Folks,
For once, I am not sure what to say about this episode. Basically, I liked it, for it did move things forward somewhat, even if it seemed to go further into the maze of the dature ka ark, and most of the characters were true to type, even in their extreme reactions.
There were also illuminating little vignettes that revealed as much as the big scenes.
Hamida Banu taking balayi of Jalal, with by now overt and accepted maternal affection; she and Jalal have come a long way from that bitter exchange in his camp in episode 2.
Mahaam Anga's face lighting up when she sees Jalal riding in, and wrinkling in worry when Hamida Banu spots his wound; she really loves her erstwhile nursling. Ruqaiya's face reacting identically, while Salima's is bland and almost unconcerned.
Bhagwan Das trying to soften the blow of Ratan Singh's death for Jodha by insisting that he was not murdered but died in battle, whereas the truth is that he was executed after he had been disarmed.
The sudden agony in Ruqaiya's eyes when she is told that the dibbi was found in Salima's room; she feels sick to the pit of her stomach at what she sees as betrayal of the worst kind by a sister for whom she had genuine affection.
Jodha grabbing Ruqaiya's bleeding hand and nursing it between her own in instinctive compassion.
Now for the big, grandstanding scenes.
Jalal-Jodha 1: Contrary to most others in the forum, I was neither shocked nor surprised by his swinging his shamsheer at Jodha when she confessed, and that too with such vehemence and not the slightest indication of repentance. It was almost a given that he would do that; Bairam Khan has fixed Jala's default setting at sar kalam karna when faced with such overt and unquestioned guilt in a gunaah-e-azeem,and Jalal would have automatically reverted to that in such a crunch situation.
It would have been the same with most other medieval rulers, not just Jalal, with his very short fuse.
Jodha knows that. Which is why, facing the Gordian knot of being unable to live up to the prescriptions of Rajput maryada towards her wedded husband, whom she now hates with more passion than ever before - Paridhi was very convincing when Jodha went into that angry spiel about Jalal to her brothers - and the compulsion of having to continue to live indefinitely as his wife, she tries to imitate Alexander the Great.
Except, of course, that she wants to trick Jalal into cutting this Gordian knot for her by cutting off her head. Her assessment is accurate, for Jalal, having apparently taken for granted, post Sujanpur, that Jodha too was innocent, must have been, first, shellshocked by her grand confession, and then possessed by blind rage. I for one am not at all sensitive to such manufactured shocks.
The curious thing here was that the one Ruqaiya stopped was his second swipe at Jodha (he swings it once first and seems to miss completely!) And the other curious thing was that Jalal was not at all bothered about Ruqaiya's hand, which must have been badly cut, but, as noted above, Jodha was.
The last second saving of Jodha's life is typical OTT drama, like the nuclear bomb in The Peacemaker being defused at 11:59:59 (I did not mind that, as the scientist managing to save the world there was a woman). There would have been infinitely richer dramatic possibilities is he had cut off her head and then found out that she was innocent, but it is no use hoping for such riches, given that despite her 31 second daily disclaimer, not even Ekta can go so far in remixing history.
Jalal-Jodha 2: This was one peach of a scene. In the context of their relationship, this is going to be the turning point.
I loved it that Jodha made no move to get up when he came up, and instead glowered resentfully up at him. I also loved it that instead of attempting any kind of apology, Jalal launched into a farcical broadside against her for lying to the Shahenshah-e-Hind. Absolutely typical of the alpha male type!
Also to be noted is that Jodha's response is not a crisp Hamein aapke saath apna poora jeevan vyateet karna asahya ho gaya tha, aur ham apne parivaar ko bhi aapse bachana chahte the. Hamne kuch bhi anuchit nahin kiya. Hamaara jeevan hai, aur hamein poora adhikaar hai ki hum jiyein ya marein. Which is what one would have expected of her after all the build up in the scene with her brothers.
Instead, she launches into a long, typical complaining patni-style monologue, recounting every instance of khunnas against her patidev right since their marriage. What is one to make of this, especially given that she supposedly hates him with a white hot passion?
It is even more interesting that Jodha mentions only the nazarband as disgraceful behavior in a pati towards his patni. Not only does she cling to the relationship she wanted to desperately to escape, but she seems to have forgotten about the infinitely worse zinda jalana!
It is not just, as so many here would have it - at times by bending and stretching the facts to fit this charming theory - that Jalal is, in his heart of hearts, and unknown to himself, obsessed with Jodha. It is evident from the above that it is ditto for Jodha as well. Real hatred, unmixed with anything else, leads to dry-eyed rage, not to angry tears and a litany of accusations.
Unlike Kamal, I would not blame Jodha demanding the patni ka darja on a non-reciprocal basis, and carefully avoiding any mention of all the times when she insulted Jalal, like the shaadi ka joda burning. Why not, if you can get it? A little hypocrisy is a useful trait.
By scene end, Jalal was stumped for an answer, and no wonder.
As I wrote in an earlier post, he had, at one point, especially after Jodha's poem, begun to believe that the Amer ki shehzaadi was special, that even if she still hated him, she was, unlike all the others around him, unselfish and undemanding, and capable of pure affection, as towards his unborn child. In short, in a class apart.
His furious rage when he was confronted with what seemed to be her guilt was directly proportional to the strength of this earlier conviction. He was, in his own zehen, exposed as a soft fool, who had succumbed to a hitherto unknown weakness and had placed his trust in a devious murderess. His savage desire to hurt her as much as he could was not just for killing his child but for having, as he saw it, made a complete fool of him by trampling on the innermost recesses of his being, where no one else had ever been allowed entry.
Jalal will now have to reboot himself inside out, and as his sense of justice is very strong, also make public amends for the public accusations he had made against the Amer quintet. Let us see what he comes up with next. It will be fascinating to see both what he does in the open court, and if he can climb down and apologise to Jodha at least in private, without making a doormat of himself.
Ruqaiya: She came across as intelligent, fair-minded, logical and conscientious. Something of the old Ruqaiya, if not the whole. I was duly grateful for that, as also for the genuine sorrow, as distinct from anger, that she feels at what seems like a complete negation of her hitherto affectionate relationship with her cousin sister. When she sets out the case against Salima, it is with the coherent logic of a competent and dispassionate public prosecutor, there is no overt rage, and there is even a measure of reluctant understanding of where Salima could be coming from.
Except of course that they are going wrong because neither Ruqaiya nor Jalal has any understanding of simple, uncomplicated, undemanding goodness of heart, neither in Salima nor in Jodha. Nor do they seem to even envisage the possibility of evidence being planted on an innocent person. That too in that rabbit warren of a harem. In their place, I would have seen the dibbi being found in Salima's rooms as automatic proof of her innocence, not her guilt!
The precap was very interesting. I had initially felt that the woman on the bed was not Salima Sultan, and Jalal had, once he has finished his session with Jodha, finally bestirred his grey cells and found out that the dibbi was planted in Salima's room by the real culprit, and that he was now going to get proof of that by making her eat what she knows is dature ka ark, which she would naturally refuse under some pretext of the other, for a large dose can be lethal even for an adult.
But now I am not so sure, and then again, I am never any good at interpreting odd camera angles. Perhaps it is Salima after all, though she should normally have been quite startled at her cousin-cum-husband suddenly acting lovey dovey and very un-Jalal-like. Instead, she seems quite normal.
But at least Jalal's grey cells seem to have come out of the deep freeze they have been in of late, for he is not rushing to kalamofy Salima's head with his shamsheer, but is actually trying to check things out in a slick and devious manner. Atta boy!
The title of this post is a triumph of hope of over expectation (with apologies to Dr.Samuel Johnson for pinching his definition of a second marriage😉). Whether it is to be hope fulfilled or hope belied remains to be seen.
I am by now fed up of this endless exercise. I almost wish some disgruntled harem inmate would poison the whole lot: Jalal, Jodha., Ruqaiya, Mahaam, Adham, the works, all except Rahim. It is stupid and demeaning, this endless ranting and raving, and the consequent waste of good actors. Soon, they will forget how to perform well.
Already, Rajat scrunches up his nose, making it look like a misshapen potato, at the drop of a hat, as his Jalal narrows his eyes into a manic glare, before charging off like the Energiser bunny, and invariably in the wrong direction. One of these days, as they say in the fairy tales, the wind will change while he is doing it and his face will be frozen in that expression. A fate too horrible to contemplate, and not just for him!😉
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Anupamaa
Current Affairs
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