Jodha Akbar: Episodes 238-239My dearest girls,
What a funny lot you are! Half the time, till I get to the end of one of your accordions, I cannot understand WHAT it is about, and then it turns out to be the birthday of Paris Hilton, of all people!😉 But I love you all regardless, even if my chipmunk gang seems to have disbanded itself, alas!😲
Last night, Episode 239 was striking for one thing: the discrepancy between what Jalal and Jodha, each of them, is for the other. Jalal handles her like a precious piece of Dresden porcelain, about whom he has tentative hopes - watch him reminiscing in his
hoojra before Jodha lands up.
Incidentally, his reaction as soon she was announced was splendid. Instant alarm - he must have been saying to himself:
Ya Khuda, she has come here on her own! Now what do I do? I have not yet consulted Salima Begum on what I should say. After all that was why I postponed the conversation that Jodha Begum wanted to start at once in her hoojra, and now she has come here!😉😉
Rajat was side-splitting in those few seconds, especially the way in which he looks at her in great trepidation as she advances on him.😉
Jodha does not seem to advance beyond the
lajana sharmana routine she had started at the night halt, except for a brave attempt at what could be called a "speaking look" when she is doing the
aarti for Jalal, and again when she takes his outstretched hand. When Shivani is teasing her and Moti is recounting how the Shahenshah was pining for her (and did not visit any other begum, do note that - Jalal will soon become an
ek patni vrat, 😉a thing very rare among the Rajvanshis and Mughals alike), Jodha's reactions were tepid and standard issue, very far from the kind of sudden delight, the melting tenderness, that one would have expected. Her chasing Shivani for a naughty comment was exactly like a scene from the 1960s Hindi films.
I was pleased that Jodha went to his rooms after he had postponed the conversation she had tried to initiate immediately after the puja, and did not wait for him to visit her (which would not have been till after another briefing session with the Obi wan Kenobi of Agra😉) . There is clearly something she wants to get off her chest, and I hope it is a heartfelt apology.
But once there, her reaction to his demand that she whip him as punishment for his
gunaah was far from adequate. It was a passive, shocked look; there was no sudden surge of empathetic pain at the depth of his suffering and the crushing burden of guilt that still weighs him down. No gush of self-recriminatory tears at what her obstinacy had brought him to. In short, there was nothing that brought out the depth of the feelings for Jalal that are so confidently attributed to her by so many.
The HUG!:As for the rather tentative embrace, it was bound to be so, for they are still very awkward with each other. There is not even the spontaneous affection with which one hugs a friend.
It remains to be seen if, once we can take a look at it from the other side, whether it is any better and warmer than the one in Jalal's daydream, where, as some wit commented on my thread, a plane could have flown between them.
But come to think of it, the way Jodha embraced her father recently looked pretty much the same, so perhaps that is her SOP for hugs!😉
Unconvincing transition: All this said, I personally found the sudden transition in Jodha over the last 2 episodes abrupt and thus unconvincing. Let me try and explain why.
Remember that earlier on the very day she decided to return to Agra, at the Kali mandir, Jodha looked at peace with her world and completely settled in at Amer. There was no restlessness, no longing for Jalal, no looking back with despairing fondness to their good times together.
Some might object at this point, citing the tales of Badal's valour that Jodha recounts to her dadisaa. But that could have been about any brave warrior, say Kunwar Pratap, and Jodha would have displayed the same admiration for him as she does for Badal/Jalal. There is no tender emotion in that recital which is exclusive to Jalal. She does not reminisce about any of the gentle moments that Badal and Kajri shared, about Sheikh Salim Chisti's prophecy that she would be the Maryam-uz-Zamani, or about her feeding him with jowar rotis.
Let us go a bit back, to her last day in Amer. As for her longing for Jalal, that is bahut door ki baat. When the unkempt Shehnaaz harangued her for the umpteenth time about her mohabbat, the Shahenshah, all that Jodha had to say was that she does not know how one who is such a stranger to prem pardoned Shivani and Tejwant.
Later, when she hears all the jayjaykaars for Jalal, there was nothing in her face that one would have expected from a woman who, despite being roothi huyi, is in love with her husband. There was no sudden surge of pride in the Shahenshah, whom she claims to love, for having taken such a generous and difficult decision, no fluttering of joy, nothing. She seemed totally ignorant about the difficulties he will face because of this brave move; there was not a word about that in her self talk.
All that she said : Shahenshah badalne lage hain... unka hriday jagne laga hai...( this about an emperor who has gone thru hell to find her and then pleaded with her to forgive him, whereas a true blue Rajvanshi husband would have left her where she was and barred her return!), did not hint at love of any kind.
For love is helpless and it cannot be denied, not even by the kind of guroor that stays in the satvaan aasmaan. It has a way of breaking thru all barriers, including those of pride and ahankaar, and finding its way towards the beloved. Love has no ego, and if there is an overweening ego, then there can be no love.
Nor does what Jodha's rooh says to Jalal in that dusty, leaf strewn maqbara, (presumably Jodha Begum's, for she was not buried with Akbar at Sikandra, something that tells its own tale).
A pupil par excellence: When her rooh talks of her hriday having been touched (curiously enough, Jalal's rooh is silent, probably having nothing to say to this earth-shaking announcement after 450 years!), and her wanting to see him at once to give him badhai for his momentous decision, it sounds exactly like a schoolteacher patting her star student on the head for a brilliant score in an exam. Not like the desperate eagerness of a woman in love, though she will not acknowledge it, to be back with the man she loves.
So, till 2 days ago, it looked as if Jodha was now in a rush to get back to Agra and the Shahenshah because she feels her attempts to "reform" him have started succeeding, and she wants to be there to exult in what she sees as her success. It did NOT at all seem to be because she longed for him and has realized that she was adhoori without him. If that was what it was, we would have seen that day in and day out in Amer. We have not seen anything even remotely approaching it.
An inexplicable sea change: From this state of affairs to Tuesday night at the shahi khema was an abrupt and inexplicable sea change . Now there was lajana, sharmana, aahein bharna, chaand ko niharna, neend udh jaana, in short the full works, as prescribed in our Sanskrit classics, for a virahotkhandita nayika, a heroine separated from her beloved.
Why this drastic change all of a sudden, when even the pardon for Shivani + the teerthkar abolition only produced, on Jodha's way back from the Kali Mandir, the grudging comment Unka hriday jaagne laga hai? I am not going take Jodha apart on this meaningless and condescending comment, for that would be too long and would strain your patience.
Why, because it has been decided that it is to be so. I have often said that this was how the Great Romance would arrive from Jodha's side, by the fiat of the CVs, and the putting up of a placard reading Aaj se Jodha Begum ko Shahenshah se bahut/atyadhik/ apaar prem ho gaya hai. That is it.
Rajat's Jalal: In the last 3 episodes, one thing I could admire, dispassionately, was Rajat's take on a Jalal who can think of nothing but Jodha's arrival, and who is exactly like a cat on a hot tin roof. Jalal' s complete lack of self control and OTT behaviour irritated me acutely, but Rajat's performance was beyond superb.
I loved his half shy, half eager query to Salima as to how he should behave when Jodha arrives. We have a lot to thank Salima for, by the way! But for her, he might have stood at the gate with that aarti thali!
Again, Jalal's reaction to Ruqaiya's plaintive parting comment : Hamari khushi aapki khushi se alag nahin thi, Jalal, was amazing in the fast changing shades on his face. First, gratitude, as his heart is touched by this reiteration of their friendship, then awkwardness, as the full import of what she means dawns on him. Lastly, regret and a sense of guilt at his not being able to reciprocate his friend's feelings, followed by a retreat to his full on obsession with Jodha Begum's impending arrival. It was like watching a superb MS powerpoint presentation!
The contrast between this Jalal and this Jodha hit one in the face during the Sara jahan tera chehra song, with the two of them in alternating frames. As Jalal looks up at the night sky, his deep set eyes speak volumes: they are clouded with longing, then alive with anticipation, and finally resigned to whatever would happen. Jodha cannot manage anything more than a coyly lowered gaze and the lajana-sharmana routine, so here she takes the easiest way out and simply closes her eyes. The viewer can then imagine whatever she/he wants Jodha to feel, and assert that it is indeed so!
If only I could!: As for me, I wish I could have got my hands on that object. I would have used it liberally on Jalal! There, I am sure I am going to attract complaints and warnings for indulging in and thus encouraging excessive violence!😉
Not for being so overwhelmingly in love with Jodha, for he cannot help that. But rather for making such a public spectacle of himself, completely forgetting what he owes to his rank and the dignity that should be part of an emperor's make up. My Lashykanna will probably offer her standard excuse that he is only 22. But that will not wash. He was emperor at 13, and restraint and dignity in public should, by now,have been bred into his bones. But clearly they were not!
As for the climax of his guilt trip, when he offers Jodha the whip (which he seems to have stored away carefully for just such an eventuality😉, very likely with the payal he picked up at ther Gangaur in Amer, in the good old days when he was a carefree daredevil!) it did not look at all like a man who was confident in the power of his love to win hers. It looked and sounded like a penitent asking his guru for advice as to whether he should wair a hair shirt or whip himself to purge himself of his sins. The albino monk in The Da Vinci Code is nothing to our Jalal in his full blown, obsessive masochism!
Shyamala/ Aunty
Edited by sashashyam - 11 years ago
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