Now the first thing I propose to do is to put you all on a little time machine, and take you back, no, not to 1562 AD, for then 90% of you or more would abandon me for Jalal! 😉😉I shall take you only to July 4, 2013, when Episode 13 was first telecast. That was when our Jalal , or rather the Takht-e-Badshah, aan se nasl-e-Timuri, noor-e-Babri, ibn-e-Humayun, rahmat-e-aali, raunaq-e-jahan, Shahenshah-e-Hindustan, Jalaluddin Muhammed made his grand entry into Agra,appropriately mounted on an elephant, while his two contending Wazirs,Bairam Khan and Maham Anga, trotted behind on horseback.
Along the way, I shall also do a little memory erase of these last 2 years plus. So, all of us, you and I, will be approaching these episodes with a fresh mind and no recollection of what is to come. There is, folks, simply no other way that you can enjoy the fascinating Ruqaiya 1, one the most enigmatic and engrossing female characters I have ever seen on TV. OK?
The Queen of Heads: Or to be precise, one head, or dimaag, that of Jalal.
For Ruqaiya Begum is that rara avis, a woman who can hold not just a man, but an emperor, effortlessly. Not by her beauty, for that is no more than passable, but by her intelligence, her political shrewdness, and her total self-possession. Plus the fact that thanks to a lifetime of knowing him, she can read his mind like an open book. Jalal must be having a lot of affection for her, as much as he can have for anyone, but as he says, the vital point is not that she is his wife, but that she is his friend. And he has very few friends.
She literally overflows with self-confidence. She does not yell at the baandis. When she tosses a necklet to a baandi as a gift for giving her the good news that the Shahenshah has reached Agra at long last, it is with queenly condescension. She does not, like the other begums, run around like a chicken with its head cut off just because the Shahenshah has come home after a long time.She does not even rise till he reaches the palace. Then she sweeps thru the corridors with long, confident, almost mannish strides.
NB: I saw some complaints about Ruqaiya's simple dressing style as not befitting the Padshahi Begum. My take on this is the exact opposite. She is so confident of her allure and her hold on Jalal, plus she wants to show the rest that she does not need to do any sajna savarna, or to look like a decorated Christmas tree to gain and retain the emperor's attention and regard. It is a deliberate put down of the rest.
And no, she is not going to the balcony to greet the Shahenshah and try and catch his eye, for she does not have to try for anything. Instead, she goes first to set up a live chessboard in her hoojra, arranging the pieces in exactly the same positions in which they were when Jalal had last departed leaving a game unfinished. She wants to win that unfinished game, and also she wants to show him, without saying so, that she remembers every tiny detail of their time together.
NB: I am a Harry Potter aficionada, and as soon as I spotted her chessboard, I thought of The Chamber of Secrets and the board there, but the exact parallel is the chessboard in the palace at Fatehpur Sikri, where too the game was played with live pieces. I should think that it would be more difficult than normal chess, as one cannot get an overall look at the board before making a move.
Then, and then alone, is it time to show herself in the balcony. Just when the other begums have finished squabbling for positions, Ruqaiya Sultan Begum makes her grand entry, like the star model in a fashion show today.
There is the arrogant gliding walk - like a model on the catwalk - with which she slides past all the simpering females who line the upper terrace for a glimpse of their lord and master. Her enigmatic smile would have delighted Leonardo da Vinci, and it is reflected in Jalal's own responding half smile, amused and eager at the same time.
He stands still, and it is telling that regardless of all those begums of his lining the balcony wall, many of them far better looking than she is, Ruqaiya still ensures that Jalal's eye not only catches hers, but stays with her right until she glides back and out. It is a delightful display of silken control, and no wonder the other aspirants to imperial attention turn a delicate shade of pea green!
Zid hamara haq hai: When Jalal, having shaken off the importunate attentions of his desperate begums, appears in her chambers, it is characteristic of Ruqaiya that she does not run to him and fawn over him. She stays where she is for one long minute, leaning back against the bolster, her left arm negligently outstretched. Clearly the lady has Attitude with a capital A. Especially when she is smoking a hukkah, with ease and elegance.
But when she rises to greet him , her words are calculated to rob this delay of any offence: Ruqaiya ke dil aur Sultanat-e-Agra mein aapka istaqbaal hai Shahenshah!
She makes Jalal resume the game of chess that he had left unfinished the last time , declaring, when he teases her about being ziddi, Ek to aurat, doosri jawaan, teesri Mughaliya Sultanat ke Shahenshah ki dil-o-jaan.. Zid hamara haq hai. This not said with pretty coquetry, but with unhesitating certainty. He knows her very well, so he is not riled, plus he is a natural, self-assured dominator who, as he says, hates to lose.
I loved the little story he narrated at this point, about how his Khan Baba, when he first got him, as a child, to hold the shamsheer, had asked ki hum sabse pehle kise maarenge. His response was entirely in character: Humari shikast ko, taki wo phir humein dobara na mile. Now he adds, his eyes aglow with determination: Kyonki humein haarna bilkul pasand nahin!
A fine balancing act: Ruqaiya is not one to let this pass unchallenged, for she must be used to fighting with him since childhood to try and stay on top! So she retorts:: Par humein jeet pasand hai.. But as Jalal regards her quizzically, she delivers a tour de force that maintains her stand and yet does not hurt his ego: Hamein jeet pasand hai, isiliye to dil har kar aapko jeet liya hai. The lady is clearly a natural at fine-tuned repartee.
When Jalal makes a good move, her acknowledgement, Yeh to kamaal ki chaal thi, refers as much to his disappearing act, about which she has already found out, as to the chess game. Her unfailing instinct where he is concerned tells her that there is something new in the air.
The Amer escapade: When Jalal finally reveals to her - Aapse kya chupana? Kyonki hum ek shauhar aur begum se zyada achche dost hain - that he had gone to Amer, her eyes narrow as she looks into the distance, and their expression is hard to read. He is leaning forward, fastening her eyes with his own. Can he read them? She listens to his sanitized, Jodha-free account of why he had gone to Amer - to bait the enemy in his own camp aur dushman ki aankhon mein apni shamsheer se soorma lagane - with a curious little smile. What does she suspect? Perhaps she herself does not know.
Unbelievable impertinence: Meanwhile, Ruqaiya has won the chess game, and has dismissed the baandis. Jalal, for all his junoon for winning, does not seem to mind losing to Ruqaiya. Perhaps he Is used to it! He approaches her with obvious intent, but at this potentially romantic point, Hoshiyaar barges in, with an incoherent account of the infighting in the harem for which this was neither the time nor the place.
Photo courtesy munni_rajatfan (Shreya)
Sandhya was pleased that Jalal scorches him with a sideways look for referring to Pinaaz Begum without the suffix, but I for one could not understand how Hoshiyaar had the gall to barge in on the Shahenshah and his sabse chaheti begum when they are tanha. It was the most colossal impertinence, and clearly he dares to do it because he knows that Ruqaiya will not mind. And it seems that Jalal did not mind it too much either, once Pinaaz was properly referred to as a Begum. This I found unsettling, for it is good neither for Ruqaiya, nor for Jalal, to allow such free and easy ways to be adopted towards him even by a khwaja sera.
Jalal on Ruqaiya: What he goes on to say seems calculated to boost Ruqaiya's already sizeable ego even further. That he had ignored all the other harem inmates clustering around him and had instead come to Ruqaiya jaan boojhkar, kyonki tum in sab se alag ho.. Ruqaiya's chin goes up and she smiles with evident pleasure.. Jalal continues with unconscious arrogance : Unka jism, unki khoobsoorti, humein khush to kar sakti hai, par humein samajh nahin sakti.. Ek tum hi ho jo humein bachpan se jaanti ho aur samajhti ho.. a crooked, mischievous smile twists his mouth.. hamari sabse chaheti begum... 
Photo courtesy munni_rajatfan (Shreya)
Ruqaiya looks pleased, but also conveys the impression that this is no more than her due!
Aur humein tum par aitbaar hai.. which is truly a compliment. But she hardly heeds it, focussing instead on offering him his favourite scent.
Now come a kind of rapid fire round that showcases Ruqaiya's resources of intelligence, quick-wittedness and sheer articulateness.
Jalal: Hamari har pasand ki khabar hai na tumhein?
Ruqaiya: Wo to hona hi hai.. Aap dost bhi ho, shauhar bhi, aur Shahenshah bhi.
Now Jalal's ever present desire - common to kings and millionaires 😉- to be cared for for himself alone surfaces. His eyes are lambent with both a question and hope: Par hum sab se zyada kya hain?
He has, however, reckoned without Ruqaiya's genius for verbal sleight of hand. She evades a direct answer thru as silken web of words: Dosti kam zyada ho hi nahin sakti. Rahi baat shauhar aur Shahenshah ki, so agar aap shauhar to hum aapki begum, aur agar aap Shahenshah to hum aapki praja ( presumably Ruqaiya knows Hindustani as well, for she should normally have said awaam) .
Jalal is stumped, but will not let go. So he makes another try: Hmm.. Aur tum kya banna chahti ho?
Which gives Ruqaiya her finest opening. Her proud little chin goes up,and her reply is one for the record books: Ek aisi ladki, jiske saamne dost apna dil, shauhar apna imaan, aur Shahenshah apna sar jhuka de!
NB: That this is a straight lift of what the sculptor Sangtarash says (of the plaster of Paris coated Anarkali) in Mughal-e-Azam: Tum ek aaisa buth ho ... jiske kadmo mein sipahi apni talwar, shahenshah apna taj, aur insaan apna dil nikaal ke rakh de, does not lessen any of its impact on us.
Disturbing signs : No wonder Jalal is floored! He says aloud: Subhanallah! His eyes are awash with sensual delight, and moving up to Ruqaiya, he is clearly about to kiss her when Bingo ! Up bobs Hoshiyaar again, bent over double, and this time he beckons to Ruqaiya, who actually leaves to settle a harem dispute! To make matters worse, Ruqaiya, probably feeling that the harem affair might take a while, kindly informs Jalal that they could deal with the unfinished Amer affair at night!
I was floored too, but by this casual attitude towards the Shahenshah-e-Hind displayed by mistress and servant alike. If not the first time, at least the second time Bairam Khan's shagird should have had Hoshiyaar whipped, if not sar kalamofied for his gross impertinence in intruding on the emperor's privacy.
To my great dismay, Jalal does not even react to the second barging in. The glance that he casts at Hoshiyaar would have frozen red hot lava, but he says nothing, not then, nor when Ruqaiya, in effect, dismisses the Shahenshah till the night.
No wonder that when night arrives, Jalal is left twiddling his thumbs for what looks like ages. For us the viewers, it helps that Rajat looks splendid in that new blue outfit, hand behind his back, sleek and loose-limbed. So we do not mind waiting even if he does! 😉
Ruqaiya clearly thinks nothing of keeping the Shahenshah waiting for her for ages, which is not surprising seeing that he does not do what any normal husband or boyfriend would have done, walked off. Jalal's excessive indulgence to those close to him was visible this early. Aazaar achche nazar nahin aate,,,
Crackling chemistry: When she does arrive at long last, what follows is a curious mix.
Of great familiarity, as when he chucks her under the chin and calls her by her childhood nickname,Gatti, which she clearly detests, for she grabs the front of his choga and says: Tum bahut bure ho! , whereupon he grins in delight : Ab yeh hai na hamari bachpan ki dost, hamari Ruqaiya!
Childish squabbles, rooted in the same deep familiarity with each other since childhood, over his not having taken off his jootis. In the end he deliberately rubs the soles of his jootis on the coverlet just to rile her, while she first exclaims in exasperation: Theek hi kehte hain, ki badshah, baaja aur bandar kabhi nahin sudharte..and then finally, Bachche ke bachche hi rahe! Mana karne ke bavazood bhi dekho kya kar diya!
Between her and Jalal, it is not really either check or checkmate, for as of now, they are both playing on the same side- Jalal's. I for one found it wonderful that someone like Jalal could relate so well to a woman, treating her as a confidante and an equal.
I am continually amazed at the degree of indulgence he has for her. Imagine an emperor being kept waiting by his begum, and then being scolded for wearing his joothis in bed and soiling her chadar! That was so much like a wife nagging her husband about leaving wet towels on the bed that I was in stitches. 😉
But there is no demonstrative tenderness between them, they are too used to sparring with each other, like siblings, so they have never seen the need for it. She does not, for example, take his head in her lap, caress his hair and his forehead, or hold him to her. That kind of touchy feely affection is not there. If it had, that would have been an additional bonding element. There seems to be no yearning to be with each other, no sort of passion, no deewangee. At least this seems right now to be there to some limited extent on his side; there is none on hers.
So when Ruqaiya says she is the Shahenshah's dil-o-jaan, she means his attention, his mind, his thoughts. She is probably not used to thinking of him in purely romantic terms, that is in any case tough to do with someone to whom you have given black eyes, pulled his hair, and kicked him in the legs as kids together. She must have been a spitfire then, all overt aggression, not subtle as it is now.
The commentator also says that Ruqaiya is Jalal ki mohabbat. Too much hair-splitting would be pointless here, but the fact is that he is very, very close to her, he trusts her judgement even on political matters (which means an awful lot with such a self-assured man who is also an emperor), plus she keeps him entertained and on his toes. That is a great way of holding a man, even such a powerful one.
To revert, underneath all of the childish nok jhok and the ease born of closeness since their childhood, there is a crackling, lambent, yet easy sensuality between them as she stretches out with her head on his arm, with no shyness or reserve. Who said that friends cannot be lovers as well?
Photos courtesy munni_rajatfan (Shreya)
But not necessarily in love. However I must add that true romantic love, between two who are halves of a whole, is far rarer than it is made out to be, and also less important for the strength of a relationship than loyalty, affection, caring and trust. For one thing, contrary to popular fiction, it almost never lasts very long at the original level. What Ruqaiya has right now with Jalal is perhaps, in one sense, stronger than romantic love.
Ruqaiya's folly: However, even such a strong bond needs maintenance, and methinks she is far too careless about this aspect, and takes her imperial husband too much for granted. He might not react to this now, but one fine day, he will not only jib at it, but he will bolt. That day, the fascinating and self-assured Ruqaiya Sultan Begum will realise that when the sun disappears, darkness engulfs the world.
Marvellous jugalbandi: Rajat's Jalal and Smiley's Ruqaiya, in a series of scenes spread over all the three episodes, play off each other to perfection.
For me, the open sensuality in Jalal's eyes - what I would call bedroom eyes - came as a surprise, and a pleasant change from the cold menace that was the staple in the opening episodes. The sheer mischief and chutzpah so much in display during the Amer escapade popped up but rarely, but to replace it was a cat at a mouse hole look, when he is assessing how much to tell Ruqaiya about Amer, that would have done Rhett Butler proud.
Ruqaiya might be no great beauty, her voice might resember crackling sandpaper, and her dialogue delivery might be flat, but her assured, astute body language, her speaking eyes, and her intelligence make up for that.
Little wonder then, that their scenes together were a rare treat, to be savoured at leisure.
All in all, Smiley's Ruqaiya is the most fascinating woman I have seen on TV in a long, long time, and Ekta's initial writing team should be felicitated for having portrayed her as such an enigmatic, astute and intellectually superior individual. She is clearly an original, and she is an unfailing delight to watch.
Agra and the imperial harem: I felt that the whole purpose of the display of grandeur, the parade thru Agra, the women in the harem fighting for the Shahenshah's nazar-e-inaayat, is to show us where Jalal is coming from and what his real power and status are. The scenes in the Mughal camp at Shalpur, and in Amer, far were relatively simple and unostentatious, but this is the opposite.
The ambience was rich and colourful, whether on the streets of Agra or in the zenankhana. Ruqaiya's chamber was beautiful.
There was a sense of outrage in parts of this forum about what looked like hundreds of assorted females in the harem. It is uncalled for. It is not appropriate to import contemporary sensibilities into 16th century India. I am sure they would be just as shocked by same-sex marriages, or the divorce rates in, say, the US!
The fact is that not just emperors but maharajas as well had hundreds of women in their harems - wives, concubines and lesser mortals - and this till the 19th century. Most of these were political unions, others the result of a passing fancy. The king/emperor, who would be an infrequent visitor to the harem - being often out fighting a war, or surveying his domains - would probably not be able to recognize half of them, if not more!😉 The way Jalal deals with their importunities was funny and revealing.
Either way, there would be only a small number of senior queens, all of royal lineage, and here I suppose it would be three: Ruqaiya, Salima, and then Jodha. No one minded it, neither the princesses concerned, nor their families. It was the norm, that was all.
It is true that to see so many women have no other aim in life but to catch one man's passing attention is depressing, indeed sad, but this is true even today of the girlfriends or trophy wives of rich and powerful men. 😡
Jodha and Amer: I am passing over the whole of Mainavati's little plot and the unintended Jodha-Suryabhan night boat-ride, except to note that Jodha is no ice-maiden. It was not only their earlier tete a tete scene, the boatride too showed a Jodha ready to exchange all sorts of little hints to love with Suryabhan, right down to handholding.
This apart, I really liked Jodha's eager face and her enthusiasm when she dismisses her sisters-in-law's gloomy preparations for a jauhar, asserting instead Humein yahi sochna chahiye ki hamara vijay hoga..Aur hamari yahi soch hamare yoddhaon ke talwar ki dhaar banegi! And again when she wants to rush and convey the good news about the baby on the way to her elder brother.
NB:The funny thing was her saying that her parents would be so delighted at the prospect of having a pota! It seems to not even occur to her to consider the prospect of it being a poti!😉
Sheh par mat nahin: There were at least 2 separate instances where an ongoing power game between two protagonists was suspended at a point.
1) The one between Mahaam Anga and Bairam Khan. After the last round, which the lady won hands down, the stage has shifted from Rajasthan to Agra, and the two are busy keeping pace with the brisk Jalal, each jealously taking care not to be left behind the other. It should have done their cardiac condition some good! 😉
The Malika-e -Azam Hamida Banu Begum tries to get closer to her aloof, even cold son with an affectionate welcome and a bowl of sevaiyyaan. As Bairam Khan, the old khiladi, watches in dismay, Mahaam Anga steals a march on both Hamida Banu and the Khan Baba with her spiel of making herself the food taster, thus gaining Jalal's unstinting appreciation and affection. It is a very clever move, but her adversary has not been knocked out as yet . So check, but not yet checkmate.
It is to be noted that contrary to Bairam Khan's unfortunate tendency to overreach himself, Mahaam Anga is always very careful to pretend, quite ostentatiously, to stay within the role of Jalal's Daimaa. For example, before complying with Jalal's desire to drink the sevaiyyaan only from her hand, she looks across at Hamida Banu Begum for her assent. It is here that her superior tactics stand out, for Jalal would be convinced that she is being all that is proper, besides being apparently ready to die for him, and that is all that counts!
2)The one between Mahaam Anga and Hamida Banu Begum: This is going to end up like the fable of the hare and the tortoise, but the hare, obviously Mahaam Anga, is lengths ahead at this point of time. Nonetheless , Hamida Banu gets a quick rapier thrust in under Mahaam Anga's guard when, while assenting to her giving Jalal the sweet, she notes Agar main uski ma hoon to aap bhi to uski daimaa hain, thus neatly relegating Mahaam Anga to the status of a nursemaid! No lasting damage would have been caused to the target, but it must have provided some temporary satisfaction to the unhappy Hamida Banu. Again, check but not checkmate, not for a while yet.
I am sure you do not want to discuss that ugly scene between the Hindu-hating fanatic, Maham Anga, and that poor cowering cleaner woman wanting to retrieve her Kali Maa amulet. It was clearly meant to flesh out a further aspect of Maham's black heart and soul.
Ok, folks, this is it till Sunday next! Adios!!
Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di
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