Jodha Akbar 452 & 455: In praise of Rajat's JalalMy dearest Mandy,
Here I am at long last, and seeing that I am posting in the forum after months, let me cover a bit more than just this wonderful scene. Thank you for the YouTube link; it was a perfect way to refresh my memory.
I have never missed a single episode of Jodha Akbar to date, and I have suffered thru its depths with all of you and rejoiced at its peaks which, sad to say, are becoming fewer& fewer for a long time now. The story had plummeted almost out of sight, with a sudden transformation of the wise and just Jalal into a raving megalomaniac, who seeks, by sophistry and verbal sleight of hand, to proclaim himself not God's viceroy on earth, but a second God who will deliver when the first fails.
The loud squabbles between Jalal's courtiers while a sozzled Shahenshah ignores all the unbelievablly impertinent shouting by Birbal on the one side and Abul Fazal and Mansoor on the other, were the pits. As for Jalal's dare with the
shamsheer, a very stagey and contrived segment, ending in Mansingh being, incomprehensibly, accused of
gaddari, it was even worse.
Then came the Mughal sultanate-specific
keede, which seemed pretty ordinary as far as their scare quotient went😉. I only wished that they should turn around and bite the Jodha Akbar CVs for a change!😉😉 And so on and on and on, each episode bringing something worse than the last, like Mirza Hakim with his fake leer, his ill-fitting beard, and that ghastly attempt at a deep, menacing voice.
To make matters short, the only good thing these last two weeks has been the re-emergence of Jodha and Akbar as the main leads, thus living up to the title.
I do not know what the future holds for us tenacious viewers, but one thing seems clear: Jodha Akbar is not shutting up shop any time soon. So we have to make the best of the
chand boond khaasiyat ke, like the one that captivated you so much. And another, in Episode 452, when Jodha leaves the palace for the villages.
Episode 455: First yours, Mandy. It was a sublime scene, both in conception and in execution. Note the resigned self-mockery and the weary amusement with which Jalal says to Ruqaiya:
Ajeeb kashmakash hai.. paani piyenge to phir se bimar pad jayenge, na piye to pyaas se mar jayenge!Even in such straits, he never loses his protective streak. A male lion always eats first, though it is the lioness who does the hunting. But Jalal offers the water first to Ruqaiya.
She, ever the materialist, is ready, once her thirst is satiated, to move on. Philosophical musings are not for her. But this Jalal is nothing like the ranting, megalomaniac changeling that had been foisted on us this last month. It is as if he has woken up from a long nightmare and is now his old self, weakened physically and wearied out mentally and emotionally, but still the old Jalal in all the fundamentals.
So he wonders as to who had left this vital, life-giving water there for them, and concludes that it must have been a
farishta. With that comment, it was clear that Jalal had moved back into the fold of the believers, and that the interim Jalal, who would have seen the water as no more than his due as the all powerful Shahenshah, was no longer around.
He looks back at the now empty
pyaala, and muses aloud:
Zara sochiye, Ruqaiya Begum, paani se bhara pyaala yahan kisne rakha hoga? Humein lagta hai ki hum duniya ke maalik hain, sub kuch hai hamare pas..Lekin ab samajh mein aa raha hai ki zaroorat padne par chand boondon ke mohtaj hain hum...
It was not just this sentiment - which would one felt by millions of common people every day as they thank the Almighty for succour in the hour of their need - that was so impressive. It was more the way it was rendered by Rajat as Jalal. He brought out, with consummate skill and complete naturalness, every nuance of this re-awakening, as it were, of the old Jalal, and of the resurfacing of his consciousness of human frailty, even that of a Shahenhshah, in front of the divine.
The poor boy hardly gets any chance these days of showcasing his tremendous talent. He has of late been underutilised with a vengeance , that is to say when he is not being forced to become a distorted caricature of the great Akbar. And yet he soldiers on manfully and gives even the most ridiculous, and at times demeaning scenes his 100% and more. It is the rare sequence like this one, and the other I will be discussing, that must have seemed to him like manna from Heaven.
Here, he does not opt for wide-eyed wonder and gushing thanksgiving, which would both be commonplace. He is not puzzled either, merely thoughtful, as if the divine scheme of things was being revealed to him once more.
Most important, there is recognition of the divine grace that lies behind the
pyaala of water being there so opportunely, and gratitude, deep if unstated, for that blessing.
In his parting comment:
Jis kisi ne bhi yeh pyaala yahan rakha hai, ek na ek din uska karz zaroor chukayenge hum..Zaroor koyi farishtey ne yeh pyaala hamare liye rakha hoga taki hamari pyaas bujh sake.. there is more than a hint that Jalal is now out of the darkness and back in the light.
That his recognition of and his gratitude for this blessing, this act of grace, are for his transformation, not just for the water. That the way in which he will repay the karz of the farishta will be by becoming once more what he once was to his awaam, to the
Allah ke bande who have been driven to hating him and all his works because of his fit of madness that drove away his loyal well-wishers while it bred and encouraged villainy of every sort among the time-servers and parasites around him.
And all of this is brought out quietly, calmly, without the least excess of sentiment. It is as if Rajat had taken to heart EF Schumacher's famous maxim:
Small is beautiful, for his rendition of this scene is so marvellous precisely because it is minimalistic, in his expressions, in the look in his eyes, in his gestures, in the level tone of his voice. It was truly wonderful to behold.
Episode 452: The other scene, or rather two scenes, that I loved came last Tuesday, in Episode 452. First, when Jalal tells Jodha that she has to go on her mission - and he
tells her, he does not coax her or try to convince her that her earlier decision was wrong - he blessedly does not indulge in any histrionics, or even raise his voice. When he explains his decision to her,
he is not even looking at her. His eyes seem to be looking inwards, at some inner realisation that has struck him. And when he finally exhorts her
Jayiye, apna farz nibhayiye, it is as if he is passing on strength to her, strength that he himself was lacking till very recently.
When he says that contrary to the usual practice of his begum waiting for him to return,
is baar hum besabri se aapka intezar karenge, the very flatness of his tone hides his deep commitment, not only to their love for each other, but to the reaffirmation of Jodha's individuality, her separate persona.
He is also conscious of all that has gone wrong inside him of late, for when she voices
her
garv, and what is more, her
abhimaan, in being the wife of a
nek dil Shahenshah, he barely reacts. There is no pleasure in his face or eyes, no hint of a smile. There is only a dismissal of sorts in his oblique gaze, as if he wishes to negate what she is saying in praise of him, but refrains out of consideration for her.
I have noted the reservations expressed by many about the
aarti scene that follows, and it was quite out of place. Then, and even now. If she had touched his feet - something that she has NEVER been shown doing till now - to seek his blessings and his support for her mission, and if he had then put his hand on her head, raised her, and then applied the
tilak and filled her
maang, it would have been perfect. But there is no point fretting about the endemic
natakiya rupantar that is the bane of this serial, of which the
aapke pair padte hain in the next episode was an even worse example.😡
So the anachronistic and incongruous
aarti is not important. What was deeply moving was the depth of feeling in Jalal's narrowed eyes, whether he is looking down on the very affectionate scene between Jodha and Aram Bano, or assuring Jodha
Humein yakeen hai ki aap kamyaab bankar wapas lautengi.. His eyes are grave and sad, but he is trying to infuse strength and determination into her, for he knows that she was of two minds and is finding it extremely difficult to leave him.
No modern husband, no matter how loving, how supportive, how committed to gender equality, could do more for his wife than Jalal does in this scene.
As she turns back involuntarily, and looks into his eyes one last time before she departs, it is as if that gaze that holds them together is a distillation of their love, and all that each of them means to the other. Jalal's eyes, in the last shot, moved me more than anything that I have seen on TV in months.
This is not to say that Jodha was in any way inadequate in the second scene or scenes discussed above. She was in fact very good, and she looks uniformly gorgeous these days. And the Jalal-Jodha relationship is now rock steady, old shoe love, of the kind Mira Nair celebrated in her
Monsoon Wedding. Where each accepts the other as is, with total commitment and abundant, non-judgmental love. Jodha's face reflects this bond beautifully, and when she turns for one last look back at Jalal, her eyes speak volumes. For two pins, she would have rushed back to him, and it is only his encouragement and reassurance, indeed his insistence, that make it possible for her to leave him.
But in the end, all the scenes discussed above belonged to Rajat's Jalal.
There, Mandy, are you satisfied? I think it was much more than you had bargained for. I only hope it is not too much!😉 For once I get started, I never know when to stop.
Affectionate and warm good wishes to all my old friends in this forum who might read this one, and of course to you!
Shyamala
Edited by sashashyam - 10 years ago
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