My dearest Divya,
This very thoughtful post of yours is really not about last night's episode, it is an encapsulation of the whole journey, so far, of the Jalal whom we all love and admire. I need some time to comment properly on all your very well chosen sections. In such a case, what to choose becomes a major problem given the abundance of material, but you have chosen wisely and well. But more of that later tonight.
Right now, as desired by you, I am reproducing below the text of my post on the last 2 episodes. Some of those reading it might feel impatient and want to get on at once to last night's episode,but patience, my friends, for the best things in life are worth the wait! And then again, the palna scene was very sweet, was it not?
Shyamala Aunty
Jodha Akbar 263-264: Akbar ka aagaman, aur saalgirah mubarak!
by sashashyam , June 18, 2014 at 1:52 pm Folks,
Last night's episode marked the completion of one full year of Jodha Akbar, which began on Tuesday, June 18, 2013.
Whence, one presumes, the arrival on the scene, practically unannounced and with no spoilers or promos, of Hamare Akbar, as his Jodha Begum calls him as tears of joy flood her eyes. This milestone in the Shahenshah's long and glorious reign was all the more remarkable because this was a title given to him, not by another king or by his nobility, but by the common people, as a mark of their abundant affection and regard for a ruler for whom all his subjects were alike and their welfare came above all else.
But before we take up last night's episode, let us take a look at the previous one of Monday. We can begin by dismissing the shocking revelations for Ruqaiya,. Her reaction was comfortingly predictable, and the rest was not particularly significant, except for a tantalizing, if low key puzzle as to how Ruqaiya will eventually pay back her debt to Jodha. The good thing about that scene was that despite her wounded pride, Ruqaiya has the honesty to face the fact that Jodha has done her a favour, which she vows that she will return, sood samet, one day.
Jodha Akbar 263: Palna khali nahin hai: I do not know who among the CVs thought up the dream sequence and its aftermath, but he/she deserves a round of applause. It was so beautifully conceived and enacted that it gave one felt a warm fuzzy feeling at the end. Apart from the significance of the light shining on Jalal's face as he wakes up, and other such esoteric matters, what struck me were the following two points.
-The sheer ease with each other, the very high comfort level, that Jalal and Jodha share nowadays. When she hears him being announced, her eyes look as if lamps had been lit inside them, and though she greets him with a variation of her boilerplate Aap yahan, Shahenshah? , the glow in her eyes is even brighter as he comes up to her.
There is so much of symbiotic excitement between them as Jalal narrates his dream, kneeling before her in their now easy camaraderie, the words tumbling over each other.His eyes are ablaze with happiness at the prospect of his early morning dream coming true, and I have rarely seen such a wide, joyous, infectious smile, mirroring his whole heart and soul at that moment.
I could not understand why Jodha mentioned Ruqaiya as the begum in his dream. Either she does not know that Ruqaiya cannot conceive any more - which is likely - or she is fishing. I would want it to be the latter, for that is more what a woman in love would do. Either way, she gets exactly what she wanted!
I would have liked somewhat more of emotion from Jodha as Jalal echoes the Sheik (whom both of them seem to have forgotten, unbelievable as that sounds) and declares that she will be the Maryam-uz-Zamani. There should have been a dawning delight in her eyes, a lambent joy coupled with shyness. But there is only a steady gaze , which is lowered and then raised again to his. Never mind, Jalal more than makes up for whatever was lacking in Jodha.
-Not Radha, but Yashoda: As Jalal is going on about his dream and what it will mean for her, Jodha is barely listening. All she is taking in is his happinessi Aapko muskurate dekh kar, hamein anand aa raha tha. The only thing that matters for her is that after so long, there is genuine harsh, joy, in his eyes.
This is what love is really about, far more than passion or desire. And as she looks at his retreating figure, one brow raised slightly as she nods her head and smiles in tender amusement at his excitement, Jodha looks, not like Radha, but like Yashoda, rejoicing in her little Kanha's delight. For in every true beloved, there has to be something of a mother as well.
The tale of the two coins: When Jalal picks up the Radha-Krishna coin from Kanha's pooja sthal, turns it around, and raises it to his eyes, I realized for the first time that the Radha-Krishna coins he had given her earlier must have had the ayaat from the Holy Quran on the reverse. There is no other explanation for the way that coin, obviously one of those he had gifted her, was shown now. Which was probably why Jodha was then not shown turning the coin around.
Moreover this could not have been one of the coins he is going to release in the Diwan-e-Khas a little later; , for he means that to be a surprise for Jodha.
Credit, for once, for Jalal: Nor was there any indication, at this time or later, that Jodha had had anything to do with the idea of minting official coins in this pattern. It was shown as being all Jalal's own idea, which was a very pleasant surprise.
For once, the Shahenshah was shown as capable of nourishing such high ideals of the equality of all his peoples, irrespective of religion or race, and concretising it in practical terms for the whole of his vast empire, without having to be coached and jump started by Jodha Begum.
For the historical Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar, so innately broad-minded and so instinctively just, so generous and so conscientious in his perception of his duty to his subjects, was truly a phenomenon, not only in his day and age, but for all ages, past and future. In the 16th century, when across all of Europe and in England, Protestants and Catholics were burning each other at the stake in the thousands, often after brutal torture, for belonging to the "wrong" religion, such an emperor was a shining, lonely beacon of humanism and universal, not just tolerance, but acceptance.
As we have been lamenting for a long, long time, Ekta's Jalal has been fighting a losing battle against CVs bent on enthroning Jodha Begum as the sole fount of wisdom who was behind every one of his wise moves. But not, praise be to God, this time! All that she got credit for was for getting that rotating, enlarged model of the coin sculpted by Teakwood (in half a day😉) and put up for all to admire.
To revert, it was also a pleasant surprise was that as he watches Jodha's reverent joy when she is handling the new coin, Jalal's smile of contentment is mature and dignified, and while they look at each other with shared happiness, it is muted and discreet.
A little earlier in the same scene, as Jalal mentions his happy dream of that morning, Jodha seems almost afraid that in his delight, he might reveal what the dream was about. But he does not, and veers away from it with the remark that it had helped him get over his sorrow (at the loss of his unborn child, as would be assumed by all those present).
There is none of the foolish lover in Jalal these days, like the one who lavished OTT praise on Jodha Begum in the full Diwan-e-Khas for cleverly testing Zakira for her loyalty and then rewarding her for it by taking her into her own service. What a welcome relief for my teeth, which were getting very worried about the frequency with which Jalal's periodic follies made me grind them unconsciously!
Jodha Akbar 264: Akbar ka aagaman: Some might have felt that the advent of Akbar was far too low key, devoid of any drama or glamour. I did so myself, at the first viewing. Even if one did not expect Ekta's budget to stretch to Azeem-o-shaan Shahenshah II, one would have expected something more dhamakedaar, with more of pomp and show, and at the very least a much larger crowd. As it was, there were only about 50 people standing around and passing for the awaam, and the stage looked like the kind of makeshift ones set up for an election meeting, except that no candidate would surround himself with such a bunch of females!😉
The pecking order in Agra: In my early days as a diplomat, in the 1970s, during the Cold War when political goings on in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were far more opaque than they are now, there was an annual exercise that was undertaken in all seriousness by the Moscow/Beijing experts in every diplomatic service. They used to carefully study the line up on the dais at the national day Red Square parades in Moscow and those in Tienanmen Square in Beijing, to deduce the pecking order in the power structure by noting the order in which the main leaders were standing on either side of the supreme leader, the Party Chairman.
I was struck last night by how similar things were in Agra. There was Jalal in the centre, with the senior brigade, Hamida, Gulbadan and Jijianga, to his right. But it was the left side that mattered; after all, the female half of the Ardhanareeshwara, Shakti, is always on the left of Shiva.
So there was Jodha Begum, right next to Jalal, as befitting her now overwhelming influence over him, for all that she ranks only at No. 3. This influence had been most recently demonstrated when she gets him, not by coaxing but by posing a cheeky condition, to invite his other 2 khaas begums as well to this function. Mahaam Anga would have seen this as a clever tactic by Jodha to elevate herself still higher in Jalal's regard, but it was very likely because she would have felt awkward to be thus singled out.
Then came Salima Begum, his trusted counsellor in all but his intimate affairs, and finally, Ruqaiya Begum, still the first in rank but the last in influence and closeness to the Sun King.
Jalal appears not to notice her adaab as he arrives, and does not return it. This only reinforces my earlier conclusion that he has not forgiven Ruqaiya at all. Moreover, for all that he tells Ruqaiya that night about her having felt tanha , Jalal is now uncomfortable with what Jodha asserts was his fault in the whole affair, of neglecting Ruqaiya. For as soon as Jodha starts repeating this mantra (as they are walking together after the Diwan-e-Khas session where the coin was released), he practically brushes it aside and walks on. This is not surprising, for if he were to accept that line whole-heartedly, it would mean he would have to correct that failing and spend more time with Ruqaiya, and he has no intention of doing any such thing.
An honour from the people: On a second viewing, I felt that the low key introduction of this momentous event was, in its way, justified, and not only for budgetary reasons.
There was nothing especially new, in terms of either content or performance, in Jalal's justification for treating his Muslim and Hindu subjects as equals, citing the fact that Allah himself evidently treats all human beings equally in every way. He has said most of this before, most recently after the appointment of Todar Mal as his revenue minister. What was new being his tripping the mullahs up neatly by citing the imperative need for them to revere the holy ayaat inscribed on the reverse of the coin.
Finally, as a clincher, Jalal mentions his having been born under the protection of a Hindu raja, exactly as he did during the butparasti crisis, and just as happened then, now too these arguments prevail.
But what was necessary for Jalal, and even more so for those who oppose his sarva dharma samabhava maxim tooth and nail as a matter of religious principle, was to have a public demonstration of the tremendous sense of belonging his approach had given all his Hindu subjects, and the deep loyalty for him that it had evoked in them.
It is this, the other side of the coin and the proof positive of all that the Shahenshah has been telling his Mughal followers about the need , in the interests of the Mughal sultanate, to do what he was doing, that was provided by that doddering old Hindu who wanted to touch Jalal's feet in gratitude.
Even more so by his banner of Akbar, written in both Devnagari and Urdu. By his proclaiming this as the new title that they, his Hindu subjects , had, in their profound gratitude, bestowed on Shahenshah Jalaluddin Muhammed. They wanted him to be henceforth called Akbar, as in Allah ho Akbar. Mahaan. The Great.
Finally, the crowning touch, the old man leading the assemblage in a resounding jayjaykaar to Shahenshah Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar.
It was like the third tajposhi for Jalal, only this time it was of his people, by his people, for his people.
The second tajposhi: This scene, for all its historical significance and the reflected glory that was shed on it by the memory of Jalal's decisive victory in the second battle of Panipar in 1556, stood out for just one thing.
The enduring grief of loss and the pain of remembrance, and the strength needed to move past them and get on with life.
It was there in Salima Begum, asked to crown Jalal in a second tajposhi (instead of Ruqaiya, the first in rank, perhaps because of her link to the architect of Jalal's triumph and his empire, Bairam Khan). Her face looks frozen in remembered grief. She is so paralysed by the memories of Bairam Khan's great love for her that she is unable to move an inch till Hamida, vocally, and then Jalal, silently, encourage her to complete her task.
It is there in the reflected, empathetic grief that clouds Jodha Begum's eyes, and transforms her face into a portrait of near tearful sympathy.
It is there when Jalal, whose still face, and whose lowered gaze as Salima Begum struggles with her feelings , reflect the symbiotic sadness that they share, like a pair of emotionally bonded Siamese twins linked forever by their enduring love for a man who is no more and who is yet always with them.
But it is there at its most gut-wrenching in Jalal's voice, as he recapitulates all that his Khan Baba had done for him, and how he owes everything he is now to Bairam Khan's unshakeable loyalty, his unfailing wisdom and his patient teachings, thickens and at times becomes almost choked with grief. But yet Jalal never loses his dignity, he never become maudlin. There is great sadness in him, and great gratitude to his mentor, but it is all conveyed with a self control that managed to prevail over the sorrow that surges up from within and threatens to overwhelm him.
The breath caught in my throat as I watched him, and listened to his voice as it became almost suspended by overmastering emotion. It was yet another superb display of Rajat's voice control, and his amazing talent as an actor. The boy is a ruddy marvel!
Enter Mahachuchak! : The OTT intro given to the new Dragon Lady by the now one-eyed Abul Mali, himself no slouch in the villainy department, as a half-sceptical, half astounded Sharifuddin listens, seemed highly exaggerated. One only hopes that Mita Vasisht does not try to live up to this billing, and start hamming it up like Mogambo. 😉
Question of the day: Why does Sharifuddin sit on his hands when every other courtier is applauding Jalal in the Diwan-e-Khas, and look glum and aloof all the time? He is not like the foolishly reckless Adham Khan, who looks perennially the before part of an ad for antacids 😉 . One would have expected Sharifuddin to put up a decent show of fake enthusiasm, but he does nothing of the kind. Is he not afraid that his surliness will be noticed and reported to the Shahenshah?
Shyamala/Aunty
Edited by sashashyam - 11 years ago
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