The image that stayed with me at the end of today's episode was of the precap. The camera circled around the two principals - Jalal, smiling, looking like a cross between Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, and a cat that has swallowed all the cream, and Jodha, looking far more beautiful than she has been so far, dark eyes huge in a face white and drawn with shock, staring at him as if he was something out of a nightmare.
This was the prelude to the storm that will break come Monday. It will be a cleansing storm, clearing away the debris of the past few weeks. It will leave behind a lot of wreckage, but it is out of this wreckage that a new beginning will be made,though neither of the two knows, as yet, to which uncharted territories of mind and heart it will lead them.
Heroine of the day: Not Jodha, not Suryabhan's hysterical mother, and definitely not Mynavati. The honours today went, without the shadow of a doubt, to Bharmal's mother. As her insufferable daughter-in-law wails and writhes on her bed and on the floor, in an agony of irresponsible self-indulgence, it is left to the matriarch of the Amer royal family to take charge and salvage the situation. And she does it in style, literally shaking some sense into Mynavati, and expounding, with total and infectious self-confidence and self-assertion, that they have nothing to be ashamed of, but should instead be proud of what Bharmal had done for the sake of Amer and its people.
This morale boosting exercise apart, she also makes two very telling points that demonstrate her remarkable grasp of realpolitik and of reasons of state, as also of the shifting nature of political relationships.
The neighbouring Rajput kingdoms, she snorts, all had an eye on Amer and wanted to grab it, so why are they being holier than thou now? Secondly, she firmly corrects Mynavati when she wails that Jalal is an enemy. He was an enemy, the old lady points out, he is one no longer. If he had been as kroor as he is said to be, he would simply have sent them the heads of their 3 sons, not a civilized message about the marriage, in the proper form, with the shagun.
Then comes the clincher, and the one I expected the least from her. She tells Mynavati that she should be proud to be the mother of the future Malika of the Mughal sultanate! To say that I was floored would be an understatement. Would that not just Mynavati, but Jodha too, had at least a fraction of the clear-eyed and at times cynical grasp of the realities of power that this rotund old lady has!
Jalal owes her a special vote of thanks, for without her, his wedding would have ended up as a laughing stock for both the Mughals and the Amervasis, which would not have suited his pride at all!
OTT stuff: Let us move swiftly over the assorted over the top scenes. I will not even mention Mynavati, for she is OTT nonstop.
Suryabhan's mother, wielding a pair of lathis which can apparently crush a man's neck and kill him. For no good reason that I could grasp, she closed them with a clatter inches away from the head of the cowering Mynavati, as prelude to the shrill diatribe she then let loose. One can understand and empathise with her grief and outrage, however, far more than with the uppity and ill-mannered Kunwar Pratap of Mewar.
Sujamal, sneaking into Amer by a secret route to warn Jodha against her father's perfidy. It is apparently all right for him to lead Sharifuddin against Amer, after betraying all the secrets of its defence. But it is not all right for Bharmal to arrange Jodha's marriage with Jalal in order to save Amer. The best thing about this mindblowing hypocrisy is that Sujamal appears to be unaware of it, and is convinced that he has done no wrong. We are also treated to yet another hairsbreadth escape for Bharmal & Co, for Jodha still misses out on the Great Secret. None so blind as those that will not see.
Sharifuddin ranting against Jalal to his fluffy-headed biwi, for the public ticking off he received from the Shahenshah. He is proof positive of the inadvisability of Jalal bestowing such extravagant largesse - his sister's hand in marriage - on a subordinate just because he opened up the path for him to gain his heart's desire - no, not Jodha, but teaching Jodha a proper lesson.
The only saving grace here was that but for Allah's raham, it might well have been the abominable Adham Khan! Sharifuddin, while he might sulk and indulge in non-coperation just short of rebellion, will never reach the heights, or rather the depths, that Adham can plumb effortlessly. The best bit of unintended humour re: Sharifuddin was his reference to Jalal inflicting wounds on him, for which Bakshi Banu namak chidakne ki tayyari kar rahi hai😉!
Not quite OTT, but ridiculous in the extreme: Bharmal and his better (?) half gulping as though they both had a frog in their throat, and looking petrified when Jodha and Bhagwas Das make an unexpected entrance. Of course this is just when the portly pater familias is declaring that he is , in the current TV lingo, looking for the sahi waqt to disclose to his daughter dearest that she is slated to become not a Rani of something or the other, but Begum Jallad. Husband and wife look so appallingly guilty that a half blind man could have spotted it from a hundred yards away. But not Jodha, of course!
Highlights: The Shahenshah once again demonstrating, 250 years ahead of Napoleon Bonaparte, that one can dominate much taller men by sheer force of will. Jalal hauls Sharifuddin ruthlessly over the coals for failing to obey his orders at once, and the idea of giving his brother-in-law this dressing down in private would never occur to him, for he snaps Idhar udhar kya dekh rahe ho?
Jalal again, his eyes gleaming in pure boyish mischief, saying that he had deliberately kept both his lachrymose Ammijaan and his Malika-e-Khaas (in the lady's own very recent words) in the dark about his impending nikaah so that he could watch the faces of the Mughal begums when the new Rajkumari lande d up in the harem! What is this but just another nikaah, he adds brashly, and I was thinking to myself, That, Buster, is just where you are wrong!
A point I would like to make here, for those distressed because Jalal seems, in this segment, to be totally indifferent to Jodha, whereas earlier, he was so possessive and protective of her standing with Mahaam Anga and wrt the banjaras' song about Jodha.
The fact is that right now, Jalal has no soft feelings for Jodha at all. For him, despite the indefinable attraction and the desire to see her that pulls him into a dangerous venture into Amer, she is, at this moment, only an impertinent wench who dared to hold a sword to his throat, and put him, the Shahenshah, in a very tight corner for a minute. But for his icy courage and tremendous presence of mind, he would have been killed right there, or arrested, which would have been far worse.
She also repeatedly calls for his head on a platter, and produces a whole laundry list of his real and imaginary atrocities.
So what would he, an absolute monarch and a fierce warrior, think about her? Why, like Petruchio dealing with Kate in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, that she needs to be taught a good lesson. But while he is doing that, no one, but no one, can utter a single disparaging word about her. Not even his Badiammi, who was thus coldly slapped down the other day for her impertinence wrt Jodha.
I don't think Jalal knows or understands what he feels deep down, any more that he understood, that rainy night in Amer, why he picked up Jodha's payal,and then burnt his hand recovering it from the fire. When he does begin to understand what he feels, he will fight that realisation tooth and nail. He will lose that battle, of course, but it will be hard fought, for it will be a battle against his own ego. That, as all the sages tell us, is the toughest battle of all.
So, when he asserts now that this is just one more nikaah, no more, he is telling the truth as he understands it. This will change, but not for a while yet, and that will be, for us, half the fun!
Lastly, the scenes of Jodha getting ready to leave Amer for good. They have been shot lovingly and are gorgeous, as is the leading lady, who is obviously one of those lucky females who looks her best when all decked out in lavish finery.
This augurs well for the week long wedding coverage, an incredible 5 back to back mahaepisodes. Jalal and Jodha will be a remarkably handsome couple at their glamorous best, and we can all give a miss - or almost so - to our endless analysis and comments, and concentrate, for a change, on just looking at them!
Shyamala B.Cowsik
CID
Music Corner
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