My dear Divya,
I am not going to tell you to keep up this feel good routine if you cannot manage it. There are things in life more important than Jodha Akbar.
As for this episode, I am not going to gush about Jodha's awakening to her (designated as such now)
prem for her husband. It was not convincing at all, the abrupt transition.
Remember that till the day before, 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.
As for her longing for him, that is bahut door ki baat. When the unkempt Shehnaaz harangues her for the umpteenth time about her mohabbat, the Shahenshah, all that Jodha has to be say is that she does not know how one who is such a stranger to prem pardoned Shivani and Tejwant. (Of course when Bharmal flatly refuses to pardon Shivani, Jodha will not condemn him for not understanding Shivani's prem!)
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).
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.
From this state of affairs to last night 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 Anne has done it very much better than I could on your last thread).
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.
So you will excuse me if I do not rejoice in the new Jodha who will,presumably, not avail of Jalal's demand that she use the whip or whatever it is, on him.
As for me, I wish I could have got my hands on that object. I would have used it liberally on Jalal!
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!
Au revoir, my dear Divya, and do put the time saved by not doing these posts and then responding to overlong comments like this one, to better use. As for me, I am practically off this forum already, and now that you are departing too, I have one less reason to even look in here. I too will put the time I will thus save to good use!
Shyamala Aunty
