Friends, Jyoti's Internet is down and so I am standing in her stead to open this Weekend's Analysis Thread on this Super Shaadi Saptah ...
... but here's an analysis of the week that went by! I have a few headings under which I have chosen to stash away all that happened ...
1. The deal
The precursor to the week was that "big alliance" that Bharmal succeeded in making with Jalal. That went in the earlier week, but the full repercussions of that deal and all its many rumblings were felt fully in this shaadi week. On the Amer front as well as the Mughal front, almost nobody was fully prepared to face the tumult of events. Most important of all, the things that happened was that Jalal was gripped with a joy-mixed-with-revenge on Jodha, Bharmal was gripped with a sense of relief, Mainavati was gripped with a sense of utter dismay at her daughter being bartered away in a deal, the other Rajput Rajas were gripped by a sense of betrayal by Bharmal, Sujamal was gripped with guilt ' but most important of all was what did not happen. No one had the guts to tell Jodha that her husband to be was the dreadful Jalal! The week therefore opened with the 360-degree fear of how Jodha would react when she found out ...
2. The convincing of Jodha
It is an irony of fate that Jodha was forced to be told the truth by Jalal himself. A henchman overhearing Mainavati and Dadisa's discussions listened to a piece of information that was crucial to Jalal ... he heard Dadisa give Mainavati an idea of doing a ceremony called the Kangan Bhandan by which the bride and groom cannot get to see each other's faces till after the wedding is over. Promptly the family does the ceremony with every important family member in on the conspiracy. But Jalal was sharp. The minute he sensed that Jodha was being cheated by her own kith and kin to marry him without an idea of who she was marrying, he immediately asked for a "muh dikhayi" ceremony. Throughout this week many of Jalal's actions have a double-edged feeling. At one level he looks like he wants revenge on Jodha. At the same time, his actions can be interpreted differently also. It could be sensed that Jalal was on Jodha's side and not wanting her to be used as a blind pawn in the politics going on in this shaddi. The muh dikhayi was one such situation when Jalal seemed to be doing things for revenge but was actually helping Jodha enter this marriage with awareness of her bridegroom. When push came to shove, Jalal was firmly behind Jodha and that's what I simply loved watching. Again during the muh dikhayi, the Rajputs thought of a sideways plan of showing the bride and groom their faces in a basin of water ' just hoping Jodha would miss the important part that Jalal was the groom. When Jodha peered into the water she grew suspicious, but Jalal did not want her to be in any doubt. He said the key sentence "Subhanallah, khuda ne phursath se banaya hai aapko". He praised her beauty, but speaking in Urdu he also let her know that he was the man on the other side of the reflection. Jalal took it upon himself to not let Jodha enter the shaadi without knowing who her husband was going to be. I get the feeling right there and then that even if he didn't yet love her, he cared for her desperately despite his own need for revenge sometimes.
3. The tantrums of Jodha
What followed the muh dhikayai were the two main tantrums of Jodha ... one, she ran away from the muh dikhayi, and two, she then burnt the tohfa that Jalal personally sent her (the shaadi ka joda). For dramatic effect in any shaadi, even today, we always do have a few "hiccups" so I am not surprised that Jodha reacted violently to the sudden surprise of having to marry the most unpleasant man of her acquaintance. But again, for me, the fact that Jalal forgave her for running away (saying later to Mahamanga "Galti uski nahi thi. Usko pata hi nahi tha ke woh humse shaadi karne wali hai") ' and that fact that he again forgave her for burning the joda was remarkable. When the paigam later comes from Bharmal saying Jodha regrets her actions done in anger and haste and she has agreed to the marriage, did you all see the absolute relief on Jalal's face when he told his people to prepare for the baraat? Throughout, every time Jodha threw a tantrum, he explained his forgiveness of her by saying "If I give in it will look like Amer has won!" but we could all see that there was this young boy desperate to marry the girl of his dreams and willing to take everything she threw at him just to be able to drag her to the shaadi mandap somehow and get her securely tied to himself.
4. Jalal traps Jodha
Having then exhausted every avenue to throw off the hated marriage, Jodha thinks that if she unleashes two "deal-breaker" sharths on Jalal, he will himself backtrack and let her off the hook. She decides to play the religious card. She asks that she be allowed to keep her religion, and to set up a Krishna mandir right inside the precincts of the Agra palace, where it would be nothing short of blasphemy to allow idol worship so anathemical to Muslims. It is not just interesting that Jodha makes these sharths, but also equally interesting how she makes them ' by first asking for a direct interaction with Jalal (albeit with purdah in place) and by insisting on making a public spectacle of these sharths. But Jodha had not calculated for the sheer desperation with which Jalal wanted her in his life. He again said "Yes" to everything, knowing fully well that she was doing all this to slip out of the shaadi noose. He knew he could again play the same card with his own aghast people that "Amer will win if I don't say Yes". But instead he also added one more sentence to his defence. "I am the Shahenshah and the laws are what I dictate". "Enough of objections", Jalal was trying to say to all, "I've made up my mind that I will marry Jodha at any cost!" Jodha was trapped by Jalal and Destiny. Neither her tantrumms nor her religious preferences made a jot of difference to him! He wanted her. Khatam!
5. Jalal, his shaadi and his joy
I want to add here that in this whole week of one-hour episodes I was keenly watching Jalal's expressions, and I found it utterly eandearing to see the silent joy in his eyes, as he overcame objection after objection till he was firmly seated next to the shaadi ka havan with Jodha at his side, bending her head for the final sindoor scene. Jalal's eyes were a dead giveaway to his heart, and all the time he was looking at Jodha through the flowers of his sera you could sense the build up of joy and a heart bubbling away inside him. When she entered the room in all her wedding finery, when she sat next to him, when she reluctantly had to put her hand in his (which he did not miss the opportunity to give a good squeeze with both hands!), when she walked behind and ahead and beside him for the pheras and the saptapadi, and then she bent her head to let him put the sindoor in her maang, Jalal could not take his eyes off her. He was like a child that had got its favourite toy and coulldn't wait to start playing with it! Since most of us are women watching all these serials, it is easy to know what may be going through the girl's mind, but when we get glimpses of what may be going through the boy's mind our hearts melt over with happiness that he is so "in love with her". Throughout the shaadi I thought I saw love in Jalal's eyes, although he himself may not have known it at all. He looked triumphant, so it would be easy to think he was thrilled that "Jodha ko haasil kar liya", but that triumph of his seemed to come from the heart as he peeped from behind the sera, so the shaadi was an astounding success in every way for me. Ekta also kept the rasams to the minimum, interrupting the main shaadi sequences with little other byplays of Sujamal-Sharif, and Adham's murder attempt on Jalal etc etc. so we did not have an overload of three hundred rasams and unwanted melodrama. It was all beautifully directed and just right.
6. The enemies circle and the friends circle emerges
Two clear circles of power have emerged this week as a result of this shaadi. One is the evil axis: Maham, Adham, Sharif, Ruqaiya. The other is the axis of good: Bhagwan Das, Mansingh, Hamid Banu and I also would incluude Salima (widow of Bairam now married to Jalal) who made a fleeting appearance at the jashn-e-bhaar ceremony yesterday without much fanfare. The evil axis was largely starting to show its colours at the wedding itself and then Ruqaiya has taken things to a new level with direct pangas against Jodha at Agra. Meanwhile Mansingh, the trusted bearer played a key cameo yesterday in exposing Adham by repeating all his insults word for word to Jalal. The character of Mansingh is very interesting here because we have only seen a small hint of his value to Jalal and Jodha. In the coming days it could well be that Mansingh plays Cupid to Jodha and Jalal, he becomes a key informer to both Jodha and Jalal when enemies are plotting against them, and he becomes Jalal's right hand at the same time that he also becomes Jodha's rakshak. The trio of Mansingh-Jalal-Jodha can become an impenetrable circle, unless Adham decides to plot directly against Mansingh himself to eliminate him. I think that Mansingh's life and Moti Bai's izzat are in khatra from Adham Khan.
7. En route to Agra
I want to separately write about this doli reaching Bhanjara en route to Agra after the wedding because we had the one very very key scene there that most of us call the suhhaag raath. The precaps of the scene were intriguing when we saw them, and a lot of us were expecting Jalal to pounce on Jodha the next day in the episode. But let's look at the Bhanjara encampment in a bit of more detail: first Jodha refuses to come at Jalal's bidding to the main tent where he wants to hear her sing. She then tries to go to sleep in a huff in her own tent. Mahamanga makes a hue and cry about Jodha tukrao-fying the Shahenshah! Jalal rushes to Jodha's tent ' and the heart takes over. The familiar background music begins where Jalal seeing the sleeping Jodha is reminded of her utterly captivating beauty and pull on his heart. But she is ready with a knife that he barely manages to catch and throw away. Instead of taking the bride that was his for the taking, he instead says "What of those vachans you made before the fire that you will accept me in every way as your husband?" (In other words, "Why are you not coming to me of your own after those vachans?"). She says "Don't try to treat a wife as a dassi by calling me up in front of all and sundry!" (Meaning "You were not private, you were too public for my taste!"). Both of them do not question each other's logic, and so Jalal covers it all up by saying "I like the fear of me in your eyes. I can protect you from others, but no one can protect you from me. " (Meaning: "You are safe today, but tomorrow and in the coming days, who knows!"). He threatens but he does nothing to force her! That is the remarkable thing! He then of course, plays a charade on her to get back at her by pretending his hand is hurt and he cannot even feed himself. He wants to create situations of closeness where he can at least hold her hand and get playful with her, till the ice is broken. Kudos to Jalal! In between we had the lovely sequence also of both praying to their own Gods when he also hears her sing. That was a lovely scene I thought.
8. Life at Agra
The convoy reaching Agra was all as expected, for me. I knew that the politics of Agra would take over on Friday and it did ... Ruquaiya and her maliciousness, the kindness of Hamida Banu, the ill-intent of Mahamanga and the exposure to the infamous harem for the first time for Jodha! In between the time when Hamida Banu gave a new set of clothes to Jodha for the lavish welcome ceremony and the grand welcome ceremony itself, a miniscule moment was spent on the Muslim nikaah taking place. Jalal again in a sera sat on one side of the purdah while Jodha sat on the other. Jalal said a quick "Qubool hai!" while Jodha nodded her assent and congratulations of one and all followed. Nikaah over! Soon after the jashn-e-baahar was unleashed on all of us, with grand entrances by all the bigwigs, and we had the showdown of Ruqaiya by Jodha. We also had the poisoning of Jalal by Ruqaiya against Jodha (which was something I didn't like to watch, especially when Jalal stepped down from his throne to confer privately with Ruqaiya!). But anyway all efforts to derail the "ghamandi" Jodha went to vain when to Jala's dismay she started singing what sounded like a Rajput national anthem in the middle of a Mughal durbari hall! Jalal was checkmated, but more importantly, Ruqaiya's intention of making Jalal a puppet who could in turn pull Jodha's strings was checkmated. Bhargwan Das himself was stunned at the temerity of his sister, and Mansingh looked like he was seeing ghosts! Anyway it all led to an angry and drunk Jalal ruminating about all the times Jodha had insulted him and he then walked with speed and a drunken lurch towards Jodha's room.
Now I have a prediction for what is going to happen.
We saw Jalal rushing drunkenly to Jodha's room, no doubt with the intention to ravish her as a punishment for all her insults! While he was in transit though, Jodha herself had been having nightmares that she had overstepped the line with Jalal and he may enter the room any moment with retribution in mind. Instead she finds only Ruqaiya there, gloating over the fact that Jodha was too insignificant to hold Jalal's interest even for a short while, as she Ruquaiya was the one whose bed he always sought first. Insecurity was writ large on Ruqaiya's face.
Now its my prediction that soon after Ruqaiya will leave Jodha's room Jalal will himself definitely walk in (or rather lurch in!). Being so drunk as to be unfit for anything, he may well flop on Jodha's bed and fall asleep. Jodha would be utterly shocked of course, but may be tempted to put a blanket over her sadly angry and sleepy husband as she retires to a corner of the bed herself to sleep it out and sort it all in the morning.
Meanwhile Mahamanga may have seen Jalal marching into Jodha's room and not coming out the whole night and she may have put two and two together and made two hundred of it. That why in the precap we see that a highly volatile sounding Ruqaiya is trying to show off to Mahamanga that Jalal is hers alone and will never fancy Jodha, whereas Mahamanga is desperately trying to warn Ruqaiyaa that her over-excitement is shallow and may soon end in tears.
Jodha and Jalal may remember that they did nothing together that night, and maybe the morning after their feelings for each other may have softened into something else entirely seeing their predicamentt of being in the same bed. But to the Mahamanga's and Ruqaiya's it would surely look like Jalal has gone over to the enemy camp for a romp, and their own days of sway over him are over!
Wow, that's destiny! Let's hope my prediction is right.
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