Friends, oh my God! I don't know whether to laugh or to cry but here we are again back at the favourite theme of the idea-starved Creatives and Jalal - you guessed it, the Meena Bazaar!
Does this Great Shahenshah of the Great Mughal Empire that extends almost to the ends of the Great Land of Hindustan not have any other innovative ideas on harem/wife/ladies management? All his problems with women are solved by having a Meena Bazaar? All his revenge on some of his women is wreaked via the Meena Bazaar? All his partialities for one woman over another find expression via the Meena Bazaar? What is this Meena Bazaar? Is it the staple creative idea to use when the scriptwriters run out of brains on what next to show in the episodes? Is this particular Meena Bazaar today indicative of the fact that Jalal has now totally run out of revenge ideas with which to insult Jodha? Or is it just Jalal's most favourite pastime: judging the khemas at the Meena Bazaar ... like "Chalo aaj Diwan-e-Khas mein kuch kaam nahin hai, khemon ko judge karen!"?
Friends, if I hear the words "Meena Bazaar" again in my life, I might just give up the ghost and go to heaven and stay there till an angry Aurangazeb or some other emperor in the "future" puts a ban on any sort of khema of any sort of lady in any sort of bazaar! I've had it up to here with Meena Bazaars. I've had more than than I bear of these tittering harem ladies running to set up stalls, and wasting 10-12 minutes of valuable episode air time trying to decide, with their sidekicks, on what stalls to set up. And I've had more than I can handle with Javeeda's stall, always having an extremely pathetic joke of an idea that I can barely laugh at. I've had enough. Period!
CVs, if you dare shove another Meena Bazaar ever at my face again, please be warned! You may be responsible for my AMBS (Anti Meena Bazaar Syndrome), a difficult to predict disease!
Do you seriously think it does the Shahenshah of the Sultanate any credit, if all he can think of in the way of ladies management and ladies punishment is this? Maybe the Meena Bazaar was a great idea in Akbar's time, but I am sure even the great Akbar would have held his ears with his hands and said "Enough! Main paagal ho raha hoon!" after seeing 3 Meena Bazaars within 120 episodes!
Other than the Meena Bazaar, there was nothing much else in today's episode ... so here's my take on what the discussion in the Jodha Akbar Creative Team must have gone like ...
Okay now for a bit of detail on some key topics ...
Jalal and his harem-management via the Meena Bazaar!
The episode opened with Jalal telling Maham that the very next morning all his ladies needed to be ready with a full-fledged Meena Bazaar. Overnight they would all have to come out with their best ideas for khemas. This time around, the whole Meena Bazaar was going to be differently judged - by himself! He would not buy products from all the stalls, he would buy from just one stall. And the best stall would get a huge prize.
The very clever Maham looked at her Emperor in some awe, as she saw that this was no standard idea! This was a different idea from Jalal! (Hear, hear!) She told him "I think Jalal you have some ulterior motive behind this Meena Bazaar?" he replied "Oh, you know me so well, Badi Ammi!" And then he muttered to himself some oaths of revenge on Jodha ... he declared that via his manner of judging and rewarding he would belittle Jodha and her stall!
Maham dutifully sent word to the harem via Resham that the stalls had to be be ready by the next morning and they had better be good. In typical Mughal Sultanate Harem style, we then saw the various key ladies feverishly planning their ideas with their sidekicks.
Ruq was almost out of ideas when Maham came to her and Hoshiyaar and told her "Why bother? You and I know that the real battle is between Jodha and Benazir", to which Ruq smiled slyly (but her expression changed just a wee bit after Maham left).
Elsewhere Moti was trying to motivate Jodha regarding her khema. But the sad and broken Jodha said a bit caustically "I will not have a stall, I will sell nothing, and no one can force me!" But just then the good angel from heaven came in the form of Hamida who told her "I know Jalal has aired all your dirty linen in public, but please do not do the same thing yourself. Do please participate in the Meena bazaar for the prestige of the Sultanate!" And with that she wiped Jodha's tears and cluck-clucked at her plight without being able to help Jodha any further.
The Big Benazir and her Small Baandhi were also in discussion about their khema. Big Benazir said "Ruq being a begum has all the wealth to put up a prize-winning show. But I have my brains and my jism, which I will use!" (I thought she would use her jism by belly-dancing or doing something exotic ... but she had a different idea that was far less eyeball-popping!)
Came the day for the Meena Bazaar when Maham, walking though the crowds, was in typical past fashion halted by the crowd at her daughter-in-law's stall. Javeeda was ostensibly selling bottles of "Big Benazir's Secret Face Lotion" to a milling mass of ladies wanting to look as beautiful as Big Benazir! The Small Baandhi tried hard to tell Javeeda that what she was selling was not in fact Big Benazir's Secret Face Lotion, but Javeeda didn't heed her. Big Benazir however came there to gloat at the popularity of her beauty among the harem ladies.
(Friends, here I suspect that Javeeda actually may have been selling bottles of that poison that Benazir had kept as her secret "vish injecting recipe" ... maybe later one of these bottles will fall into Jodha or Jalal's hands? I can't think of any other use for Javeeda's stall to be given so much prominence today!)
So much for the stall setting up high-jinks at the Bazaar. Now comes the judging part where the Shahenshah of Hindustan appeared with a huge Kohinoor diamond in hand and declared that the winner would get the diamond and the Kohinoor title. Inspired by his words, his ladies all lined up to try and sell their wares to him (I mean their products, not themselves!).
Ruq's shawls were admired by Jalal but they were not good enough to buy, he declared. So Ruq gifted him a shawl. Then Salima gave him a bouquet of simple white flowers with some pretty dialogues - but again he was moved but not enough to make her a winner. Then his eyes descended on Jodha and his face scrunched up. She said "I have nothing to sell, but I have a gift to give". Churlishly Jalal said "I said I would buy, I didn't come here to take gifts!" (Then, pray, why did you accept Ruq's shawl?)
Hamida was miffed at this behaviour from her son, but he proceeded to look up Big Benazir's khema. There the Big Benazir had done a big painting of Jalal and declared it was because he was "that precious" to her. Even Ruq looked like she had been knifed, but Jalal continued on regardless. He praised the painting of himself to the high skies and said it made him look very alive! He then declared Big Benazir the winner of the Kohinoor diamond and the title. All the assorted harem ladies said "Wow, a baandhi with a title, how rare!"
But the unfazed Hamida had had enough of Jalal! She said "As Marium Makkani, I want to see what Jodha has brought as a gift!" Jodha then unwrapped her gift ... it was a Kanha Ka Cradle of a tiny size, meant as an omen for the blessings of progeny on the Sultanate. She said "Whichever begum bears the eventual waaris, I hope this divine gift will bring good news fast into the family!" Hamida was so moved that she tore the khandaani haar off her own neck (which was in fact a gift from Humayun) and she gave it to Jodha in a grand gesture that rivalled the gifting of the Kohinoor minutes earlier by Jalal to Benazir! Somehow the khandaani haar seemed more precious, more valuable and more symbolic of real power than the Kohinoor at that moment, and Jodha looked like she'd been annointed as Hamida's successor while Benazir was merely a receiver of a rich but ultimately meaningless title. Jalal, I thought, looked angry but also a trifle ashamed!
So much then for the great Meena Bazaar idea and how the Emperor used it to get back at Jodha ... but how ultimately Jodha bested him with her gift idea and his mother then crowned her as bigger than Big Benazir! What a to do about nothing! Was this the best revenge idea Jalal could have come up with to teach Jodha a lesson for spurning his advances? I like to think that Jalal was a bit ashamed today not just because his idea did not succeed as wildly as he thought, but because he had had such a bekaar ka idea in the first place.
CVs, why do you do this to us? Can we not have our hero look less stupid? Why do you thus torture us again and again by reducing Jalal to a nothing?
Ruq and Maham look like two strange peas in a pod!
There's not much to say on Ruq and Maham today because their interaction was really short. But I want to still re-iterate that Ruq is giving more and more enigmatic expressions that could be read both ways. And as for Maham, she still does not look like she knows Benazir is a vishkanya. So we've not made much progress on these two fronts today!
Just want to bounce off a crazy idea I've had with you folks!
I suddenly had a strange idea which goes like this ... what if Jodha comes to know that Benazir is a vishkanya, but Jalal does not know this. Maybe Jodha may try to go and tell her doubts to Jalal but he may be dismissive saying its her jealousy that is forcing her to make up stories. Will she then decide that she has to somehow keep Benazir away from spending a night alone with Jalal (and biting some poison into him)? Will Jodha offer to spend the night with Jalal herself just to keep Benazir at bay? Will Jodha do that just to save Jalal? Its just a thought I had ...
Maybe the night itself may not come to pass, as Rahim may perhaps unravel the letter issue just in the nick of time, thus making it unnecessary for Jalal to test if Jodha really meant to spend the night with him. But I was just randomly wondering if Jodha may surprise Jalal with this kind of a reverse-twist? What do you all think?
A word about the seemingly very cordial precap today
I thought that precap scene today was very nice. Jalal seemed to be half-faking anger at Jodha - or rather, trying hard to be really angry but not quite succeeding. Anyway she just grabbed his hand as if they were still friends and tried to give him something which he refused. She then told him it was mandir ka prasad, and why should he show his anger on her on the prasad? Did you all see how he then stretched out both his hands reverently and took the prasad and even ate it? Looked like a lost soul just ready for a gift of any kind from Jodha!
Anyway she then went into a friendly question asking " OK, now tell me what you didn't like about yesterday?" I think he must have been sulking about her gift at the Meena Bazaar ... and she must be trying to work the angst out of him? They looked friendly enough, didn't they?
(Incidentally yesterday's precap of Jodha telling Moti about Benazir's title may happen tomorrow?)
Channel V Dil Dosti Dance
Arjun
