Take 5: Top 5 countdown for June 30th; note on pg 7

frankly i hated and loathed the episode

well said divya. yes if we criticized jalal for accusing jodha, lets also criticize jodha for accusing todermal & if we r saying tht jodha is also human & she can make mistakes, lets also say the same for jalal. at least in jalal's case he didnt believed maham instantly but continuously gave jodha the chance to speak the truth. on the other hand, jodha wasnt ready to hear todermal. anyways, 2 things which i hold against jalal & todermal in this case is;

My dear Divya,

I did not think even you could have done a Take 5 for tonight's episode, but here you are all pep and go! I hope you are not going to do a companion piece on the mahaepisode, finding good things to say about Jalal cadging like a mendicant for a night with Jodha, and Jodha as the counsel for the defence. Please don't, there is a good girl!😉

I agree with very little of this post - it is the Procrustus syndrome at work again, and I am dismayed that you did not say a word about the criminal irresponsibility of Jalal investigating nothing on his own, and pronouncing the irreversible death sentence the very next day, and this on a man who had saved his life, and the charges against whom Jalal himself did not believe.

And then, he weeps, not for Todar Mal, but for himself, ad adds that he can do nothing! That was unbelievable. The pits.

The first thing Todar Mal should do on being released is to collect his brave wife and head back to Mathura. No man with any self respect should stay on in Agra after such treatment.

The first thing Jalal and Jodha-who-can-do-no-wrong should do is chullu bhar pani main doob marna. Not that they will, they will bounce back all too soon, especially Jodha, whose face was as hard as flint when the death sentence was pronounced.

Well, here is my take on it.

Shyamala Aunty

Jodha Akbar 274: The depths of folly

Well, my friends, your feeble hopes, and mine, have now been dashed beyond any recall.

As I had predicted (on Elas mahaepisode thread) , Jodha was not part of any plan. She was absolutely and genuinely self-righteous and chuffed up with a sense of virtue even after Todar Mal's execution was announced by Jalal. Her face was hard and devoid of even an iota of either sympathy or regret at such a harsh punishment. I felt like hitting her with a blunt instrument.

The amazing thing was that contrary to my expectations, Jalal too was absolutely sincere, and had no stratagem to save a man who had just a little while ago saved his life . He was willing to let him be blown up for, if one comes down to brass tacks, attempt at rape, not rape, and this when he is not convinced of his guilt. This is exactly like the Tasleem track, when he had NO plan B, only worse, for he is ready to take the life of a man who has saved his, just as Sujamal had. .

But Sujamal, who had entered the harem and killed dozens of Mughal soldiers while escaping, got off scot free because he had had the good luck to save Jalal's life, while Todar Mal's saving the same life apparently counted for nothing.

Then again, Sharifuddin and Abul Mali, who rebelled against Jalal in what was also a gunaah-e-azeem, and a far worse one, were merely imprisoned, as was Zakira for another terrible gunaah-e-azeem, of trying (as was believed) to assassinate the emperor.

Bakshi Banu and Mahaam could both have got Jodha killed for supposed infidelity, and all they got was ostracism in the first case and even less in the second. It is all cockeyed, and utter nonsense.

Sharifuddin was then released because his wife was pregnant. So it is all Todar Mal's wife's mistake, she should have had a nadaan, paak, nirdosh balak on the way!😉

I had written that I would have liked her to dress Jodha down, and she did, but in far too lukewarm a manner. As Minnie noted, we expected a Draupadi style outburst. She should have given Jodha a shraap.

Not that even a shraap would have disconcerted this Jodha. Her face retained its expression of sulky righteouness and self satisfaction right thru that segment; it was a rigid, very poor performance. It needed Kanha and the bujhe diye to give her at least a jolt.

The only one who survived in this episode was Ruqaiya, who stood up for Todar Mal citing his services to the Mughal sultanate. I felt like giving her a standing ovation.

Now my last lingering hope is that Todar Mal will quit Agra after Shehnaaz is exposed, and betake himself to Mathura, preferably after delivering a sharp alvida to Jodha: Nari ka hi sammaan nahin hota hai, Jodha Begum, purush ka bhi sammaan hota hai. Aapne mere atmasammaan k0 asahaniya chot pahunchayi hai, aur ab main yahan ek kshan bhi nahin rukh sakta hoon.

Jodha AND Jalal deserve nothing less for their ingratitude, their propensity to bend the rules to suit themselves, and their criminally faulty sense of judgment, plus his despicable catering to her whims and fancies. Yeh joru ka ghulam to aadmi hi nahin hai, Shahenshah to door ki baat hai.

Today's precap was sickening in the degree of despicable weakness sand pusillanimity shown by Jalal. The Shahenshah-e-Hind sentences a loyal minister on charges that he himself does not believe, because Jodha Begum kabhi galat thi hi nahin. And when he has been specifically told by the ulema that he has the final word regarding the sentence, he still pronounces the death sentence. He never even thinks of investigating the case himself.

He probably wanted to burnish his own credentials as an impartial judge at the expense of Todar Mal's life. Would he have sentenced Mirza Hakim to death on a similar charge? No.

Then he stands on the terrace feeling sorry for HIMSELF, and his aching dil, that one of his azeez is going to be blown to bits on the morrow, and,get this, he can do NOTHING about it. Can anything be more disgusting?

And his beloved wife,the one who upheld nari sammaan by railroading the man who saved her husband's life to his own death, stands there with nothing to say. I wished that the storm had blown both of them off the battlements. They could then have gone to heaven (presumably) and left us in peace.

Once the truth comes out, donon ko chullu bhar pani mein doob kar marna chahiye.

This is the pits. There is no hope for this serial any more. I am glad I did not watch the mahaepisode. Today's muck was as much as I could take.

As for Todar Mal's benighted idiocy in forewarning Shehnaaz, in great detail, about exactly how he planned to expose her to Jalal the next day, it was exactly like such scenes of the hero boasting to the villain in the bad Hindi films of the 1970s and 1980s. I could not believe it as I watched him blabbering out his plans for the morrow to her.

Finally, far more than all my other gripes about this track, what got my goat is the trivialisation of a very serious crime against women, rape.

What on earth did they think they were doing, having Jodha unleash all this sound and fury (I am not even going into the question of such behaviour being impossible in a 16th century context) for the benefit of a woman making a false rape charge? What sort of nari shakti promotion is this?

It is precisly the sort of thing about which the Supreme Court has warned now, though in a slightly different context.

Shyamala B.Cowsik

PS: They were copying from Mughal-e-Azam at one point (Jalal's fantasy before the dhakka scene) as against from Jodha Akbar the film all the time. Now it seems they have gone back to Mughal-e-Azam, with Todar Mal being sentenced (I was sure, wrongly as it turned out, that Jalal had cooked it up with Todar Mal) to be blown up by a cannon, just as Salim was almost blown up in K.Asif's classic.

At this rate, how would they deal with a serial molester like Adham Khan? He can hardly be blown up repeatedly!😉

Some hopes!

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: rima4ever

frankly i hated and loathed the episode

jalal is already feeling guilty

but jodha is still unmoved unaffected

i want her to regret and repent

i want her to be burdened with guilt

i want her to think on her rash decisions

i want her to improve her logical thinking

Divi brilliantly written!!!👏

Read your post..I disagree with a few points here. This is just my Point of view. To tell u honestly I am angry with both Jalal and Jodha here. Jodha argued for Shenu, but the final one to decide was Jalal. we cannot say that Jo forced Jalal to make this decision.

Also comparing JJ relation with JO TM is wrong..If Jalal confronted Jodha in private it is his wife. Also initially Jodha has been publicly humiliated. Lets not forget that as well. How can JO confront TM in Private. This has to be between Jalal and TM and this was done.

All above said, I am mad at both JJ and will take some time to forgive them both. Both are equally wrong here.

Originally posted by: SindhuMenon

Read your post..I disagree with a few points here. This is just my Point of view. To tell u honestly I am angry with both Jalal and Jodha here. Jodha argued for Shenu, but the final one to decide was Jalal. we cannot say that Jo forced Jalal to make this decision.

Also comparing JJ relation with JO TM is wrong..If Jalal confronted Jodha in private it is his wife. Also initially Jodha has been publicly humiliated. Lets not forget that as well. How can JO confront TM in Private. This has to be between Jalal and TM and this was done.

All above said, I am mad at both JJ and will take some time to forgive them both. Both are equally wrong here.

I am not angry at Jalal or Jodha, I am furious at the CV's who simply don't have the brains to implement what they want to show. Here they wanted a grandstand finish to this track so that had to have Jalal give a death sentence against Todar Mal.

Originally posted by: Donjas

I am not angry at Jalal or Jodha, I am furious at the CV's who simply don't have the brains to implement what they want to show. Here they wanted a grandstand finish to this track so that had to have Jalal give a death sentence against Todar Mal.

Fine, if that is what you want to show, but you need to have an iron tight case against Todar Mal, you need to have an eyewitness. Maham could easily have provided that or maybe Shenaz herself, just one false witness who was willing to swear that he/ she saw Todar Mal do the deed.

Surely, the CV's could have spared one person from the mountain that Surjamal created for this little task. It would have taken less than 1 minute to show, and then nobody would have had problems with Jalal's decision or Jodha's misguided views.

It is pathetic when CV's with the limited intelligence they have try to entertain an audience at a higher cognitive level than theirs.

Honestly I have never been frustrated. This track has been mental torture...TM gets death sentence..
Agree CVS have been so illogical here.