Churning of the Ocean; note on pg 15 - Page 17

Originally posted by: lashy

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Originally posted by: sashashyam

Thank you, my dear Raksha. As I have noted in my response above to chitterati, your reactions are like a lifeline to someone like me, drowning in this ocean of Sufi mysticism and paeans to Jalal-Jodha's direct line to the Divine. As Holmes used to say, my takes are always flatfooted on the ground, and I have little use for all this highfalutin' stuff.

I agree with what you have said here. But the Sujanpur attack was triggered by a very real source of rage, what Jalal thought was the Amer family's culpabilty in loss of his baby, PLUS there were clear reports that the prince of Sujanpur was in league with bandits. Now, just because he has lost faith in God, which is not uncommon, he is shown turning into the kind of sadist he never was even in his early days. It was crude and entirely unnecessary. He was awful with his snarling and ranting last night.

As for Jodha, she was looking like an incipient case of mumps, and parroting the Rajvanshi line endlessly, illogically and meaninglessly. Why does she not remember Sujamal's unprovoked attack of conquest on Mewat, in which so many Mughal soldiers attained what Jodha then facilely described as veergati? Was that attack akaaran and anuchit or not? One still does not know if Jalal won the fort back.

I thought that after marriage, a wife's loyalties were to be firmly and unequivocally with her husband, as per Rajvanshi sanskaars. Why does Jodha now waffle on this principle, on which she must have been brought up?

Besides, to see a Rajvanshi princess, raised on traditions of sar kalam karna and tales of martial bravery, now suddenly talk like a convert to Buddhism is bizarre. Why, the Rani of Chundawat - whose husband was so obsessed with her that he was unwilling to go out and fight - cut off her own head and sent it to her husband to tell him to fight to win. I do not suppose she bothered about whether that war was justified or not!

Do Jodha have any idea of intra-Rajvanshi wars of conquest and how they were started and conducted? She should ask her Dadisaa, who was warning Mynavati, before the Jodha-Jalal wedding, that many neighbouring Rajvanshi kings had their eye on Amer.

Look out for the CVs tying themselves into knots for the attack on Ranthambhor the year after, which ended in a speedy surrender thanks to the example Akbar set at Chittor. Gujarat in 1572 would not matter, for it was not Rajvanshi. Jodha Begum's tender heart beats only for the Rajvanshis, it seems, not for any other group!

Shyamala Aunty