Akbar Jodha ...In continuation from where we left DT Nt Pg 125&152 - Page 25

Jodha Akbar 225: Front runner for the Razzie

Statutory warning: Those rejoicing about the "re-emergence" of Jalal or who loved this episode for whatever reason may please go no further. I hate to be a Grinch, but then I cannot fib either, so the best way out is to drop a broad hint!😉

Today's episode would qualify for the Razzie award in Jodha Akbar. There was every tired repetitive cliche the CVs could think of, both from their own creation and from the film. Today, the nok jhok was as fresh as last week's buns, and Jodha made a spectacle of herself in front of her daasis with her stupid lep, and looked as if she was coming down with the mumps, while Jalal looked jaded, rather like warmed up soup.

And then there was the snake! Good Lord! A snake wandering all over the Amer palace. Obviously intended as a inverted copy of the Amer khema scene, it was quintessentially stupid. The CVs seem to have put their collective brains in the freezer, and are obviously defrosting them bit by bit. 😉The only enjoyable part about the scene was Jalal's closing remark Bechara wo to humare saath khush tha!

The sheer curtain was a straight copy from the film, as was the swordfight, except that it was infinitely better in the film. Here, Jodha looked, exactly like Sujamal when he was escaping from the harem, as if she was scything hay.

And a bad temper does not suit her looks at all. She was atrociously behaved with Jalal in front of the servants and Shehnaz, but then she never had any good manners, did she? So that was par for the course.

I felt so nostalgic for the graceful, queenly Jodha of Aishwarya, who never lost her breeding, especially in public. This one needs to go back to finishing school.

The precap was the only encouraging thing about this whole episode, and I only hope Jalal goes back to Agra and tells Hamida Banu exactly where she gets off, with her endless lamentations for her Jodha beta. He should send her to Amer to join her daughter in law in abusing Jalal morning, noon and night.

Jodha, in the precap, looked not as if she was coming down with mumps, but as if she had it already😉. If we have to look at her like this for another couple of weeks, I shall drop out of watching the show for the first time since June 18 last.

Let us not even compare this track with the one in the film. There, Jalal was,unlike this one, completely in the wrong in banishing Jodha to Amer without allowing her to say a word in her own defence When he found out eventually that it had all been Mahaam's doing, did he cringe and plead and run after Jodha, abandoning all his duties as an emperor, and lie like a corpse in a town square to make her come to him (that was the pits!). Did he repeat ad nauseum that he was the greatest gunehgaar the world had ever seen and that she was absolutely right to treat him like something the cat had brought in? No, no, no!!!

He landed up one fine day in Amer with pomp and show, spotted his Jodha from among 2 dozen veiled females, apologised with graceful sincerity but also with imperial hauteur, and when she still would not come back with him, simply said Hum aur poochenge bhi nahin.. aap khud hi aayengi.. or words to that effect, and upped and left. Now that was a real Shahenshah!

But since we are stuck with this wannabe Majnun of a Jalal, I was glad that he has remembered at long last that he is an emperor who has duties to his people, and not Jodha Begum's doormat. There is some hope for the boy yet. 😉

There, did I not warn you how it would be?

Shyamala B.Cowsik