Friends, what a fabulous episode we had yesterday. It was just dominated by one big scene of the interrogation of Maham by Jalal and the subsequent massive outburst by a cornered Maham. I know we love to hate our villains, but yesterday, even if Jalal was spectacular, Maham was beyond sensational. I think it was just glorious that such a fine actress such as Ashwini Kalsekar, should decide to end her role in the serial on a such a high. She was the cornered rat, faced with no options but to admit the truth, but even as she found herself without any way out of the situation, she went out after giving Jalal the full blast of her own sense of selflessness which consisted of being utterly, undilutedly selfish.
My mother has always said that one of the hallmarks of very evil people - like some very negative historical diactators - was that they could couch their venom and evil in words that almost made it sound like they were on a divine mission . Yesterday Maham came close to making her rotten chaals and saazishes look like they were all for the good of Jalal. That is the irony of the minds that are sharp but crooked. Up until the last moment of their success they believe that everything can be achieved with a sharp mind. But when they have reached the point of no return, and they are finally cornered and called to account, and when there is nothing left to say in their defence, they almost always love to couch their selves and their deeds in some sort of martyrdom. Maham was all of this and more.
For the benefit of those who always write to me and say they want to hear how it all happened from me, I have recounted the Maham-Jalal confrontation in detail. I've then followed it up with my comments as usual. But today please don't just read and press "Like". Add your own contributions to this thread ... because there is and will be only one Maham and we have to give her the farewell she deserves. In her own crooked way she has given us angst but a lot of high quality acting too. Today's post I dedicate to Ashwini Kalsekar!
What all happened yesterday:
Jodha was interrupted in her reverie by Shenaaz who has read Jodha's sadness well. "Your love came to Amer but it felt pheeka, right?" Shehnaaz asked Jodha, rightly summing up her state. Jodha as much as admitted her love for Jalal to Shehnaaz but said that though she always found the man inside the Shahehshah was a person who went systematically for the truth, in this one case of Sujamal, he had failed to do so. Shehnaaz reminded Jodha that a rose is never thrown away just because it also comes with thorns. She then proceeded to give Jodha a hanky (presumably?) left behind in his haste by Jalal as a memory of him. It was a sweet scene, but that was all we saw of Jodha till we go to the precap.
In the next scene Atga is seen with his wife JiJiAnga, to whom he tells the whole truth he has uncovered about Mahamanga's hand in the Dilawar incident. JijiAnga cleverly guesses that Maham may have had the motive of separating Jodha and Jalal in which she has succeeded, if the current impasse were to be considered. She advises Atga to go to Jalal with this information, however sour it may sound to Jalal!
Atga then goes to Jalal and tells him all. Jalal's face grows angry with every word that Atga says, and we begin to think Jalal is dismayed at Mahamanga. But then he draws his sword at Atga for having the temerity to embroil his Badi Ammi's name in such a sordid story. Atga however holds his ground "Take my head if I am wrong," he says "but the proof is too strongly against her." I think Jalal had enough belief in Atga to know he wouldn't lightly cast blame on Maham without more than adequate proof. He said "Summon Maham right now to the Diwan-e-Khas" and knew that the dark hour had come when the truth has to be heard and swallowed however bitter it may be.
At the Diwan-e-Khas Jalal was pacing up and down in a nervous frenzy as he waited for the arrival of Maham. Atga was seen with Jalal there, but there was no one else. Maham appeared and said in her usual smooth style "Adaab Shahenshah. Why have you summoned me at this late hour of the night?". Jalal asked Atga to leave them alone, an act that already made Maham suspect that something serious was afoot.
After a bit of loaded silence, Jalal turned to Maham and said "Mahamanga, Wazir-e-Aliyah, you have been summoned here for interrogation after a certain matter has been investigated." Seeing his formality and distance Maham said "Till today you have never addressed me thus. What has happened? Anything important?"
Jalal looked straight at her and said roughly "Today I am not your son. I am the Shahenshah and I trust you will try to give me straight answers to the questions I have." Maham replied "Your hukum, Shahenshah!", looking a trifle concerned.
Jalal then launched into his questioning "Did you know that the khwaja sera who got employed in place of Dilawar Khan at our Palace was a Rajvanshi?" A nonplussed Maham couldn't quickly find the words to say a flat "No" immediately - and her lips quivered as she tried hard to frame the words "How would I know such a thing?"
Jalal then shouted out to Atga to being in Dilawar Khan. Maham took one look at Dilawar and shades of guilt clouded her eyes. "Have you met this Dilawar Khan before? Do you know him?" Jalal asked in a voice full of menace. Maham's first answer was a flat "No". But then sensing that she was on the brink of exposure by Dilawar she changed tack slightly. "On second thoughts, if I remember right, this khwaja sera was unqualified and so I had to send him back. Why do you ask?"
Jalal was looking at Maham with deep disbelief and suspicion which she also sensed. "Was this the same Dilawar who came to you saying that an impostor has inveigled himself in his place? And do you also admit that the responsibility of screening khwaja seras was yours?". "Yes it is my responsibility" admitted Maham, "but Shahenshah we do random checks, we don't always check everybody in detail. I have people under me who do this job who may know more. Of course, now we all know that impostor was not Dilawar Khan, it was Sujamal."
Jalal had heard enough. His face was tight as he sent Dilawar out of the room. "Wazir-e-Aliyah, isn't it true that despite knowing that a man has taken the place of Dilawar Khan, you let him into the Palace?" Jalal started asking with his voice growing higher in decibels every second. Maham did not reply that directly, but instead went off on a tangent "What sort of questions are you asking me, Jalal? I am your Badi Ammi Jaan, Jalal".
Jalal was by now shouting at the top of his voice "No Wazir-e-Aliyah, right now I am the Shahenshah and you are a mujlim, and it's better you keep your relationship talk to one side. And then give me your reply with care, for your one word of error can land you in dire straits."
Maham tried to adopt a calm voice. She said looking at Jalal's face directly "Shahenshah, I can tell you that I never knew that was Sujamal." "Oh yes?, Jalal said sarcastically "Is that because when you were with me we got information that Sujamal was seen in Bhadawar?" "Yes, yes" Maham latched onto the angle Jalal had taken. "Don't you remember, that spy had come when we both were together to give us this information?" Jalal smirked and his tone took on the sound of disgust. "Sure I remember" he said, "I remember the spy and I remember his information!"
Jalal then clapped his hands for his sipahis to bring in that spy. Maham was stunned with this turn of events. She looked behind and there was that spy who she had tutored to come and tell Jalal the whole untrue story of Sujamal having fled Agra. Flashbacks of the scene came to Maham's memory. The spy too looked back at Maham with fear in his eyes, just as she nodded at him almost willing him not to open his mouth.
"How far was it true that Sujamal was seen in Bhadawar?" Jalal asked the man with absolute directness. The man hesistated a bit, and seeing his fear of opening his mouth, Jalal proceeded to unsheathe his sword and held it to the man's neck threatening immediate death if should even deviate from the truth one bit. The frightened man then fell to his knees and said "Rahem karo Shahenshah, I made a mistake. I never saw Sujamal at Bhadawar. I was tutored to say so to you at the risk of my life. Forgive me, forgive me." "Who gave you the orders?" Jalal persisted angrily. Maham was then seen signalling the man with her eyes to not tell the truth. But by now the man seemed to know that Jalal was a worse threat than Maham. He blurted out "The Wazir-e-Aliyah made me say that to you.". "Take him away" Jalal said with his mouth twisted cruelly. And then he turned to face Maham squarely. She looked thoroughly shaken and as if her mind was doing some quick calculations to save herself.
Jalal sat himself on his throne, despondent and looking very broken. "What irony" he said, "that the person who gave me my life's biggest wound is none other than my precious Badi Ammi." Maham decided to try the emotional route with him "Jalal beta ... " she began, but his raised hand and closed eyes told her it was better to shut up. "You knew everything" Jalal said with some control in his voice, but he then lost hold on himself and shouted "You knew full well that was Sujamal and you let him into the Palace. Even when I was doubtful about him, you knew full well who he was. You made me suspect Jodha Begum, follow her and spy on her and even accuse her of infidelity when you knew everything about this man being Sujamal. I gave you such respect in my life and is this the "dhoka" you give me in return? Abul Mali gave me a bodily wound, but the wound you have given me is on my soul, on my heart. Why did you do this to me, why did you toy with my feelings, why? You have done such a huge saazish against Jodha Begum. I knew you didn't get along with her, but is this the way to wage war on her, attack her, and reduce yourself? None of my Begums hate Jodha as much as you do. I grew up on the milk you fed me, I treated you as my mother, I loved you, I gave you respect, I gave you this title of Wazir-eAliyah, what more did you want?"
Folks, this is now the part where Maham comes into her own. Seeing that she is totally cornered she decides that attack is the best method of defense. "You did not do a single thing for me" she stated to Jalal, biting every single word at him. "Neither have you done anything for me, nor given me anything. Don't try to look surprised. Considering what I have done for you, you have not returned to me even one-hundredth of that. If anyone has done anything, it was me. I gave you your life, I - and Bairam Khan - made this child a Shahehnshah between us. We gave you shelter, me and Bairam Khan. Everything you are today you owe to the two of us, remember that. What have you given us is as nothing. Whatever we had and have, we made for ourselves. "
"The only reason you got this throne and crown was because you were born in the family of the Shahenshah and I was just a baandhi. That's the only reason I couldn't become the Mallika myself and was reduced to saluting all and sundry. For years I have done service to you and given you the love of a mother to a son. Bairam Khan and I taught you politics, administration and even how to wage war. In return, what did you give us? Just the silly name "Ammi Jaan"? And as for making me Wazir-e-Aliyah, you did me no favours. I earned the position through my brains and competence and cleverness. If I didn't have those qualities, you'd have been happy to just keep me as a Dai Ma for the rest of my life."
" I have always loved you, and will always continue to do so. But mind you, I will not let a silly Rajvanshi Begum who arrived yesterday take from me my audha, my strength, my position and everything. All my years of service going down the drain just because of the presence of one Rajvanshi Begum newly dictating terms, is something I will never allow, Jalal. Hardly a few months have passed since that Rajvanshi came into your life, and you have started so believing and trusting her? "
"Yes, I did a saazish against her. And let me tell you, I have done many such saazishes against her from the moment she arrived here, just to make sure she falls in your eyes. So that she gets out of Agra, out of your life. Because you have now started talking her language to me. Whatever she says is gospel truth against my word? You are giving her too much place. I gave my whole life to you, not even to my own son Adham Khan, and even after that should I bend to Begum Jodha?"
" No. You have forgotten the lessons learnt from me and Bairam Khan. You have grown a dil inside you which is not good for you as a Shahenshah and neither is it good for us. I will gladly serve you for the rest of my life but you need a few home-truths. You were an infant in arms, when we saved you from enemies. You couldn't even walk, you were lying on the ground among the enemies when Bairam risked his own life and saved you and carried you away from danger on his horse. And in return what diid you give him ... the route to Mecca Sharif?"
" He died a dreadful death without even a drop of water to drink. And you called him Khan Baba! No Jalal, I will never allow myself to be treated like Bairam Khan.. And why ... all for that Rajvanshi Begum? Because your heart has started beating for her? Just now what did you say? That you called me Badi Ammi and loved me more than anyone else? Then why have you become like this after the arrival of this Rajvanshi Begum? Why have you distanced yourself from me. Only you can tell me this. Tell me why is it that a son grows further away from his own mother after his wife arrives? Why does a mother's responsibility and her rights get grabbed and given to the wife? Why is it that to keep a wife near you, you have to throw the mother far away? Why is the mother's love no longer needed when the wife's love feels enough? "
"A mother always remains a mother but one can't say the same for the son. Oh no, I don't want my years of service, my loyalty and my life's work to end up with a gift of Mecca Sharif as my destination or that I too should die without a drop of water. Oh no! And that's why I had to keep trying out saazishes. And on God I swear today, I feel not an inch of remorse for what I did. Kill me if you wish, but know this ... I have no remorse whatsoever for what I did."
All this while Jalal's face was going from incredulity to disgust to astonishment to resignation - that the woman standing before him was a A-Class viper of the deadliest poisoned fangs, and one that resented, hated and even drove Jodha away from his life mercilessly heaping injury upon injury on her.
This woman had systematically cut the ground from under Jodha's feet and rendered Jalal himself toothless in the face of her desperate need to prise Jodha out of his life in a bid to protect her own hard-earned No. 1 pposition in his life and her turf. She hated the ground Jodha stood on and the space he had given Jodha in his new found dil. She hated Jodha with all the bile in her stomach. She hated the very idea of a Jodha in Jalal's life.
The position was untenable for Jalal knew that Jodha could never be separated from his psyche any more. He and Jodha had become an intertwined "one" and were no longer two different people. Maham was a lost cause, a woman trapped in her own venomous intent, trying to separate something that could never again be separated.
With a choking voice, and with the look of a man who has seen and heard enough, Jalal said in a voice so low, it was hard to hear him "I will not take away your title. I will also not take your life either. But this much I want to tell you, today you have lost the most precious thing in your life. You have lost a son!"
Maham's face was stony as she heard the very words that would cut her in half. The game was lost. Jalal had made no attempt to placate her or redress her grievances in life. Nor did he promise to disentangle himself from Jodha. The argument was closed, and Maham was left facing the shattered pieces of a life spent so far in calculated manipulation of this man she had placed on the throne in her own self-interest.
It was all over. Maham's eyes revealed the bleakness that follows devastation ... like the destruction after a devastating hurricane tears everything in sight and leaves vast tracts of ravaged land. In this case she herself had been the hurricane that had uprooted her own existence and rendered herself as part of the destruction.
Later in the precap, Jalal is seen ranting to Ruqaiaya "Why did she grab all my happiness from me? Why did she take Jodha Begum away from me? What harm had Jodha done to her?".
In Amer, Jodha seems to have sought out Shaguni Bai for some light on her situation. "I think I did right, for at Agra I felt as if "apmaan" was done to me. A finger of suspicion was raised against my charithra" she said. "But while I should be proud of my decision, and my mind should be at peace, it feels like my mind is itself is my enemy." Shaguni is looking on at her almost ready to dispense a way out for Jodha!
My comments on the overall episode:
I am feeling drained, my friends, because this episode has taken a lot out of me. As a human being, it is always so difficult to see another human being so debase herself that we all collectively feel ashamed that any one of us can stoop so low as to lay bare the worst ugliness in our souls for public view. It is said that people cannot bear it when others succeed, but I must admit that it is far harder to watch people fail utterly, miserably, deplorably and disgracefully.
I was both in awe of Maham and in shock because of her in the episode yesterday. She was fully cornered when Jalal brought not only Dilawar Khan into the DEK, but even that spy whom she had tutored to feed lies to Jalal. When that spy named her as the person who had given him his orders to hide the truth about Sujamal from Jalal, Maham knew her game was up. Or did she?
Spoilers say that after this showdown with Jalal, Maham gets even more vituperative and vindictive and decides now not to just strike at Jodha but to go after the blood of Jalal himself! I can understand why she needs to do that. She has exhausted all her cards against Jodha ... and seeing that she can never ever separate Jodha from Jalal (for they have already fused into one mentally if not yet physically), she had no options left but to wreak havoc on Jalal himself, just for the gutter-level satisfaction of having bested the situation!
a. She starts by telling Jalal that he has done nothing for her in comparison with what she (and Bairam Khan) have done for him. By a strange twist of history, she who was instrumental in the crude murder of Bairam Khan, now couples herself as a team with that very man to make her case that without them both saving Jalal and placing him on the throne, he was a "nothing" except for a person who had the luck to be born in a royal family, while she herself could not rise above being his bandhi. She could never have been a Mallika, she said (which just goes to show us how limitless was her ambition from where she stood).
b. She said by giving her the title of Wazir-e-Aliyah he had done her no favours for she had earned that through her brains and competence or she would have just remained another Dai Ma in this Palace. She sees herself as having risen from the ranks not because of him, but despite him.
c. She spat at the very name of Jodha and said that but for that flimsy upstart - that Rajvanshi piece of nothing in his life - her own position, her love for her Jalal, and her years of service would not have gone to waste. For he had allowed that Rajvanshi to be closer to him than he has let Maham ever be, and that chit of a girl had usurped his heart (which he should never even have grown in the first place). Love for that Rajvanshi had blinded him to the love of his mother. And why did wives always have to usurp the position of the mother in a son's life? Notice here folks, how it starts with a diatribe against Jodha for reducing her audha and status, and then peters out into a saas-bahu kind of hatred, a possessiveness over the son.
d. She admitted that she had done not just one saazish against Jodha but had done endless saazishes against her to try and remove her from Agra and Jalal's life. That was the death blow she gave herself via her speech. There was nothing more for Jalal to do for she had done herself in with that one self-condemnation!
In reply to all this Jalal was only able to say "I will not take away your titles or your life. But I am no longer your son". Look at his astuteness in the face of all that he heard to shatter his own mind and heart. He stripped her fully of the one thing that she most hated about Jodha ... he stripped her of the son she was possessive over. The titles were as nothing if she did not enjoy the King's favour, and her life was worthless to him anyway as inadequate compensation for losing Jodha. But the only thing she could cling on to ... the relationship of having cared for him till now, treating him as her son, was gone.
1. One, was it really a love he felt for Maham as a "mother" or "mother substitute" ... was it his genuine feelings from inside his own heart ... or as a small boy was he brainwashed to believe he had those feelings for Maham as his real mother? I ask this question because despite "loving maham" Jalal has also "loved his own real mother". I keep wondering if there is room in a child's life for two competing "mothers".
So is there then a situation where there is "real mother" whom he genuinely and a "mother he is made to feel beholden to" which he has been taught to think of as love? Did Maham instil in him as a small child the thought of how beholden he has to be to herself? Did she manipulate his feelings from childhood? I think she did!
See how Jalal has had so many other Dai Mas. JiJiAnga also fed him as a child. Then why does he owe only Maham for this service? There were always other motherly women who also cared for him in childhood, even if his own mother were not there. So how come Maham started occupying a special place in his life, by which he was beholden to her? Was it for saving his life from danger? Or was it for making him fit for the throne?
Did she genuinely do some special things for him (out of self-interest as much as care for him) that deliberately made her first among equals among the many motherly ladies surrounding him? Somehow Maham has made him feels as if her contribution to his growing up was more than that of others and that he has to give her a pride of place among all the women who had a role in nursing him and bringing him up.
The question is: even if Maham brainwashed or manipulated Jalal to believe he was more beholden to her than to any other "motherly lady", why did he succumb to that brainwashing? Could it be because he felt the need from childhood to not allow himself to love his real mother too much for fear that she may frequently leave him back and go with her husband wherever he went.
Did it suit the small Jalal to have this "two mothers" insurance so that when the real mother went away frequently, the "mother substitute" could be relied on. If this was the case then Jalal must have been an extremely sensitive boy in childhood, and for Maham to have brainwashed such a sensitive child into believing he never had a heart was no mean feat!
2. Was Maham expecting him to stay forever without a wife's love in his life, in fear that the wife's love may supplant a mother's love? Or was she one of those mothers romantically in love with her son almost like his wife (the reverse of an Oedipus Complex)? Did she not resent his other wives like Ruq because they were no threat to her own "wifely kind of love for Jalal"? And was Jodha the first ever threat to that kind of love she felt for Jalal?
I ask this because I have come across diverse psychology books that talk of this reverse of the Oedipus Complex where a lot of mothers-in-law hate their son's wives as if they were their "souten". In Maham's case this is a convoluted state of affairs if she had that kind of possessiveness over the son's heart. She was not even his own mother in the first instance to be truly the mother-in-law in the situation.
If in spite of not being his own real mother, she resents the daughter-in-law's place in his heart, she must be a combination of a woman who used him to climb to her status and then developed a possessive wifely kind of love for him that abhors any wife he falls in love with. This is the complexity in the Maham case that I find very interesting and revealing.
When she talks of hating Jodha, she first says she hates Jodha for threatening her audha and status. She then goes on to say Jodha has taken his "love away from his "mother". Thus Maham has used Jalal to first grow to her position of power - but after that she looks like she has also fallen in love with him such as to hate any other woman he may fall in love with.
What all this suggests to me is that the Maham-Jalal relationsip is a bit more complicated than we may all realise. It is not as simple as a woman who just used the boy cleverly to get where she is and then resented his falling in love with Jodha and sidelining Maham.
There are at least three or four layers of connect she has established with Jalal - psychological, political, mental, and emotional. Of these the psychological, political, and mental brainwashing have already been secured in the years between his childhood and now. Maham in fact has already got everything she wanted out of Jalal such as audha, positional autonomy, powerfulness and his loyalty to her, and nothing else remains for her to achieve. So then why is she afraid of Jodha? She can just tell Jalal "I don't care if you love Jodha so long as she doesn't try to make you take my audha and other achievements from me". Instead she actively hates Jodha for loving Jalal.
I think, the emotional connect is now the remaining area where Maham feels she has not fully established her place with Jalal. She is keen to see that her own "emotional interest" (read that as "romantic interest") in him is not sabotaged ... but in an untimely fashion Jodha has entered the picture and has threatened all possibility of Maham enjoying an emotional vibe with Jalal.
I think the love that Maham now is beginning to feel for Jalal is not of the healthy kind. It is unhealthy, to me, because it borders on the "wifely kind of love" that she so seems to want and hates Jodha for denying her this. She has everything else she could want and now she covets this kind of love from Jalal, I suspect.
There is also this adage that "Love hath no fury like a woman scorned". That's why I fear that with her unhealthy love for Jalal, and with him now scorning her, repudiating her love and preferring Jodha's love for him, she is going to turn in to the fury that destroys everything in its path - or else destroys itself spectacularly.
This is an interesting story indeed!
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
Advocate Anjali Awasthi
