Posted:
I am amazed at the amount of antipathy directed towards Jodha in the forum during the present track. Why this anger with her?
- Has she done anything unpardonable?
- Is she responsible for Jalal getting captured?
- Should she meekly drink poison and die upon Abul Mali's advent, forgetting all about her extensive warfare training?
Luckily, Jodha has done nothing of which she can be ashamed nor was she in any way responsible for Jalal walking into Abul Mali/Nigar's trap.
Still, she is expected to drink the proverbial vish-ka-pyala to prove her chastity and her loyalty to her husband. And most importantly, she is expected to do nothing more than die quietly because she is after all just a woman. Not just any woman. The khas begum of Akbar the Great himself. Her life is tied to his breath. If he is supposed to be dead, then she must die too, without even thinking if it is possible that her husband may be alive and Abul Mali may be lying.
How dare she gather the rest of the begumat and launch an attack on an enemy who had captured her extraordinarily courageous husband within 5 minutes of the war starting? Doesn't she value her husband's image? How can a wife defeat an enemy who had defeated her husband? She should be ashamed of herself.
As it is, her poor but Great husband is a POW. On top of that, she has the temerity to overshadow his valour and attempt to save herself and the rest of the begums on their own, without any help from the Great husband?
I am seriously confused.
Alright, I understand Akbar was a great king and historically speaking, this war never happened and he was never captured nor did he require to be saved by his wife.
But then there are bound to be certain dramatizations in the show to pull in the TRPs. As part of a dramatization, if we could accept Akbar the Great throwing his wife out on the streets before daybreak, a wife who had drunk poison to save him, then surely, we can also accept a dramatization in which Akbar the Great is human (and good-natured) enough to be fooled by his sister.
Even if we are not happy with his capture that shows him in an extremely poor light, why are we taking out our anger on the poor ladies who are merely trying to defend themselves against violation?
What are these ladies supposed to do?
- Acquiesce to Abul Mali's demands?
- Drink poison or commit jauhar?
I understand we come from a patriarchal society where the wife is always one step lower and one step behind her husband. But still, a wife is also a person in her own right and she is also equally capable as her husband to deal with crisis. Just because she solves her own problems and is self-reliant doesn't mean that her husband is weak or a good-for-nothing.
Men are also human and likely to err sometimes. Here, Akbar's only fault was that he trusted his sister and wanted to protect her from possible tricksters. Just one mistake cost him his freedom. That's no reason to call him a weakling.
And if Jodha does indeed save him, what's the problem?
She is his life partner and it's her duty to save her husband from danger. Just because Savitri saved her husband from death doesn't make Satyavan weak.
It's not even the first time Jodha is doing it.
1. She saved him after the tiger attack by carrying him on horseback, all the way till the Mughal encampment.
2. She showered arrows on Ben to save him from Ben's kiss of death.
3. She drank poison meant for him because she couldn't bear the thought of life without him.
4. She saved him from a snake in Amer.
5. She saved him from a murderous attack in the jungle recently.
If we are aghast NOW that Jalal will probably be saved by his wife (Gosh, a Woman!), then we should have requested the CVs to kill off Jalal after the tiger attack itself. If Jodha could save him all those times, why can't she save him now?
There are also those who say that they don't mind Jodha doing hero-giri but the end victor should be Jalal. Just why is this so? Just because he is a man or just because he is a great king, doesn't make him immune to defeat/deceipt.
Let's learn to demarcate clearly between characters. Just because our favourite character is not behaving as we would like him to, we can't take out our temper on someone else. Let's also demarcate between reel and real characters.
Then only we can enjoy the show. 😊
These are my personal views. I also love Akbar but more as a person who became a great ruler rather than a superhuman who could never make a mistake. 😊
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
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