Tamy, Jaya, Abhi and Diksha,
I really loved reading your posts. Very well written and wonderfully thought out. 👏
I feel the CVs have deliberately kept the portrayal of Ruq hazy at the moment so that viewers can interpret her actions the way they want to. 😆
But on a more serious note, I am looking at Ruq with interest since she motivated Jalal to wage war for the Sultanat that day on the human chess board. That was an interesting scene and Ruq is being shown quite the seasoned queen. It's natural, I guess, considering she has been a queen since she was a child and a Mughal princess before that, born in a period of great turmoil when Mughals were fighting to establish themselves and their empire.
Though officially Maham is in charge of the harem and its movement to the war zone and probably their safety and maintenance, it's Ruq who is more in command of these tasks. To her, being the queen who commands over others/manages people and resources, without sentimentality, comes easy and the war time provides her the perfect opportunity to showcase these skills.
Even Jodha knows this fact and that's why, she subtly persuaded Ruq to motivate Jalal. She knew that at that time, a queen needed to talk to a king about his responsibilities and tell him to get on with his business without getting emotional.
Here we need to clearly note one thing. Jodha is a wife first to Jalal the husband. But Ruq is a queen first to Jalal the king.
And right now, though they do not share any great love for each other, both Ruq and Jodha understand their position and also the other wife's position in his life. That's why, earlier Jodha sent Ruq to him to talk to him like a queen. And yesterday, Ruq sent him to Jodha who would be his wife and companion for the night before the war.
Jalal is lucky indeed that he has these 2 wives who understand him and his needs so well and are able to adjust their time with him to fulfill his needs appropriately. It's not important how they are in peace time. How they are in times of crises is what is important to any man and king and both are very correct in their behavior right now. They are being his strength and succour, his anchor, friend, soulmate, queen, companion, solace and peace of mind. The very fact that both of them are at peace with each other and are not competing for his time and attention must be a big source of relief for him.
Jodha, who had awakened the heart in Jalal, now wants him to leave the heart behind in Agra and fight with his mind. Ruq, who had always stressed the importance of his mind, knows that his heart needs to be calm if he is to win the war. Together, they are calming his emotions and thoughts, his fears and insecurities, to bring forth a king for whom nothing matters more than the safety and welfare of his people and empire, not even his own family.
Though Jalal has brought the harem along for the sake of its safety, the two queens are silently conveying the message to him that they are well capable of taking care of themselves and the harem and that he can go and fight the war with a free mind.
Since everyone agrees on Jodha's poignant display of quiet strength and calm in inspiring Jalal to overcome his emotions and fight his relatives, going to the extent of hiding a much-awaited news and her physical discomfort, I will not comment on that again.
Ruq may or may not have changed as a person. But, right now, she is displaying admirable qualities for a queen and the wife of a king. She may be doing it as part of her nature to be a queen in times of crises, as duty or out of love. But she is doing it, that's important. And, as a woman, it must be very difficult to accept that she is no longer the most important person in the life of her husband and even more difficult to acknowledge that to her husband and allow him to go to the love of his life. He may have gone to Jodha even without Ruq telling him to. But on the eve of the war, it's very important for Jalal to know that Ruq has finally accepted Jodha as his wife and love and has also accepted her own secondary position in his life. Otherwise, he may have worried how Ruq would treat Jodha in his absence.
Another thing is that for royals then, duty was of primary importance. Kings and queens were supposed to put their own feelings under wraps and focus on what was good for the kingdom and the people. They had to be royals first and last.
And we see that right from Hamida to Ruq to Jodha, all are being really royal and leaving their own personal thoughts/comforts aside. All of them have acted as queens and inspired Jalal to act like a king and not as a son or a husband or a brother.
It's acceptable if Ruq gives her act the stamp of duty. Earlier, Jodha too put the stamp of kartavya on whatever she did for Jalal. When people are uncomfortable talking about love or the finer emotions, they hide behind the facade of duty. We should not let this put a doubt on their love. Ruq may not love Jalal like a wife or a mother, but she does love him in her own way because it's impossible to spend a lifetime with someone and not love them at all.
A small indication of Ruq's love for Jalal is the fact that she is ready to rough it out for the sake of Jalal's peace of mind in knowing that the harem is safe near him. Contrast this with the Ruq who couldn't take the rough and tumble life in the Badal Kajri track. 😊
Book Talk
Anupamaa
10