Friends, yesterday's episode was exceptionally sweet for me, because for the first time Jalal expressed something so beautiful about his connection with Jodha ... I had imagined all kinds of connections between them for the future, but Jalal totally surprised me with his take on their being "soulmates of a kind" ...
... apart from this one beautiful dialogue of Jalal's to Maham, there were two other bits of the episode that I want to comment about, so here goes ...
Jalal to Maham: "Jodha and I are like two lonely souls on the same ship"
The scene itself was beautiful. Jodha was shown in the secret room that Jalal had put her in and she was thinking about the way he had put her in there after taking her there through the passageway. Jalal looked a bit harsh on her as he told her to ruminate about the events of the day and what she had done, and he said he would come back for her the next day to take her to her chambers. He said she was not fit to be seen in this dishevelled state by anybody in the Palace.
But after he had time for himself to sit and think over events, he saw the strand of hair on his shiirt which had come from her falling on him after the water rescue. It was such a sweet gesture when he wound that strand around his finger, like he wanted to keep it with him safe, and he began to think of scenes with her that had gone before. He had flashbacks of the bazaar scene when she had defended his dignity, when she had recognised his disguise and the later waterfront scene when she had shouted at him for saving her! He also had lovely visions of riding back with her on horseback.
Why did the Creatives choose these four scenes for him to remember? My guess is that these scenes showed both sides of her - the loyal side in public as well as the private angry side. It also showed him two sides of himself - the angry rescuer at the waterfront and the protective rider who brought her back to safety.
Anyway another sweet gesture followed when Maham appeared on the scene and started looking keenly at Jodha's hair wound around his finger. He quickly put his hand away to hide this from Maham, so that shows us that there is a certain soft and private feeling he has for Jodha he doesn't want others to even get the scent of.
In answer to Maham's query about where Jodha was and why he had saved Jodha here are his own words:
"Jodha is where she should always be. Her place is in this mahal. I brought her back here. I didn't want word to go round that a begum from this mahal had run away to try and commit suicide. If I had not reached her on time, God knows what would have happened there. Jodha made a very big bewakoofi, a big mistake. But I don't think Jodha did this in her sane mind. Whatever has happened in these recent days have hurt her very deeply. He mother's refusal to take her back, to have everything and yet nothing in her life, to have the name of relationships but to have none of that really ... that kind of loneliness, no one can understand better than me. Today, for the first time, I have realised that both Jodha and me, we are like two people sailing on the same boat. Do you not understand that even someone from the royal lineage of Babur and Humayun cannot feel that pain? Despite my lineage, how is my situation different from Jodha's? I too did not have my mother with me, like Jodha didn't. In spite of relations around me, I too am lonely like Jodha. Jodha feels she belongs neither to Amer nor Agra, just as I too once never belonged either to Delhi, or Agra, or Kabul. I have to think of all this, because the truth is that whatever our relationship is today, I have brought Jodha here as my wife. She is not some wealth I won in war, or any "ghulam", she is the begum of the Mughal sultanate. That's why I took the personal responsibility to bring her back. Jodha will always be the begun of the Mughal sultanate. Till date no begum has ever turned away from this mahal, and I hope that may never happen again. And Badi Ammi, I would now like to be alone for a while ..."
Oh my God, which girl would not love to hear these words of deep empathy from a man who realises for the first time how exactly he relates to her at the soul level through the wretched loneliness they both feel? Who says Jalal doesn't have a heart?
And to top it all was the million-dollar jhatka on the face of Maham. He dismissed her arguments with the kind of words she never hoped to hear, and then he dismissed her from the spot so he could savour his new realisations alone!
The easternmost room with the first sun rays of the day
Maham tried to get Salima to change her destiny by engineering to be the one to get the first sun rays of the day and thus go to Ajmer instead of Jodha or Ruqaiya. (I was surprised that Maham had herself disqualified Ruq, although I expected she would disqualify Jodha). But Salima would not accept that destiny had chosen her, and she instead proposed Jodha for the Ajmer trip honour. Salima's beauty in this story is her ability to be the destiny-facilitator, it seems!
Ruqaiya openly tried hard to announce that she wanted to be the candidate for the Ajmer trip and even went to the extent of getting Hamida to unlock the easternmost room which gets the first sun rays each morning. But alas, Ruqaiaya found to her dismay that you cannot try to circumvent Fate or arrange Fate to your liking. (She later told Jalal that it was better that Jodha goes with him since it was a matter of his life-danger and it was better not to tempt Fate by altering the arrangements Fate had herself made in picking Jodha for the trip. The girl knows how to cover her jealousies with practicality at a pinch!)
Jodha neither wanted to be the occupant of the room in which the sun rays eventually fell, nor did she want to go to Ajmer with Jalal. But she was the reluctant winner of the "Hand of God" contest. It took some convincing on the part of Hamida to tell her about Jalal's impending life-danger, before Jodha could utter a gasp and accept the itinerary placed before her for the trip. And to the viewers, it was all so presented that Jalal himself had inadvertently placed Jodha in that room, thus showing how he too was destined to take her on the Ajmer trip.
How fortuitous! And how gullible the Creatives must believe we audiences are if we are to be given this kind of fare to swallow. Anyway, as we all always say to ourselves, maybe in those times all this was normal. All's well that ends well, so let's go on this trip with Jalal and Jodha. We have a tiger and a snake to overcome!
The nok-jhok between Jodha and Jalal was back in force quickly
He was back at his nok-jhok best by telling Jodha that people should take care not to do work that leaves half of it "adhura" to which she replies that "Some people leave others' whole lives "adhura" ... and he is forced to say "You can't help your taana-marofying, can you?" (Jalal, you started the taana-marofying, you cheater!)
The topic then turns to the Ajmer trip and he says: "If you hate me so much, you won't be praying for my safety at Ajmer, so you'd better withdraw from this trip". She says she cannot go against Hamida's wishes, to which he replies: "Oh, so you are Hamida's loyal follower? Is that why you went and did what you did yesterday after telling her?" Her repartee is smart. She says: "If you want to tell your mother to drop me from the trip, find the courage to say it yourself instead of through me." He resigns from the event by saying he cannot face his mother on this and she too declares she cannot tackle Hamida either.
And as a passing comment she tells him "I will be praying for you, because the King's safety matters to the praja, and the praja matters to me". He is left wondering ... did he (and we) want to hear that she would pray for him and not just for the sake of the praja?
Where this nok-jhok matters to us viewers is that some measure of civilised conversation has taken place where neither of them went too far in antagonising the other, the barbs were sharp but not hurting, and the end result was a mutual resignation to Hamida's will. At the moment folks, this is the best level of friendship we can expect from them, and so long as they are not snarling, we're progressing ...
A word about the precap:
I didn't expect Mohini the snake so soon into the Ajmer trip. I like the way Jalal catches a snake, by the way, by tearing the purdah and stripping the whole bedsheet off her. He doesn't do anything by halves!
And maybe Jodha has seen a lot of Hindi movies because that's how the proverbial villains start their rape scenes - by tearing into the privacy of the heroines! Her imagination also doesn't do anything by halves!
No wonder Jodha reverted with her suspicions that Jalal was out of control with his passions! Who knows, maybe Jodha has a point and Jalal was savage with the snake from frustration!
Jaane Anjaane Hum Mile
Fan Fictions
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon
