Friends, yesterday's episode was wrongly labelled by all of us as the "birthday track". It should have been renamed as "the games Jalal is playing" track. I have been watching not just what happened in the last two or three episodes between Jalal and Ruqiaya, but even many episodes well before that ... I am now convinced that it is not some urgent wife-balancing act that Jalal is trying to do here to pacify one wife to help him get closer to the other, Jodha. I think Jalal is playing a deeper game of getting Ruqaiaya more ready for his life closer to Jodha and he is doing this in deliberate slow steps so that Ruq comes around without realising she is being led to to this state of acceptance.
The game Jalal is playing seem deep and calculative. I won't use the word "manipulative" because that suggests that he may be underhand, which he is not. But at the same time as Jodha said of him in the sabha once "Woh gyani hai, unka nirnay theek hai, magar thoda sa teda hai". Jalal is definitely, definitely playing a game that involves some bending of truths and he is pro-actively orchestrating events in order to achieve what he wants from Ruqaiaya - and thus also from Jodha.
For today's analysis, I took the trouble to see at least eight or ten episodes where Jalal is interacting with Ruqaiaya especially, to find clues to his behaviour. What is his game plan and what are the steps he is executing every time one after another like a sequence? Are there similarities between what he does each time that can provide a clue as to his real intentions with Ruqaiaya? That was my objective in studying his pattern.
I have tried below to share what I discovered and to explain what I understand from what I see. But I would welcome views from everybody on these points, because my view can be only one of the many posible views on this subject.
I am also dedicating this post to exclusively studing the Jalal-Ruq situation so if I can I'll do a Weekend Thread later tomorrow to cover the other events of the episode.
So here goes ...
The sequence of actions that Jalal seems to follow with Ruqaiaya:
In the last eight interactions with Ruqiaya, Jalal seems to have followed these same 16 steps as below (plus/minus a few small aberrations):
1. Regarding any interaction with Jodha, Jalal never seems to discuss with Ruq before hand (as she wishes).
2. He always afterwards then seems to then go to Ruqaiaya of his own volition and never seems to wait for Ruq to come and accost him about it.
3. He checks how angry Ruq is ... the angrier she is the more he smirks annd smiles as if it fits his plan.
4. He starts by asking her outright: "Are you jealous that I never came to you as you were expecting, or that I went to Jodha instead?".
5. She replies that by saying usually "Why should I be jealous, I am not!" She goes into denial of her jealousy.
6. He then decides to give Ruq a shocker to eke out her latent jealousy. He deliberately adds some news to give Ruq the impression that he and Jodha are closer than before (and even hints at sleeping with Jodha, falling in love with Jodha etc.).
7. He waits to see the reaction again. Seeing Ruq gets heated up fully, he goes to the next step.
8. He then begins to deliberately repeatedly tease Ruqaiaya that she may be very jealous of Jodha, and that the jealousy is burning.
9. At pains, Ruqaiaya every time tells him it is not Jodha she fears. She says instead that: She fears losing him to any body at all. She fears losing her status as Begum -e-Khas. She fears losing her audha in the harem. She fears losing status as his best friend. She does not think Jodha has the guts to equal herself. She does not think Jodha can attract Jalal. She expects soon Jodha will become a discard by Jalal.
10. Then Jalal asks her, "If all this is so then why does Jodha bother you?"
11. After hearing all this she goes into either a stunned silence or a hyperventilation at Jalal.
12. He then pacifies her using the following arguments: I was just joking - what I said about Jodha and me are not true. You know we both have a relationship of friendship where we can joke with each other. Whatever I am doing I am doing not for Jodha but for Hamida. You know no one can take your place as Begum-e-Khas or as my dearest friend. He gets a bit physically close to her to quieten her further.
13. Having thus pacified her, he then manages to get something out of her for Jodha - yesterday it was a shahi haar, earlier it was an "OK go to Amer with Jodha as she is paak" etc. He gets some concessionary decision from Ruqaiaya to seal her acceptance of his answers.
14. Ruqiaya is thus given a feeling that by whatever she has done for Jalal she has consented and even aided his movements. He lets her believe that it was with her willingness and magnanimity that he has gone ahead (even if she has noot exactly been really magnanimous).
15. Eventually though, he does what he wants not exactly what she wants!
16. With Jodha he then takes whatever evolves, but if the discussion veers to talking about Ruq, he makes a firm underscoring to Jodha also that "No one can ever take him away from Ruq or take Ruq's place as Begum-e-Khas or his dearest friend".
Some things become clear from the analysis of his repeated behaviour as above:
1. He is wanting Ruq to vent her jealousy of Jodha periodically so that he can take control of that situation and pacify her at starting iitself, rather than letting the situation get him by the collar and later he has to go to great lengths to manage it. He wants to try and be pro-active. So he himself keeps getting it out of her system than letting her live with the jealousy and come to bursting point. If she does not vent fully at the first chance he gives her, he delibarately keeps prodding her, and even gives her a white lie about his deep new relationship with Jodha, just to make her boil over and vent fully.
2. He tries to get the words out of Ruq that it is not Jodha she is jealous about but it is her status as Begum-e-Khas and as his dearest friend. These two positions he seems comfortable to give her for ever in his life. He probably wants her to repeatedly re-iterate to herself that she wants "not what Jodha has" but she wants "her own desired two things only" namely Begum-e-Khas position and to be Jalal's dearest friend.
3. She also wants to be his closest confidante (as a dearest friend) but that he is not willing to give her as it impinges on his rights and relationship with Jodha). So if Ruq is upset at not being told before hand his actions regarding Jodha, Jalal does not say so in words that he will not adhere to this demand - he acts first and decisively and then comes to her to show that he can act without confiding in her first and that he does not have to tell her everything. If push comes to shove and he cannot avoid a direct answer on why he acted without her confidence, he puts the blame on Hamida. He says it became necessary to appease Hamida. But he never concedes the point to her that he will confide in her.
4. Even when he pacifies her after an outburst he reiterates the same two things: You will always be Begum-E-Khas and my dearest friend. He promises no more than that but instead offers solace for her via sherbet, physical hugs attention and a smiling face.
5. His test that she is finally simmered down is when he sees that she herself cooperates to make him take forward his relationship with Jodha. She either relents on the planned trip, or offers a gift for Jodha (ostensibly as a choice made on his behalf for Jodha). He gets Ruq to act big and make the concession to Jodha via him! (He does realise that Ruq may give reluctantly or may give pheeka gifts just to belittle Jodha. But the biggger achievement is to make Ruq give anything at all, so he does not at this stage mind this silly churlishness.)
My take out form this behaviour is therefore:
Jala wants to pro-actively handle Ruq's likely growing angst at his relationship with Jodha ... so he wants Ruq to vent fully and periodically so the whole thing does not not at some future point blow up in his face. He wants to reassure Ruq that he will be ready to give her two things: Begum-e-Khas position and Status as his Dearest Friend. He also wants Ruq to know that he cannot give her one thing: He will not let go his rights to act as he wishes with Jodha and so he will not discuss events before hand with Ruq nor take her into confidence any more about his interactions with Jodha. He also wants to get Ruq into the habit of feeling important by giving space or gifts or allowances to Jodha, so that her long-term position vis-a-vis Jodha is as a magnanimous giver not a rebelling cat!
Regarding Jodha, also, Jalal wants her to clearly know that he will give her something else if he can but the Begum-e-khas position and the position as his dearest friend will remain with Ruq.
What all this reminds me of: another almost similar case:
I am reminded of another exactly similar case which involved a famous man and his wife (I won't take their names here). He planned to leave her as they were not entirely compatible. He was posh and suave, she was a bit ghati.
Anyway once he decided to leave her for another posh woman who suited him better, he did the very very decent thing. He decided to give his present wife an education, get her to start a career as a singer (which she was really good at) and only after she was financially independent and able to economically support herself and was emotionally stable and happy in her own empowerment, he left her for the other woman.
Eventually she remarried another great singer. The first husband did not get her remarried to the other man just to dump her off oon someone else. He merely empowered her so that she could find her own way forward to the new life she wanted .
I thought then what a decent mann this was who put his dearest new love on hold for at least six years to give his old wife the ability to adjust to life without him, and then he went into the new life with responsibiility and without the guilt that he had trampled an innnocent life of his first wife. He did not leave his first wife stranded without a life purpose, in fact he showed her what her real life purpose is so that she could make that as the basis of her future life without him.
But all this takes time, patience and repeated reassurance to the old wife that she is OK, she can do it, she can live without him, she can find another new life with meaning. It also gave him the space and time to explore his own new relationship by putting it to the test of time. His new lady love also needed to appreciate what he was doing so nicely for his previous wife, and she had to respect his previous wife, and she had to wait for this man - and in the process the new life of this man and his new woman was also cemented by the strengthh of time.
Jalal is a great guy for me - he is empowering both his women, taking time to rebuild them both
Jalal, if he is going down this route of taking the time, space and attention to reconfigure Ruq's life for her before he settles into a new life at a new wave length with Jodha is a remarkably decent and far-thinking man. And it will also immmesely help cement his relationship with Jodha also if he is able to close out any negative baggage from from the Ruq-closeness days and come to Jodha with a cleaner slate.
He aims to make both Jodha and Ruq respect each oothher, and wants both to know what they can get from him and what they cannot get from him. He is demarcating lines. But he is doing this slowly annd in stages, and he is taking the brunt of the blowouts of both Ruq and Jodha in the process. Yet he is working with slow patience to achieve his ends.
Notice how he is doing the same for Jodha that he is doing for Ruq. Jodha too needs time to adjust to a life with him as a husband for she has been pushed into this alliance of convenience as a prize between two warring kings. She is not physically ready for Jalal,, and even at times emotionally unready to love him. Yet he knows his future love lies with Jodha more than Ruq. Jodha needs time to adjust to a new life with him, while Ruq needs time to adjust to a new life without him.
Instead of berating Jalal for what he is doing to both Ruq and Jodha, we need to see how a twenty-two-year-old boy-man is displaying the wisdom to make his life-change slow, peaceful and least traumatic for all concerned. Even though he is a young man with an urgency to his own needs perhaps, look at his decency and maturity in handling the whole thing! And if the brunt and the blame of the blowuts by Ruq and Jodha fall upon him, so be it, he is ready to shoulder the traumas himself to ease the way for his two women.
It is we viewers that want to rush these tracks for our own happiness at sealing the fate of Jalal-Ruq swiftly so that Jalal-Jodha can start. Every day with his up and down behaviour he is giving us turbulence and we are left asking "What the hell is he up to and why? Why can he not put Ruq in her place and why can he not get more coochey-coo with Jodha yet?' The answer is clearer to me today than it was yesterday.
Jalal will not do as we wish because he is a very decent man with a very decent intention to see that no one is hurt. He will take the time and the pain of change upon himself but he will empower both Ruq and Jodha in their own ways. Jodha is willing to wait for him - in fact she has no urgency at all! But Ruq is now hitting the low spots where she needs to be helped into a new life. Jalal is a decent guy who will help her do that before he helps himself get a new life with Jodha! And he is decent enough to Jodha to see that he brings no unwanted or unpleasant Ruq baggage into her life.
This is my take on this whole issue, after much thought. Now bring on your chappals and rotten tomatoes, folks!
Indian Idol 16
