Jodha Akbar 34-36: Shaahi Shaadi - Page 2

Finally, I have had some me time to visit the forum.

Another splendiferous analysis.
As you have said the Shahi Wedding was definitely a concoction of tantalizing masala. Guess it warranted such a fare given the Aan Baan Shaan of the Rajputs and the Shahi twisted Style of the Mughals.

Yes, it was the splendid Chess tournament and most significant one in the 15th Century. And the game, match and tournament went to one and only Jalal, who etched his foot to proclaim the as "Shahenshah".

It was the most valuable game won by Jalal if events were to be stripped for a more in-depth postmortem analysis. Indeed Jalal was not in romance with Jodha nor with Amer. It was just a political move to infiltrate into Rajputana land.
I call it MBA - Marriage by agreement and not Marriage by accident. Anybody could be a trained warrior, but to be a leader, an Emperor, one in a million is chosen by destiny. And that chosen one at that point was Jalal, whether he knew it not not. But he did portray a more mature role than anyone could have anticipated.

The "Muh Dikhayi" was awesome checkmate by Jalal. Indeed he wanted to show the face and head to that piqued princess who wanted to cut his head. Indeed he is amused to see Jodha face and probably wondered what her thoughts would be to realise that she will have to place the varmala over the same head she wanted slayed.


Agree completely with you regarding the weakness as portrayed by Jodha. She was brave initially for her father the King to do the needful to save the people of the land. But after discovering that her future is going to be bound with her meanest enemy she seems to be bickering like a spoilt child.
And the two sharaths/conditions put forth, she thought she could escape herself and but forgot about the kingdom. This might be her weakness to self preserve her pride. Yes Paridhi did do a splendid act just like Rajat did. It was like the clash of the Titans tainted by the fading color of the dividing curtain. I agree that the movie JA had a better scene at this than the serial.

Maham, her son Adham and Shareefuddin are the Tridev of conspiracy against Jalal. They dig every stone and aim at Jalal. Maham, as you said is probably blaming herself vehemently for cajoling him to take decisions. Yes, her hold on him was slowly slipping away. A slithering snake as she was or she thought she was, trended the most slippery of surfaces. Jalal proved that he could face anything as the Shahenshah no matter what the personal relationship was. Finally he was emerging from the shell reminding me of the essence of an egg. When we break the egg, we kill a life, but when the egg breaks itself it brings out a new life.

Yes, agree that they could have shown more of the Rajasthani wedding rituals than fill in the gap wala epidsodes. I did read long long back about the custom of the mangalsutra. It was not part of every wedding ritual. But the sindoor, vows and the saat phere in the presence of elements of nature (fire,earth, water, air and aakash) are. So I was not surprised when the lagaam/mangalsutra was not included.

The wedding itself was splendid the costumes and aerial shots as you mentioned was needed and made it grand.
Yes the ending was amusing with the shoe hiding custom.

All I could think without forseeing the future is Marriage is an institution. Seeing Jalal's eagerness to taunt Jodha's false pride and Jodha's stance to face it per her conditions, reminded me of
the following saying.
"When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part." George Bernard Shaw.

Yes it looked like the season for fashion. The fashion for passion. But the passion was concocted not out of love but out of insanity for one to tame another's false pride and the other to punish the enemy who had tainted the holy land.
Again as I mentioned it was the clash of the titans. I have discounted all the bickering and nagging and all the extra acts by extra actors that did not add any value but eat away prime time for viewers to view some superb performances by Rajat and Paridhi.

Last but not the least, it left this thought in my mind yesterday, as I walked along with my son in the local woods. Lessons need to be learnt from the past and the present. And where else to learn it from than mother nature, as I watched the autumn turning leaves to bright orange and yellow, showing us how lovely it is to let the dead things or old things go and embrace the change.

Loved reading your other posts too. Sorry aunty short of time. So will try to post my thoughts whenever I can.

Me too! Sherlock Holmes has been a favourite of mine since my schooldays, re-read every few years. I also have the best pastiche ever written about Holmes, Adrian Conan Doyle's The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, about various cases mentioned in the Canon by Dr.Watson, but not developed.

I am, moreover, the proud possessor of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, by William S. Baring-Gould, a set of 2 huge tomes, with the text in one half of the page, as a column, and notes on every possible point in the text that might need amplification for a 20th century reader (it was compiled in the 1960s) in the other half, and the full set of Sidney Paget illustrations. I also have the full set of all the classic Jeremy Brett TV series on Holmes, produced by Granada TV of the UK in the 1980s.

Sandhya, the curious incident of the dog in the night time was in Silver Blaze, not in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Donjas, to be compared, in terms of reading pleasure, to the Sherlock Holmes stories is perhaps the very best compliment I have ever received! Thank you!!


Shyamala/Aunty

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

You too Donjas!😲😃

Sherlock Holmes was my fav too during school days! I had read every story except 'the hound of Baskerville' umpteen times, which Incidentally i have not read till now as i don't want to finish up the whole lot and have nothing more left to read.😕

Have only seen that fabulous illustration by Sydney Paget of the curious thing of the dog that did nothing at night.😆

Originally posted by: Donjas

When I was younger, one of my cherished activities on winter nights, was getting inside a quilt, a hot water bottle for the feet if it was really cold, and then read my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories. I would read them and then re read them.

These posts of Shymala somehow always remind me of that, they are about the same size as the short stories and I get so much fun reading them.

As for my feedback on another classic Shyamala post, that will have to wait, there is so much stuff in the post, I will have to read it a couple of times to get my bearings.

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

You too Donjas!😲😃

Sherlock Holmes was my fav too during school days! I had read every story except 'the hound of Baskerville' umpteen times, which Incidentally i have not read till now as i don't want to finish up the whole lot and have nothing more left to read.😕

Have only seen that fabulous illustration by Sydney Paget of the curious thing of the dog that did nothing at night.😆

Dear Shymala,

Dear Donjas,

Your Holmesian collection and mine are so interesting, and if one were to combine them, what a treasure that would be! The radio recordings must be a real treat. Whose voices did they use for Holmes and for Watson?

I had never heard of the Russian Holmes films. Where can one see them? Presumably they come with sub-titles. I did not like the first Robert Downey Jr. film at all - they had made it look like an Indiana Jones thrill a moment caper - and I skipped the second. As for the Cumberbatch ones, I would rate them so so, but of course that is my opinion, and many seem to like them a lot. At least they are respectful towards the Canon, and do not treat it as something to be reduced to slapstick!

Shyamala

Originally posted by: Donjas

I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan. After reading every story, I graduated to Jeremy Brett's, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes(Recommended), then a Superb Russian Holmes series starring Vasily Livanov(highly recommended), then Benedict Cumberpatch's Sherlock(Good), then Elementary(not so good) and the 2 Sherlock Holmes movies starting Robert Downey(depends on taste). I also have the entire set of BBC Radio Sherlock Holmes series, and two Old Time Radio series on Holmes.

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

You too Donjas!😲😃

Sherlock Holmes was my fav too during school days! I had read every story except 'the hound of Baskerville' umpteen times, which Incidentally i have not read till now as i don't want to finish up the whole lot and have nothing more left to read.😕

Have only seen that fabulous illustration by Sydney Paget of the curious thing of the dog that did nothing at night.😆

Originally posted by: Donjas

When I was younger, one of my cherished activities on winter nights, was getting inside a quilt, a hot water bottle for the feet if it was really cold, and then read my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories. I would read them and then re read them.

These posts of Shymala somehow always remind me of that, they are about the same size as the short stories and I get so much fun reading them.

As for my feedback on another classic Shyamala post, that will have to wait, there is so much stuff in the post, I will have to read it a couple of times to get my bearings.

sorry aunty as usual m late... 😆 but must say u were xcellent in giving or deciphering each and every character with proper phrases and ur opinions... 👏 I simply loved these epis...they were indeed a classic ones and the royalty was at its peak which I feel was missing towards d end of the show... 😕 I remember 1 dialog of jalal here halat humesha humara hi saath deti hai and that's wat it happened he played a nice game as u said and obviously d ball was in his court jodha wanted 2 play sher ko sawa sher but to her bad luck jalal was already aware of her moves to avoid this wedding and so jalal ne aise pasa feka ki jodha had no other alternative but to go for this epic wedding which would change there lives and also d naksha of Hindustan 😳 I loved maansingh he was really cute and bold to he did have d guts to put d sword on jalal's neck and openly speak 2 jalal...and jalal 2 loved his darevdevil guts... 😉 as u said it he could already see a budding warrior in maan and so he had decided to take him 2 agra and give him d advanced training... 😳 muh dikhayi was fab loved jodha's xpressions in showing d fear shock betrayal etc on her face and jalal was no less in showing his victorious signature smirk 😉 parijat were awsum in depicting out d resp xpressions...the royalty the body lang and obviously the chemistry between the mwas simply marvelous and was oozing out which made us realize once again that y ppl were going gaga over this couple 😳 m eager to read more from u...will b waiting for ur next analysis... 😃

My poor Donjas,

So this one was too big a mouthful even for you to chew! 😉I am really sorry, but then, you know, this is 9 pages, and in my Reminiscences posts on Mandy's thread, you once survived a 17 page one, covering 7 episodes, in good shape! Not to worry, from now on, they will necessarily be shorter, as the episodes return to normal length, and it will also be much better for me.

My comments below are in blue.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: Donjas

Dear Shymala,

Another wonderful analysis. As I mentioned earlier, your posts are like snack sized stories of Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, circumstances forced this post to be more like one of the 4 long stories of Holmes. Each of the three double headers that you covered was a fantastic episode and the result is an information overload that has left my brain reeling.

So, I would like to distribute my comments over a few posts rather than a single one. Two things that caught my fancy today-

1 The Jalal-Mainavati interaction was beautifully described by you. It was a subtle play of eyes. That first Tilak was momentous. By agreeing naturally to all of the rituals, Jalal communicates to Mainavati his intention to be flexible in his dealing with Jodha, so as to give her space. It gives Mainavati hope that this man is not a Bigot and she seems a lot more confident in the marriage rituals, the next time the two interact.

Interestingly, the real Akbar always sported a Tilak whenever he appeared in public. This fact has been commented by fundamentalists like Badauni. This was one of idiosyncrasies of Akbar, just like he only drank 'Ganga water', wherever he might be. In fact there was a long train of water carriers from the banks of the Ganga to his new capital Lahore.

I did not know about Akbar always sporting a tilak in his public appearances. That would have been a major gesture to his Hindu subjects, and must have got the rigid ulema all het up. I had read somewhere that most of the uprisings during the latter half of his rule were by Muslim hardliners angry about his liberal and inclusive policies.

2 I have a point to disagree upon with you. Hopefully you will convince me otherwise, just like you did about the Jalal-Chugtai Khan tag team in that fantastic(may I say optimally sized) post of yours.

I can't seem to find a flaw in the logic of Jodha in the two shart scenario. You say, even Jalal agreeing not to marry wouldn't have changed anything, but I believe it would have.

In my opinion, Jodha wants Jalal to back down. Her logic is, we are agreeing to every one of your demands, it shows our good faith, but you yourself must see that we are incompatible. You can't accept the sharts.

Even though the marriage can't go through, we still want good relations with you.

It is to be noted that Amer's destruction is averted, not because of the marriage, but because Jalal does not want it so. Everything depends on him. If Amer can convince him of their good faith, then maybe he will just want Amer as a vassal state and not insist on marriage.

Of course, poor Jodha does not know that Jalal is obsessed with her and there is nothing on earth that is going to make him back away from a marriage with her.

I cannot buy this enticing argument, and the real reason for that lies with Jodha as she has been shown to us, especially her perception of Jalal. Let us make a checklist for this.

- She sees Jalal in unrelieved black, as a kroor jallad, who has no respect for human life. Not as a reasonable interlocutor who could perhaps be persuaded to see things her way, and not let his ego get in the way of a compromise.

- She seems focussed not on the fate of Amer, whatever her earlier claims, but solely on her own predicament, from which she is determined to escape any which way. She does not utter a single word that indicates that she wants to find a way out that will also save Amer.

In fact she does not seem to even see what her rash behaviour, like the burning of the shaadi ka joda, was likely to cost Amer, and this barely minutes after her mother has explained the fact of life to her! That was really the worst of all, her heedless, unbelievable self-centredness.

-Her father tells her that if she commits suicide in order to escape this marriage, Jalal will never tolerate this insult and will destroy Amer.She would have no reason not to believe this. But then there would be all the more reason for Jalal to vent his fury on Amer if this chit of a girl were to outwit him and get him to back out of the marriage.

- You see Jodha as arguing (silently, that is ) that " we are agreeing to every one of your demands, it shows our good faith,but you yourself must see that we are incompatible...Even though the marriage can't go through, we still want good relations with you.".

Let us skip over the fact that there is no way Jalal can get this message from the way she sets out her two sharts.

But what Mughal demands have the Ameris agreed to that shows their good faith? Bharmal has been complaining in high decibels about Sharifuddin's exactions, which he has not agreed to in good faith but has been forced to comply with, and the marriage was agreed to by him very reluctantly as a solution of last resort. All the good faith has been shown by Jalal.

And since when had compatibility been a deciding factor in 16th century marriages? No one ever bothered about what the girl might feel, she was simply led to the shaadi ka mandap and married off. In fact, all the fuss that is made about getting Jodha's acceptance is anachronistic and pure nonsense in that age. She is given far too much choot, something that does not fit in at all with the period.

- There is no diplomatic approach on the part of Jodha.She does not even soft-soap her demands by beginning with a graceful thank you to Jalal for agreeing to this meeting. She does not call what she wants "maangein", but bluntly "sharts". Take it or leave it.

How then does she assume that the kroor Jalal the Jallad will accept his will being thus thwarted by this pre-conditions of this girl who has shown time and again that she hates him - and surely even the dumbest of females must have guessed that he wants something from this alliance with a small riyasat other than conquest, which he could achieve any time he wants - without reacting violently?

No, no, Donjas, it just will not wash. For this theory to carry conviction, you would need a different Jodha, one whose courage is clear-eyed and who can walk her talk, but who might still try and persuade the Mughal emperor to drop the marriage idea while retaining the new friendship with Amer. Not this shaadi ka joda burning virago!

I do not know if the above carries conviction with you, but I feel strongly about the disastrous difference between Jodha 1 - the one who stops her father from telling her whom he has chosen as her groom - and Jodha 2, who thinks nothing of shaming her father before the Mughals, and exposing Amer to total destruction. A woman who, in fact, thinks of nothing and no one but herself.

Lastly, it is not correct to say that "poor Jodha does not know that Jalal is obsessed with her and there is nothing on earth that is going to make him back away from a marriage with her". After that bangle breaking session with a drunk Jalal, she tells Moti that she had assumed Jalal had wanted to marry her because of her beauty, but now she had realised, to her horror, that he wanted to marry her only to take revenge for the sword at his throat incident.

My dear Harshu,

How are you late? Not at all!

I am very glad that you enjoyed this three in one so much. Your comments are, without exception, spot on, and I agree with all of them.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: harshu27

sorry aunty as usual m late... 😆 but must say u were xcellent in giving or deciphering each and every character with proper phrases and ur opinions... 👏 I simply loved these epis...they were indeed a classic ones and the royalty was at its peak which I feel was missing towards d end of the show... 😕 I remember 1 dialog of jalal here halat humesha humara hi saath deti hai and that's wat it happened he played a nice game as u said and obviously d ball was in his court jodha wanted 2 play sher ko sawa sher but to her bad luck jalal was already aware of her moves to avoid this wedding and so jalal ne aise pasa feka ki jodha had no other alternative but to go for this epic wedding which would change there lives and also d naksha of Hindustan 😳 I loved maansingh he was really cute and bold to he did have d guts to put d sword on jalal's neck and openly speak 2 jalal...and jalal 2 loved his darevdevil guts... 😉 as u said it he could already see a budding warrior in maan and so he had decided to take him 2 agra and give him d advanced training... 😳 muh dikhayi was fab loved jodha's xpressions in showing d fear shock betrayal etc on her face and jalal was no less in showing his victorious signature smirk 😉 parijat were awsum in depicting out d resp xpressions...the royalty the body lang and obviously the chemistry between the mwas simply marvelous and was oozing out which made us realize once again that y ppl were going gaga over this couple 😳 m eager to read more from u...will b waiting for ur next analysis... 😃

Dear Saraswati Akka,

What can I say but that I am flattered, touched, and yes humbled? To be compared to the urai on the Thirukkural is a compliment to be treasured, and rest assured that I shall do just that.

Thank you, Akka, thank you again.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: karkuzhali

Dear Shyamala,

What a beautiful analysis!

Reading your analysis after watching the episodes is like relishing the dessert after having a sumptuous feast!

Like Donjas stated earlier in another post, you not only narrate what the characters say, but also what they think and what their actions predict!

It is not an exaggeration if I say that, it has the perfection of a sculptor's work!

I am reminded of studying the various explanatory notes and interpretations ( they call urai in Tamil) given by various scholars to the great work Thirukkural!

Saraswathi.