to shove I get the feeling that this Raja would rather use brains than brawn and he may well offer this alliance idea to Jalal. Of course, his idea of alliance may be about surrendering to Jalal's political domination etc and he may not at all suspect that Jalal would swing for Jodha instead of the political gains alone.

I think the whole reason Menavati is so exercised by the prophecy about Jodha and Jalal is that in some corner of her mind and heart she is not 100% sure her husband will be as worked up as herself about Jodha going off with the Mughals. She is not so sure that her husband will choose war over alliance, knowing him as she does. She is trying to make her husband understand the urgency of it all, but still taking no chances and trying her own tricks and strategems nevertheless to prevent this prophecy.

This is my reading of Raja Bharmal.