Friends, one thing I have discovered today. The Agra palace seems to be teeming with self-appointed cupids just waiting to pounce on a love story they can nudge forward. Wherever I looked today, barring Ruqaiaya, Hoshiyaar and Sharifuddin, all I saw on the landscape were cupids of all sizes, positions, occupations and romantic intentions.
Since the Shahenshah has hitherto avoided falling in love, saying he has no heart, many of these cupids seemed to have been yawning with boredom as they were all out of work till now. But bingo ... suddenly they all smelt opportunity today to converge in a "great cause". The Shahenshah and Jodha were beginning to exhibit signs of being bitten by the love bug, and so it was time for the cupid population to get to work.
There seemed no coherent plan between all of the cupids today, no Leader Cupid so to speak, unless we were to accept that Hamida comes closest to fitting that role. But they had all, it seems, decided that individually or in groups, if they could do anything at all to "push the love" they would not ignore the call to duty!
In this romantic haze that these cupids created in today's episode, what else could we have expected to see but the signs of a brand new bonding developing between Jodha and Jalal? There were two important scenes where they were shown in growing harmony with each other, and even finding lots to smile about and say to each other on diverse subjects - sometimes mundane, sometimes poetic, sometimes serious and sometimes plain silly.
At the same time, as with all great romances, those that were trying to defeat the "great love" (i.e. Ruqaiya) were finding themselves in a minority, out of sync with the general mood of buoyancy, or even lost in an alternative reality they were creating for themselves!
Without further ado let me launch into my take on what I saw and noted in cupid-land!
Jodha's reserve gets demolished from all sides
The episode started on a familiar note - Jodha was again asking Moti if Jalal was being truthful about "that night" in the snowstorm. I was just thinking "Oh no, not again!" ... till I saw that Moti started turning the topic into a different alley this time. She told Jodha: "Of course yes, why should the Shahenshah lie? And indeed, if he wishes to do "it" (the famous "it") he has a right to, you know, being your husband!" That sentence seemed to be the first of several pokes and prods that were helping demolish the reserve that Jodha had built around herself to keep the Shanhenshah and his physical overtures at bay.
Then followed a conversation between Hamida and Jodha, when Jodha went to thank her for her help in the religious-conversion issue. Hamida immediately began to set right Jodha's misperceptions about Jalal, telling Jodha that the real person to thank would be Jalal as he always had the last word as her husband to determine what her religion should be, but he gave Jodha the right to decide instead (and Jodha in turn left it all to Hamida). Hamida expertly lulled Jodha into a softer attitude towards Jalal by first talking of how the real religion is humanity (one of Jodha's many pet subjects), even as she left no stone unturned to insert timely tidbits about Jalal's trust-worthiness in general, and on this conversion issue in particular. Hamida's friends (Gulbadan Begum and Jiji Anga) were later seen to congratulate Hamida on a cupid-job well done, so Hamida was generally seen to be in a "romance-anticipatory mood" all day today.
Jodha moved by all that she was hearing of Jalal, then decided to cook him a meal as token of gratitude, whereupon she had to go through more "cupidery" (sorry if that's not a real word!) from Moti and Salima. Moti acted as if she knew of Jodha's secret wish to impress Jalal and get closer to him (which she said could be done better if the couple were to share the same plate and thus increase their mutual love) ... while Salima heaped praise on Jodha for the cooking idea, but also asked why it was so late in coming, seeing as Jalal and Jodha were married now for a few months at least?
Then came the lunch date itself. When Jalal was summoned by Jodha to join him in the dining area, clever man that he was, he seemed to get the hint that a meal was forthcoming! He licked his lips in anticipation and went straight to where Jodha was - alas, surrounded by at least four of his strongest men, and his mother and her two matronly friends. While they all watched, the meal itself started with the washing of Jalal's hands, but soon Hamida and her matronly gang were beset by the "cupidest" of ideas that had them all coyly blushing - they thought it was almost time to write the book on the Jodha-Jalal romance, but if the romance itself did not get a move on, the book would never get written. So they exhorted all to leave the couple alone and vanished from the room.
Jodha and Jalal looked initially a bit nonplussed at being thus left alone but then seemed to have got the hint. More of what they then did - inspired by all this relentless cupid-play - follows in the next section of this post!
Jodha and Jalal's romance hits some new notes
Okay, now let's get a bit more serious, because the romantic scenes of Jalal and Jodha were quite cute ... and I was at least quite entertained.
Let's take the two scenes separately - the lunch date and the garden date ...
The lunch date was a sweet scene. The conversation first started around the reason for the meal, and Jodha found herself telling Jalal that it was her way of expressing her gratitude for his support in the religious conversion issue. He seemed to find that gratifying. He teased her about the food perhaps being as "teekha" as her, but she swatted the comment back with a good forehand - she admonished him to first eat and then talk!
They then went onto Jalal's idea of sharing a plate between the two of them (causing Jodha to remember Moti's prophecy of greater love coming from fewer plates). But overall it was another nice bit of interaction between them, as Jalal persisted that they share the meal ... and when Jodha demurred to say she eats different food than him, he offered to eat her kind of food if it meant that both could eat off the same thali. Trapped as she was, Jodha could not protest to this idea, so soon they were cozily ensconced on either side of the table, ready to eat from the same plate and tempt fate to prove the "increasing love" theory.
Just before they delved into the eating per se Jodha offered to taste-test the food before Jalal could eat, but he said he trusted her and she found a smile! Then they ate together (as I watched). Jalal praised the meal, and she first thought he was sarcastic as usual ... but it turned out to be real compliment and he further added that he would like to be invited every day.
He then gave her opportunity to thank him properly and he said "Qubool hai" to that thanks!
Then came serious talk about the religious-conversion issue, when Jodha asked him what would have happened if Hamida had not intervened. He looked straight into her eyes and said: "I would never have let you face the brunt of it!" If Jodha needed convincing that she had one hell of a sensational husband that was it. I was super convinced she had one!
b. The garden date:
Much later in the episode, Jodha went over to Salima's room to find Salima teaching Rahim the Shah Nama. Jodha expressed an eagerness to learn all this from Salima, remarking that there was so much similarity between their religions on the matter of what was God and what was humanity and such like. Salima and Jodha then decided to teach each other their religions and with that the stage was set for the garden date.
Jalal who was actually being expected to join Ruq (expected by her), was sauntering through the garden when a whoosh of pages from a book floated past him, and he found that Moti was busy trying to trap the papers while Jodha was staring at the moon in poetic delight and extolling the weather. The familiar strains of the Jodha-Jalal theme song started playing in the background as Jalal looked mesmerised by Jodha's beauty and exclaimed at it. Jodha, in a trance about the beauty of the moon, agreed with him. He then asked her what there was to enjoy about staring at the moon. He was not alone in thinking it was a waste of time. I also thought so, though he didn't ask me!
Jodha then went on like an open tap, flooding him with information about the exquisite sense of peace that comes from staring at nature. He sat down, without being expressly invited, to discover that peace himself. He then asked Jodha what she was reading, and in the best Persian that she could summon, she recited the Rahim-verse of the Shah Nama to him and even explained its meaning to him. He thought she did a good job with the Persian accent (especially as he knew her to be of shudh Hindi fame, using words like "ashobhaniya acharan" and "khoonpipasu talwar"). He said "Subhanallah, bahut khoob", and then she proceeded to mimic his voice and dialogue style in congratulating her new hunar!
Boy, I didn't think I'd see Jalal blush. He went all sheepish as he said: "Yes that's just what I'd have said and how I'd have said it" and he laughed. She smiled. Upstairs a waiting Ruq found nothing to smile about! The two "getting-there-lovebirds" then looked steeped in mute conversation as Ruq was seen with smoke coming out of her ears!
Okay to sum up, the romantic scenes were nice, there was a lot of cuteness, a good dash of silliness and quite a lot of pleasant harmony. There were eyelocks, and some great expressions of admiration from Jalal, and even an occasional sly glance at Jalal by Jodha. It was something a lot of people were waiting to see between Jodha and Jalal. More than that we cannot say it was a masterpiece of romantic television.
I'd just say that if the two people on the screen were finding each other terribly interesting, and were getting all engrossed in each other like they had never let themselves be before, who am I to say anything for or against it? So I took in the romantic scenes with a big bowl of popcorn and let out my own sighs of reasonable satisfaction!
Ruqaiya emerges as the self goals specialist
I want to end this post with a few words about Ruqaiya. In the first scene where she and Jalal were seen together (a continuation of where the episode yesterday left off) Ruqaiya was giving off vibes of "I don't care a damn" about the sleeping arrangements that Jalal said he had entered into with Jodha. The very, very interesting part of this conversation to me was that Jalal was pressing her to see what she really felt and whether she really could be without any jealousy whatsoever when he slept with Jodha. Ruq said "I am already used to your having other women from the harem, aren't I? And as for poor Jodha, now that you've broken her guroor, she has nowhere to go but to a neglected corner of the harem as a discard." Jalal's self-talks were very revealing. He seemed to be questioning whether Ruq was behaving like a friend or a wife (his implicit assumption being that if she were more of a friend, she would feel as less as she did ... but surely if she were more of a wife she should be feeling more jealous?) It looked to me that he was suddenly seeing that she was "more friend still than wife"! He then tried to rationalise it to himself saying all his wives were unfathomable!
Later on in the episode, Ruqaiaya was seen with Hoshiyaar waiting for Jalal to arrive in her room. But she was so filled with self-conceit (or was it self-deceit?) that she said it was not she who waited for Jalal, there were times when he was made to wait for her, such was her importance!
I thought in that moment, that I was hearing the words of one sinking miserably in life, because that is precisely the kind of dialogue that gives the sanket of impending bitter realisation of one's non-importance!
True enough, Jalal was making no move to get to Ruq's rooms as he got waylaid by the alluring Jodha and spent a great deal of time talking to her - with Ruq looking blacker by the moment.
A lot of us wrote a lot of words in this forum in defence of Ruq and her special relationship with Jalal, but today I saw what a lost cause she was if this was her forte: self-goals!
Jodha need do nothing to woo Jalal away from Ruqaiya, nor need Jalal find a way to help her reconcile to losing him to Jodha. Ruqaiaya looked like a girl lost in an alternative reality, a world of her own, where she was so important a personage that the great Shahenshah would wait for her favours, and he would in turn discard other women like dirt after a few uses, while she would always be in eternal favour!
Only three other people in this serial are so filled with self-importance, and have been known to score lots of self-goals and to live in dreamland. Two of them - Mahamanga and Adham - were absent (on Diwali vacation?). The other, Sharifuddin, cannot even be called a self-goal kicker because most of the time he finds himself just waiting for the ball but not able to actually take a step close to it!
(For the record, even though he seemed to be instigating the clerics to go against Jalal even today, I still feel he was not the one that tipped them off about the mandir visit of Jalal. I still think it may have been Ruqaiaya! )
Indias Got Talent 11
Cricket
Anupamaa
