Originally posted by: skanda12
Friends, yesterday's episode had precious little of Jodha and Jalal, but we did get a whole lot of their mothers, Hamida and Mainavati. I am not just talking about the end scene when Mainavati gives Jodha a good scold, and likewise Hamida also gives Jalal a flea in his ear. But Hamida was top-notch even in the scene where she buckles Maham to take her to the secret surang "right now", and then goes with her just to verify for herself if the place really looks like a spot where Maham goes for peace and seclusion!
The episodes on Mondays are usually stage-setters so I guess yesterday was no different from the average Monday episode. Here's what happened for those who want a storyline format ... I am giving you the rough idea of how the story flowed here, but I am taking care to give you the detailed dialogues of all the parts where Jodha and Jalal and their mothers were involved.
What happened in the episode:
Jalal is riding away from Amer towards Agra, head bent, shoulders drooping and his face wearing a pained expression. At Amer, Jodha was staring into the ground in despondency saying to herself "I was angry with you Shahenshah, for raising a doubt that I was a "charithraheen". But it was natural that I should be angry, isn't it? To have gone with you would have amounted to a reduction in my self-esteem. But in the end I am in a strange mental state. Neither did I want to go with you, nor was I happy alone. I was feeling like the most precious thing from me had been taken away."
Jalal's voice in his head was also talking. "I felt as if a part of me had been left behind at Amer. One part of me was heading towards Agra, but my spirit was still in Amer. How hard I tried ... I let go of my "guroor", my prestige, but you were just not willing to bend. A Shahenshah had come so far away from his kingdom and this throne and his responsibilities just to beg forgiveness from his Begum, but ..."
The scene gently dissolves into the Akbar ka makabra where both the souls of Jodha and Jalal continued talking. "It was true I never went with you Shahenshah, but it felt like my heart was stagnated and every moment seeing visions of only you. All I had was tears."
Jalal meanwhile had taken some rest at a sheltered spot en route, but as he sat there, he continued to feel deeply. "There was no use for tears, really. You wouldn't listen to a word I said. I felt as if I had really lost you. What took months to be changed to mohabbat was in a minute changed back to hatred. I had lost to your "guroor" Jodha Begum."
The scene changes back to the Makabra as the soul of Jalal says "I had the throne, the crown, but not that one happiness that life had blessed me with after so many years. That night I felt the most alone in life. I was like a traveller without a destination."
Jalal, taking rest was again on the scene. " I was returning to Agra, my awaam, just out of a sense of duty as a King. But the husband was lost somewhere in Amer."
How beautifully picturised was this above scene as we flitted between real life and the souls in the Makabra, getting the short and long perspectives of both of them as they discussed the situation they were both in, inside the very depths of their own hearts!
Meanwhile at the Agra Palace, Hamida was pacing up and down, wondering what this Mahamanga was up to with her secretive jungle visits. Was she plotting against Jalal? No, that couldn't be, could it, for Maham seemed to love Jalal more than her own son, Adham. These and other such thoughts were assailing Hamida as Salima entered her room. Hamida told Salima that she needed her advice and then she told Salima the whole Maham intrigue story. Salima, the ever-practical one, gave Hamida a simple solution. "Call and talk to Maham directly, "she said, "for there's nothing like clearing the air when doubts raid your mind." Hamida thought that was great advice.
In the very next scene we saw Maham with Hamida, feigning deep upset at thus being doubted, even after years of sincere "wafaadaari". "I may not have given birth to Jalal, but I fed him and brought him up and love him more than my own son. How could you doubt my loyalty?" Maham asked Hamida with what looked like pain in her eyes. Hamida said, "I am not questioning or doubting your integrity, but I sure want to know what you were doing surreptitiously behind the mazhar the other day?"
"To answer your question is my duty" said Maham "and I promise you I have done nothing to be ashamed of. Jalal has not yet returned and I am getting wild and scary thoughts of what might have happened to him. I always go this secluded place whenever I wish to be alone and to think. I get peace in that place and just go there to pray."
"I don't get it" said Hamida. "You have a separate room even in this Palace, or you could even pray at the mazhar. Where was the need to go into the jungle?" . Maham replied "What more can I say than that I find that place peaceful to pray. If you are not sure of what I am saying then let me take you there to show you". Maham least expected Hamida to be so tenacious, for within a split second Hamida said "Oh yes, without doubt, let's go there, right now! Just you and me ... we both will go there and that too in disguise" Maham is shell-shocked at this turn of events.
In another part of the palace, Atga is wondering what to do with Ahtmaad Khan and Dilawar Khan till Jalal returns. He tells them not to leave the palace and he will keep them both guarded with sipahis for their own safety ... and no doubt there may be danger to their lives if Maham gets to know that they have been sneaking about her behind her back to Atga. So Ahtmaad and Dilawar stay back in the Palace under watch.
In the city near the mazhar, Hamida and Maham are seen making their way into the jungle. Maham is full of anger that Hamida seems to know the route so well, having already followed Maham once. They reach the jungle, the very spot where Maham disappeared from the last time Hamida was here. This time too, it looks like she has lost trace of Maham for a split second, but Maham sneaks up from behind her with an evil look in her eyes. She is not liking this trip one bit, nor the unrelenting tenacity in Hamida.
Maham then claps her hand for the surang door to be opened and to Hamida;'s great shock and astonishment leads her deep into the surang with the help of a lit mashal. "What is this place?" Hamida asks. "I have no idea, I just found it" Maham replies. Inside,the surang all that Hamida sees is a prayer mat on the floor, where Maham stops to show her that this is the place she comes to for quiet prayer. Seeing nothing else there, Hamida turns to go out again, still puzzled by Maham's choice of prayer-spot. But as Maham also turns to go out, she seems to shoot ugly expressions of gleam from her eyes at someone deeper inside the surang.
Back at the Palace a little later, the drummers are beating a tattoo to herald the arrival of Jalal. He turns into the gates of the Palace looking very despondent and gloomy. Ruq comes to know from a baandhi that he has returned with out Jodha, and likewise Hamida too comes to know that Jalal is all alone and has failed in his mission to bring Jodha with him. Gulbadan Begum who is with Hamida tells her to be brave.
Maham, Adham, Ruq, Salima and Atga are all part of the reception committee waiting for Jalal to dismount. Ruq mmediately latches on to Jalal trying to woo him to directly spend time with her. Maham meanwhile offers Jalal something sweet to eat as she asks where Jodha is ... is she perhaps in her doli some distance away from the gates yet?
"Jodha has not come with me" says Jalal through his teeth. "Oh my God, what are you saying?" says Maham looking shocked. Seeing Maham's saccharine behaviour to Jalal, Atga makes mental notes of her treachery and plans to spill all to Jalal at the first opportunity.
Jalal gently eases Ruq off of himself saying "I am too tired. I'll talk to you later. I need to meet my mother immediately." Seeing Hamida was not part of the crowd at the gates, and hearing from Gulbadan that Hamida was in her room a bit unwell, he makes his way to her room.
"Ammijaan" says Jalal standing before a very dejected Hamida, "I promised to bring your daughter back to you, but ...". Hamida turns to raise her voice at him "Then why am I seeing you face alone here? Why is Jodha not with you? Tell me Jalal?" she says standing towering over him!
Meanwhile at the Amer Palace, a replica almost of the same scene is being enacted. Mainavati is giving it to Jodha. "For every word I say I keep getting the same answer saying I don't want this, my mind isn't feeling up to it'. It's five days now that you've been lying like an inanimate object in your room and haven't eaten a morsel of food. What is going on in your mind. At least tell me, Jodha?"
Mainavati shakes Jodha violently by her shoulders. "Do you want to go back to the Shahenshah at Agra?" Jodha looks daggers at her mother making Mainavati even more distraught. "Tell me then Jodha? What exactly do you want?" Seeing Jodha standing there without a word, like a wooden doll, her mother says "There is a limit even to keeping a distance. It should not become such a big issue that your very person is eclipsed by it. I thought you were very hurt but would recover in a few days, but no, it doesn't seem to matter to you at all anymore, does it? No less a person than the Shahenshah of the Mughal Sultanate himself came here to ask you to go back with him. How many times he tried to ask for your forgiveness, and his mistakes were not so huge after all that he could not be forgiven ..."
Back at Agra, Hamida was not sparing Jalal. His head was hung in remorse and shame as he heard out his mother without a word. "Your mistakes are not so small as to be forgiven, indeed no punishment is too small" Hamida said. "What did Jodha not do for you? My daughter even drank snake poison to save your life. She never stopped for even a moment's thought before laying her life on the line for you. And you ... you spent not a moment before you laid a heavy shameful accusation at her feet. I am ashamed to call you my son! You even went with such self-conceit that you would surely bring back Jodha? Just look at this "azeem" and "shaan' Badshah who has come here to stand before me and admit that he was unable to keep his word to me! Don't just stand there ... tell me, where is my daughter?"
"Ammijaan, I spared no effeort to locate her, and then I did find her, but I was unable to convince her to come with me ... I accept my failure. Before her anger, my efforts were in vain. And I am ashamed that I haven't been able to keep my word. All I beg is for you to forgive me, your son." Jalal turns to walk out of the room, unable to raise his eyes to his mother's.
At Amer, Maniavati is continuing to grill Jodha. "If you have decided not to go back to him, then why are you all the time thinking of him? Jodha, in searching for you how much he has borne, traversing the country, getting hurt and wounded, even shedding blood. But it was not enough to soften your heart, it seems? Believe me, if it was some other Begum, the Shahenshah would not even have bothered to look for her."
" In fact, I've never heard of any Rajvanshi pati who came searching after his wife who left him, coming even to his sauraal to seek her out! It would have been against the parampara of Rajvanshi's. And here you have the Shahenshah, despite his power and position coming up to this place to look for you. Consider this your great good fortune."
" I know my dear that the Shahenshah has made a big mistake. But if someone genuinely wants to atone for his mistakes, he should be forgiven. When he never came here, you kept thinking of him. And when he did come here, you turned your face away? What kind of behaviour is this?"
" Jodha, Amer is your home, and that's why we will not force our decision upon you. We will not force you to return to Agra. But as your mother, I want to teach you something. Don't raise the walls of your hurt so high that the whispers of your heart cannot be heard on the other side. The rest is yours to decide."
The precap is something that then grabs our eyeballs, because it suggests the very first signs of Maham's downfall. Jalal in extreme anger tells Maham "Keep your relationship talk aside for you are now just a criminal, so think hard before you answer me. I am here as the Shahenshah and you are just as "apraadhi".
Maham looks like she is in for it, for Jalal seems to be taking out his frustration over Jodha's recalcitrance also on the hapless Maham ... for deliberately hiding knowledge of Jodha's "gair mard" as being Sujamal!
My comments on the overall episode:
Folks, today I feel alike analysing this "mother power" as a concept, because both the mothers of the protagonists were in their element today. There was similarity to an extent in the way they scolded their children, but there was so much contrast also in their styles.
a. The Hamida style of parenting
Even before Hamida came to know about Jalal returning without Jodha, the very atmosphere of confusion regarding Jalal's whereabouts must have made his mother see nightmares. Where was he? Had he met Jodha yet? Had he persuaded her to come with him? Questions must have beset Hamida, relentlessly. But let's all remember that it was the same Hamida who a few days before in extreme anger had told Salima, "Jodha should refuse to bend to him, he has done her a really huge injustice." But being a mother, she was no doubt unable to sustain that negative feeling for her son for too long. She must have started to feel his pain too. She was very angry with him but also very sure that he was at his most vulnerable right now.
It was in this context that Hamida also happened to see Maham doing the "shawl-covered secretive jungle mission", which started looking to Hamida more and more like a sinister plot. If the issue of Jalal and Jodha were not so consuming her mind, I think Hamida would not have become so ultra-alert to Maham's behaviour either. But in the general climate of worry for the debilitated mental state of Jalal, Hamida must have felt like this Maham's curious behaviour may also add to the troubles Jalal already had.
Hamida not only followed Maham almost compulsively on her first visit to the surang, but later, on Salima's advice also decided to call and accost Maham directly, rather than let the nightmares in her mind fester. And when Maham's answers to her queries seemed too far-fetched, too suspicious, she sprang up to tell Maham, "Let's go there again rightaway so you can show me the proof of what you are saying!" It was too much for Hamida that she was expected to believe that Maham was so fearful for Jalal that she went to a hidden place in the middle of a jungle to sit in seclusion to pray for his welfare, when she had a perfectly quiet room in the Palace where she could secrete herself away if she wished. Anyway even after Maham showed her the surang with the prayer mat inside it, Hamida was still not convinced.
I have never seen Hamida so suspicious, even when Maham was doing worse things ... so I must chalk it all down to Hamida's fear for Jalal's vulnerability at this time. The mother in Hamida had both anger towards her son and also protectiveness that made her suspect Maham. And that unfortunately was not good news for Maham, because in less anxious times, Hamida may even have let Maham's suspicious behaviour pass without much thought!
b. The Mainavati style of parenting
On the other hand let's see what was Mainavati's situation. She, I think, was basking in her own success with the "reverse psychology" plan ... when Jodha suddenly turned everything upside down. Mainavati was completely unprepared to admit that her strategic plan had ultimately failed and that she had no Plan B on hand!
She saw the confusing dichotomy in Jodha ... she saw that Jodha seemed concerned about and deeply cared for Jalal ... but then Jodha was also seemingly very angry with Jalal. Mainavati simplistically thought this anger would automatically settle down when Jalal apologised to Jodha. To her utter shock, Jodha's anger only increased when Jalal tried to apologise, and in the end Jodha said a firm "No" to returning with Jalal - and Jalal had to go home empty-handed.
Added to which, Jodha's dichotomy continued even after Jalal left. She moped in her room for five straight days without even eating a morsel, and showed signs of crying for the loss of Jalal in her life. But when Mainavati asked her "What do you really want? Tell me? Do you want to go to Jalal and Agra?" Jodha looked daggers at her as if very affronted. What was a mother to think?
Being the true Rajvanshi that she was, Mainavati then fell upon the trusted formula that all Rajvanshis find convenient to use when in trouble. What should be done as a "Rajvanshi", becomes the question when they are unable to decide what should be done as a person.
So Mainavati applied that "Rajvanshi theory" theory and told Jodha, "I understand your dichotomy - as you also see it very well. But remember, you are a Rajvanshi, and if your husband were a Rajvanshi, it would have been against parampara for him to even consider running to his sasuraal to bring back a wife who had run away. No Rajvanshi husband would have done what the Shahehnshah has done."
Isn't it strange that in the name of "clan sanskaars" a lot of emotional blackmail happens especially to the women of that clan? Here was a classic case of Mainavati telling Jodha, "Don't think too hard as a person. When that feels like too confusing, start thinking like a Rajvanshi!"
Having thus exhausted the "Rajvanshi parampara" angle, Mainavati only then decided to add her own life experience-driven learnings to Jodha ... she said "Do not raise the walls of your hurt so high that your "astitva" gets eclipsed and the whispers of your heart can no longer be heard on the other side."
And finally Mainavati also knew that Jodha, being the stubborn person she was, could not be forced to follow any decision ... in fact the decision to force her to get her married to Jalal was probably one of the causes for the present inability of Jodha to feel any autonomy within her marriage. Right from the beginning the girl was feeling "pressured to conform", first to her father and then to her husband. Mainavati seemed to understand that much at least as a woman and a mother. So she said "We will not force you to go back. But think about it. The decision to go back is yours to make." Even while she said the decision was Jodha's, there was no doubt that the family would not welcome a negative decision and were expecting the decision to be a positive one!
Mansi by telling this to Jodha, Mainavati gave her the freedom.
Some freedoms do not need to be exercised, just felt and cherished.
The very thought of having the freedom to exercise any choice makes the person to decide on the correct one.
Just this huge lift in pressure would make Jodha think clearly and freely. The very words Jodha told Jalal she will decide when to come to Agra. Jodha can now decide without pressure. Not from Jalal of forced to accept on his terms and made to feel guilty at not being able to do so and not from Mainavati.
c. The contrasts I saw in both the mothers
I thought it was very interesting that in the case of Hamida and Jalal, Hamida was the one with the dichotomy ... of anger against her son and concern for his vulnerability at this time. In the case of Mainavati and Jodha, it was Jodha with the dichotomy ... between love for Jalal and anger against her own inability to express her autonomy. Thus one mother was fighting her own inner conflicit while the other mother was fighting her daughter's conflict.
Mansi for you for this line 👏👏👏
It was also immensely interesting to see that while Hamida was protecting Jalal's vulnerability, Mainavati was actually doing the opposite in asking Jodha to allow herself to be more vulnerable.
Both mothers were scolding their children, with their best interests at heart. But how varied and beautiful life is, when you see the different motivations of different mothers. That why they say there is no standard curriculum for parenting. Every parent has to be a one-of-a-kind!
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Anupamaa
