Journey from Jallad to Akbar - Page 5

Originally posted by: chocobrownies

Fantastic post..! 👍🏼

Originally posted by: Cleo12345

Awesome post Sandhaya...enjoyed reading it.

It is a much needed post...helped me remind one more time how magical this show was when I started watching it...the potential is still there...we just need one well executed track with the right balance of positivity, negativity and logic to fall in love with it all over again.

Thanks to the show and the forum, I have learnt so much about the great Mughal emperor Akbar and his achievements.

I didnt know much about indian TV actors before i started watching the show...I loved Paridhi as Jodha as soon as I saw her on screen...her beauty, elegance and Hindi ucchaaran impressed me the most ..Rajat grew on me gradually...I'll be honest ...Initially i felt that he was kinda short and average looking ( I was probably subconsciously comparing him to Hritik Roshan which is unfair) ...but oh my...this little guy is at par with some of my favorite American actors when it comes to talent...his acting skills are to die for.

Originally posted by: Seema1987

I used like Rt fm tereliye days.

Wen I saw the promo I wanted to watch bz Rt was the lead bt never knew he was such a good actor and thought how can he play akbar role ..he looks a schoolnboy to me ...he was so thin at that time

..bt the tme went on his awsome acting n his figure made him look perfect akbar

Originally posted by: divyavm

Sandhya amazing post! loved how you depicted the journey ... The emotional transformation and the different emotions he felt over this past year from guilt to betrayal ...

He is a willing student and learns and progresses with time... That is what makes him great!

What can one say when faced with such an obvious labour of love?

It is a very comprehensive and affectionate round up of all that we have been shown of the journey from the early Jalal to the present Akbar- of course confined to the serial script- and as I feel about the same as you do all thru, there is nothing I need say except Bravo!

I cannot think of a single significant facet of his character development that you have missed out on, barring the much less impressive one of his personal relations. And you have linked all the threads so smoothly and convincingly that the real Akbar himself would have been pleased!

One additional point, and this adds to Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar's greatness. He came of a race of fierce warriors who gave no quarter and expected none, and in whom the quality of mercy was notable by its absence.

Which was, truth to tell, common in various degrees to all great conquerors down the ages - Alexander of Macedon routinely massacred the inhabitants of all the cities that he was forced to besiege and conquer, and during the Spanish War against Napoleon (to be precise against his brother Joseph, the hapless and incapable King of Spain), the Duke of Wellington let his troops loose on all the conquered cities, as he was perennially short of cash and had nothing with which to reward them and make them ready and willing to fight the battles that he knew lay ahead. What happened to the population of those cities can be imagined.

The gentle and ineffectual Humayun was probably the sole exception to this rule in the nasl-e-Timuri. The forefathers of whom the present imperial family, including the oh so gentle Hamida Banu, is so proud, Timurlang and Chengiz Khan, would have been totally contemptuous of his weakness, just as Bairam Khan was. They would have been right too, for see what happened to Humayun (no wonder his eyes were ever trained on Jannat, not on the here and now!) and what would have happened to Jalal but for the ruthless Bairam Khan and Mahaam Anga!

It was this ruthlessness, besides the mandatory skill in warfare, that Jalal was trained in, and expected to live up to all his life. And he did oblige his mentors, Bairam Khan and Mahaam Anga, in his early youth, whence the sobriquet of Jalal the Jallad.

But somewhere inside him, there must always have been the seeds of justice, of caring, or responsibility towards his awaam, above all towards the helpless and the weak, which surely did not come from the Timuri khoon that Hamida mentions every now and then.Maybe it was Humayun's genes, or Hamida's, but mingled with a forcefulness, and a will to dominate that was alien to both of them, plus the killer instinct that is needed to make a great warrior. And without the latter qualities, there would have been no Jalal and no Akbar.

Whatever its source, it is this fierce sense of justice and this protectiveness towards those who depend on him that make Jalal ride for 17 straight days to stop Adham Khan's carnage in Malwa, and nearly kill him in the process. And made Akbar ride I do not know how many straight days to stop the sati of the Maharani of Jodhpur (I do hope they show that in the serial!).

It was the same with the sarva dharma samabhava. Jalal always believed in it deep down, perhaps influenced by his early years spent among the Rajputs, not only in Umarkot, but later in Madhya Pradesh, and when the time came, it emerged, that is all.

The greatness of Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar was that he did not merely tolerate the practice of religions other than his own. He accepted it and facilitated it.

You have underlined the contrast with 16^th century Europe and England, of Protestants and Catholics killing each other in the name of religion. But it was far worse that what your lines convey. It was systematic, institutionalized killings by the State, mostly by burning at the stake - what was called an auto da fe in the home of the Spanish Inquisition - and this after prolonged torture on the rack and/or the wheel, to "save the soul" of the unfortunate. Often in public, as a general celebration of the victory of "the true faith"

Nor was this kind of bigoted horror confined to medieval Europe. In the greatest country on earth, as the USA is called, till the 1930s. there were public lynchings, in the deep South, of black Americans accused of petty crimes. They were strung up in public and tortured to death, while large crowds of respectable citizens watched, as if at an entertainment,therir children, in their Sunday best, on their shoulders. Picture postcards of such events were banned by the US Post only in 1923. I saw a ghastly exhibition about all this in the New York Metropolitan Museum in the mid-1990s.

Think of all this, and then think of Akbar! If Jodha had had even a very limited notion of the kinds of things that went on in Europe in her times, she would have realized that Jalal the Jallad was an angel by comparison.

Of course Akbar went even further and tried to meld the best from Hinduism and Islam into the Din-e-Ilahi, but he was far ahead of not only his time, but even our present one.

The other point I have made repeatedly, right from my 3^rd or 4^th post in the IF, is about Jalal's very unusual sense of gratitude to anyone who did anything for him, from his Khan Baba and his Badiammi at one extreme to the forester who shares his food with him while he is searching for Jodha at the other. Gratitude is rare among royalty, who have a highly pronounced sense of entitlement, and think that it is the privilege of their subjects to be able to serve them and make sacrifices for them. Jalal is the antithesis of this kind of royalty.

A companion, and not so welcome trait is his tendency to (a) blindly trust those he sees as very close to him and (b) forgive them even the worst of trespasses for family reasons. These are dangerous traits in a great ruler, and but for the fact that he was throughout under the protection of Adiana's Ms.Kayanat - Jaako raakhe saiyaan, maar sake na koyi - Jalal would have been disposed of very easily by any number of insider enemies. That he survived as the Shahenshah-e-Hind for 49 years (1556-1605) was no thanks to Jalal himself!

I am not going into the kind of poodle he has become in love. I am by now past lamenting over such a steep fall. But I would any day have the swaggering, rakish buccaneer who entered the enemy's domain in Amer and came out safe, beating almost impossible odds -it was wonderful to see the old Jalal in chain mail! - instead of the lovelorn husband who practically begs his Jodha Begum to spend the night with him, and laughs helplessly when she turns him down flat. His present avatar often makes me feel downright queasy.

Once again, I loved your tour d'horizon of Jalal, and your lavish tribute to Rajat for having made this Jalal his own, so much so that one does not even think of Rajat the actor as one watches him onscreen, which is the ultimate tribute for any artist. But then need I say any of this?

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

JOURNEY FROM JALLAD TO AKBAR

to

A year ago, we were introduced to the character of Jalalluddin Mohammad, a protege of Bairam Khan, intent on conquering and ruling the whole of Hindustan, looked upon by the people of the nation as an outsider, an invader, as a Jallad, whose name meant a heartless killer to them, hated and cursed by them all.

A year later, (a year and a few months later by serial time) we had an old man from the same people, tottering to him and expressing his wish to call him Akbar, meaning The Great and touched his feet in reverence and looked upon him as one among them, respected and loved by them all.

What a transformation from one extreme to another!

There are two things that have to work in your favour for you to achieve anything,

-Destiny and God's blessings

-Your own hard work and willingness to improve and achieve.

Jalalluddin had both.

The little fatherless boy of 13, trained, moulded and crowned by his father and king's faithful Khan Baba was exposed to little else, than battle field, blood, treachery, the superiority of power and the power of might. He was still angry with his mother who failed him in his childhood. His only solace lay in his Badiammi, who unfortunately used him to attain power and his childhood friend, who was not perceptive enough to care for his emotions. As a result he shut his emotional side and was happy to be what he believed a 'sangdil sipahi'.

His destiny took a turn in his visit to Amer, as he looked at the desert kingdom, (an attachment he had as he was born in one of these kingdoms), and was pulled towards it though his friend thought it was a dozak. A second turn, when he saw the 'registaan ki gulaab', a princess whose beauty swept him off. Her placing the sword at his neck combined with his pull to her beauty filled him with the urge to possess her. Marry her, he did...against her wishes though. But could not possess her the way he wanted to. She was a challenge, not wanting anything from him and not willing to give him anything either, a novelty and Jalalluddin liked challenges.

In his journey to attain her, he was exposed to a whole new range of emotions. Having wrongly accused her of murder of his unborn child and having pricked her badly in the affair he felt guilt for the first time. In his journey to Ajmer, he saw her pray his way. Having been born and having spent his early years in the kingdom of Umarkot, he was open to other religions too. The fun he had in taunting her and in her sharp responses, he felt was more than the fun at winning a 100 wars. The many experiences they shared together, tested by the plots of the evil people around them, that finally culminated in her lying on the deathbed for him, made him admit to himself and God that he was in love, a feeling that he refused to admit that he could possess.

Alongside, his stability at Agra over the past year brought him closer to his own mother. The betrayal by his sister and brother in law made him feel pain of the acutest kind. The betrayal by his mother-like figure in whom he trusted more than he trusted in himself shattered him and agonised him. The falsety of his father-in-law against the total honesty of his wife, the magnanimity of his half-brother against his anger, the cheating of his childhood friend where it pricked him most, and the patience advocated by his wife to save his friendship were experiences that chiselled the fine personality in him. Nothing teaches like experience and he was a willing student.

In this year he got closer to his populace. He wanted to rule the people, not just the lands. Though he always considered his awaam as his janasheen, his birthday gift of their blessings stirred an unfelt sensation in him and in his desperate attempts to save his wife from death bed he sought their prayers. When she was saved, he got closer to his people. He understood that a king with his powers alone cannot achieve everything. There are things like prayers and God's blessings that are more superior to his sword and that he cannot be the sole writer of his destiny . Though he was never cruel and heartless, except perhaps on the battlefield like any other warrior, this year saw him turn very compassionate to his people. His bottled up goodness burst out and propelled him to challenging laws and making reforms.

The plight of an unwilling young girl being forced into marriage, made him pass laws to abolish child-marriages - he went to the extent of risking his own marriage to establish this law! He spoke for widow remarriage and risked the stone pelting of an angry mob to protect a widow. A tour into the plights of slaves made him abolish slavery. These are steps that even established and experienced kings of the land then, did not attempt to, either they did not care or they did not want to risk revolts.

In an era when Catholics and Protestents were killing each other in the west, even the divides among Hinduism did not find harmony, with Shaivites and Vaishnavites quarrelling, and Raam Bhakts and Krishna Bhakts refusing to see unity, here was a man from another land another religion, another faith, who saw the religion of Hindustan at equal levels as his own, bowed before the Hindu idol and accepted it as its own, inviting the wrath of the maulvis, fought them, prayed to Krishna as he saw his God and that of his wife to be no different, saw injustice in the Hindus being asked to pay tax to pray and wished to be whipped for it, abolished the tax and issued coins featuring images of both the faiths stressing the equality of all religions.

It was this final act of his that made his subjects accept him whole heartedly as their king whom they acknowledged to be Great, who loved them beyond all differences and worked for their welfare, a great king who cared for his subjects , their AKBAR, a name given by them in love, respect and admiration by which the world knew Jalal better, then and even now 5 centuries later.

PS: Kudos to Rajat for his excellent portrayal of Jalalluddin Mohammad Akbar - as a capable shaatir sipahi with a low boiling point to a great king and a very fine human being with unbelievable levels of understanding, tolerance, affection and compassion for all. The actor has excelled in portraying all the shades of this gallant achiever. Can't imagine anyone else who could do so much justice to the character with so much conviction, grace, sincerity and flair.👏

Originally posted by: sashashyam

My dearest Sandhya,

What can one say when faced with such an obvious labour of love?

Love indeed it is aunty. Certain personalities from history and certain characters from mythology, epics and fiction are so loveable that they seem real and nearby .

It is a very comprehensive and affectionate round up of all that we have been shown of the journey from the early Jalal to the present Akbar- of course confined to the serial script- and as I feel about the same as you do all thru, there is nothing I need say except Bravo!

I cannot think of a single significant facet of his character development that you have missed out on, barring the much less impressive one of his personal relations. And you have linked all the threads so smoothly and convincingly that the real Akbar himself would have been pleased!

😳

One additional point, and this adds to Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar's greatness. He came of a race of fierce warriors who gave no quarter and expected none, and in whom the quality of mercy was notable by its absence.

Exactly, and this is what makes him exceptional. If he was a descendent of Manu Needhi Cholan and Pari Vallal and been compassionate and kind, you can understand. But with the blood of fierce warriors, if he has chosen to be just and kind, it speaks volumes of his greatness. Like Dumbledore said, it is the choices that matter- that makes a person. Though there were Slytherin traits in Harry he chose to be in Griffindor and the sorting hat put him right there.

Which was, truth to tell common in various degrees to all great conquerors down the ages - Alexander of Macedon routinely massacred the inhabitants of all the cities that he was forced to besiege and conquer, and during the Spanish War against Napoleon (to be precise against his brother Joseph, the hapless and incapable King of Spain), the Duke of Wellington let his troops loose on all the conquered cities, as he was perennially short of cash and had nothing with which to reward them and make them ready and willing to fight the battles that h knew lay ahead. What happened to the population of those cities can be imagined.

The gentle and ineffectual Humayun was probably the sole exception to this rule in the nasl-e-Timuri. The forefathers of whom the present imperial family, including the oh so gentle Hamida Banu, is so proud, Timurlang and Chengiz Khan, would have been totally contemptuous of his weakness, just as Bairam Khan was. They would have been right too, for see what happened to Humayun (no wonder his eyes were ever trained on Jannat, not on the here and now!) and what would have happened to Jalal but for the ruthless Bairam Khan and Mahaam Anga!

I must admit, I expected a word of thanks to MA too, along with BK, in his 10th year celebrations of the Battle of Panipet as she too had a big role in making him a shahenshah. He could have acknowledged her services in public and yet kept his distance away from her personally.

It was this ruthlessness, besides the mandatory skill in warfare, that Jalal was trained in, and expected to live up to all his life. And he did oblige his mentors, Bairam Khan and Mahaam Anga, in his early youth, whence the sobriquet of Jalal the Jallad.

But somewhere inside him, there must always have been the seeds of justice, of caring, or responsibility towards his awaam, above all towards the helpless and the weak, which surely did not come from the Timuri khoon that Hamida mentions every now and then.Maybe it was Humayun's genes, or Hamida's, but mingled with a forcefulness, and a will to dominate that was alien to both of them, plus the killer instinct that is needed to make a great warrior. And without the latter qualities, there would have been no Jalal and no Akbar.

Whatever its source, it is this fierce sense of justice and this protectiveness towards those who depend on him that make Jalal ride for 17 straight days to stop Adham Khan's carnage in Malwa, and nearly kill him in the process. And made Akbar ride I do not know how many straight days to stop the sati of the Maharani of Jodhpur (I do hope they show that in the serial!).

It would be wonderful if they show it. High time, they start concentrating on Akbar and his achievements and limit Jodha to being his strong support, inspiration and emotional anchor. Now that they have started living happily ever after and that it would be ridiculous to show more misunderstandings,it is time to shift focus. As it is Akbar who is the centrepiece and even if the world vaguely remembers Jodha or Ruqaiya it is only because these women were his wives. Else they would have been forgotten names.

It was the same with the sarva dharma samabhava. Jalal always believed in it deep down, perhaps influenced by his early years spent among the Rajputs, not only in Umarkot, but later in Madhya Pradesh, and when the time came, it emerged, that is all.

The greatness of Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar was that he did not merely tolerate the practice of religions other than his own. He accepted it and facilitated it.

You have underlined the contrast with 16^th century Europe and England, of Protestants and Catholics killing each other in the name of religion. But it was far worse that what your lines convey. It was systematic, institutionalized killings by the State, mostly by burning at the stake - what was called an auto da fe in the home of the Spanish Inquisition - and this after prolonged torture on the rack and/or the wheel, to "save the soul" of the unfortunate. Often in public, as a general celebration of the victory of "the true faith"

Nor was this kind of bigoted horror confined to medieval Europe. In the greatest country on earth, as the USA is called, till the 1930s. there were public lynchings, in the deep South, of black Americans accused of petty crimes. They were strung up in public and tortured to death, while large crowds of respectable citizens watched, as if at an entertainment,therir children, in their Sunday best, on their shoulders. Picture postcards of such events were banned by the US Post only in 1923. I saw a ghastly exhibition about all this in the New York Metropolitan Museum in the mid-1990s.

How barbaric!😲 And the colloseum where people were served as lunch to hungry lions!😲 Why even 400 years after the times of Akbar, we had Hitler and his concentration camps.

Think of all this, and then think of Akbar! If Jodha had had even a very limited notion of the kinds of things that went on in Europe in her times, she would have realized that Jalal the Jallad was an angel by comparison.

Of course Akbar went even further and tried to meld the best from Hinduism and Islam into the Din-e-Ilahi, but he was far ahead of not only his time, but even our present one.

Very true. He was far far ahead of his times. Even after another 500 years, it is a doubt if man can think like Akbar and take the best from all religions.

The other point I have made repeatedly, right from my 3^rd or 4^th post in the IF, is about Jalal's very unusual sense of gratitude to anyone who did anything for him, from his Khan Baba and his Badiammi at one extreme to the forester who shares his food with him while he is searching for Jodha at the other. Gratitude is rare among royalty, who have a highly pronounced sense of entitlement, and think that it is the privilege of their subjects to be able to serve them and make sacrifices for them. Jalal is the antithesis of this kind of royalty.

Jalal has used the fierceness that his blood gave him only to protect the values he held dear. For the greater good. He was made of every kind of goodness within. His warrior training under BK and MA gave him the spirit and ability to uphold his goodness. Kannadasan's lines suit Jalal perfectly...

Karunai Irunthaal Vallal Agalam
Kadamai Irunthaal Veeran Aagalam
Prumai Irunthaal Manithan Aagalam
Mndrum Irunthaal Thalaivan Aagalam

and Jalal was a perfect 'Thalaivan', an exemplary leader, the likes of whom the nation awaits today.

(The lines mean...

If you have compassion, you can become a great daanveer

If you have a sense of duty, you can become a brave person

If you have patience, you can become a good human being

If you have all three, you can become a great leader.)

A companion, and not so welcome trait is his tendency to (a) blindly trust those he sees as very close to him and (b) forgive them even the worst of trespasses for family reasons. These are dangerous traits in a great ruler, and but for the fact that he was throughout under the protection of Adiana's Ms.Kayanat - Jaako raakhe saiyaan, maar sake na koyi - Jalal would have been disposed of very easily by any number of insider enemies. That he survived as the Shahenshah-e-Hind for 49 years (1556-1605) was no thanks to Jalal himself!

But Ms.Kayanat has to be your protector even to walk down the stairs and cross the road. Goodness, that usually seems to us as weakness only adds Ms.Kayanat's invisible rings of safety around us. It was his unbelievable ability to forgive and think good for all that probably made saiyaan raakofy him that the poori bairi jag baal na baanka kari sakey. And aunty, it takes only a little courage to slap or revenge your enemy. It needs much more courage to forgive them. Forgivance is the zenith of bravery and Akbar was one of the bravest men the world has seen.

I am not going into the kind of poodle he has become in love. I am by now past lamenting over such a steep fall. But I would any day have the swaggering, rakish buccaneer who entered the enemy's domain in Amer and came out safe, beating almost impossible odds -it was wonderful to see the old Jalal in chain mail! - instead of the lovelorn husband who practically begs his Jodha Begum to spend the night with him, and laughs helplessly when she turns him down flat. His present avatar often makes me feel downright queasy.

Just thinking what our Jalal of episode 42(hamam khana) done in a similar situation!☺️ Lashy...how about an OS here😃?

Once again, I loved your tour d'horizon of Jalal, and your lavish tribute to Rajat for having made this Jalal his own, so much so that one does not even think of Rajat the actor as one watches him onscreen, which is the ultimate tribute for any artist. But then need I say any of this?

Shyamala Aunty

PS: The bolding is not by choice! 🤔

Originally posted by: Arieltabi

Wow amazing post Sandhya 👏 👏
U reminded me of those beautiful old epis.
In school I have read one page on the Mughal Emporer Akbar just for the sake of getting good marks on xm. I never realized what a great person this man was. This show and RT made me connect with Akbar. Thnks to this forum I knew so much about this great human being , one of the greatest king on earth. And I fall in love with him with his beautiful thoughts. I started respecting him and after every episode where he shares his beautiful thoughts my respect for him keep growing.
And RT. I never saw PRC though my friends were mad about him. I saw him in Tere Liye but never notice him much because my main interest was in Anu-Tani. But after watching him in this show I understand why people were so mad about him. He is the first actor who won my heart by his acting not by his looks. He plays Akbar with perfection. No one can play this role like him. He is the perfect choice for Akbar. He has become the face of Akbar for me. Whenever I read something on Akbar RT's face come infront of my eyes. Even my dad once said looking at him feel like the real Akbar is coming.