I am finally handing over my laptop tomorrow morning for repairs, and it might be gone for a week, if not more. So I have decided to do something a bit unusual; I am covering 5 episodes in this post, and not just 3. For one thing, the episode that will be shown on Thursday evening is a wonderful one, and moreover, it is necessary for continuity, as a fascinating Jalal-Jodha scene was half done in the previous one, and it could not be left hanging in the air for a week! Then there was the Grand Revelation, to us, that is, of the real dature ka ark poisoner in the next one.
So I watched the Zee Anmol Episodes 63, 64 & 65 (the original Nos. 62, 63 & 64) from my own recordings, and I added the analysis of those too here, ahead of the ZA telecasts of today, Thursday, and Friday. Of course this makes the post longer than usual, but then you are going to have a break of a week or so, so this should be bearable! Plus, if you actually manage to wade thru this post today, you can watch the last 3 episodes after you have seen my takes on them, which might be fun too!
To make it easier for you to absorb all this, I am splitting the post into 2, the first 4 episodes in one part and the 5th in the other.
So fasten your seat belts, and here goes with Episode 61 for starters.
Episode 61: Inexcusable distortion
I should, by rights, not do anything about the Monday episode at all, for there was nothing in it to analyse. But I do not want any gaps in the sequence, so here is a brief take, focussing on the single central point that upset me a great deal, both in 2013 and now.
It is this. What was it with Ruqaiya chortling repeatedly, during the tilak ceremony, about Hindus killing Hindus (a line that, in 2013, seems to have caused considerable dismay in this forum as likely to further rile the Rajya Sabha MPs , who were up in arms then about the way in which Akbar's character was being degraded in this show)?
And what was it with Jalal voicing the same sentiment to Jodha earlier when he is baiting her afresh by announcing a jung on Sujanpur ? Mughalon ne bahut Hinduon ka khoon bahaya hai. Ab jab ek Hindu doosre Hindu ko kaatega, tab mazaa aayega!
Firstly, it was an ugly line to use, and it was far, far worse for it to be put in Jalal's mouth. It runs squarely counter to all the broad-minded inclusiveness that Jalal stood for all his life, and not just after he had become Akbar. I cannot imagine what the CVs were thinking about when they put this in.😡
Next, it is not as if this Hindus killing Hindus was something invented by Jalal to humiliate the Ameris, and as if this was unheard of in Hindustan, including in the annals of Rajputana.
It is ludicrous of the CVs to pretend that there were never any wars among the Rajputs, and that they thus never killed each other before this "jung". In fact it was quite the opposite; the Rajputs , specializing and rejoicing in suicidal courage, were often at war with each other over real and imaginary slights, as also for conquests. Jodha's wise and knowledgeable Dadisa refers to the neighbourhood Rajas coveting Amer; would their attacks on Amer not have involved bloodshed and Hinduoon se Hinduoon ka khoon bahana?
Unforgivable distortion: But the actual implications of this very unfortunate formulation by the CVs is even worse.
For the CVs' IQ here seems to match that of the Amer princes! They have completely failed to convey the real significance of what Jalal is doing in the Sujanpur "war". Instead, they are reducing his taking the Amer princes to that battle to a pathetically vicious supplementary move by him to humiliate the Ameris/ Rajputs, and to add another swipe to the death by a thousand cuts that he is apparently planning and implementing vis a vis Jodha.
Of course he baits Jodha by presenting it as such, and she promptly obliges him by looking even more woebegone and protesting about the paap that her Bhaisas will be forced to commit, as if this was a first time occurrence ! But that is merely a minor side issue. What is deplorable is the crass distortion of what Jalal is really aiming at with this Sujanpur expedition.
What Jalal is attempting here is a political move with far-reaching ramifications for the Mughal empire, and not an attempt to make Hindus kill Hindus on behalf of the Mughals. He is testing the waters for the experiment he had outlined to his ministers when he was explaining why he was marrying Jodha.
If it fails, and the Ameris were not to be relied upon, not just to fight against other Rajputs, which they did all the time, but to fight against them for the Mughals, Jalal's whole, path-breaking strategy of melding Rajputana and the Rajputs, as equals in respect and prestige but also as loyal upholders of the his regime, with the Mughal empire, will also fail. With that failure, the Mughals will never be able to belong to Hindustan . They will forever remain outsiders, and Akbar's dream for a blended Hindustan will also be stillborn.
This is something the CVs could have put across very easily with a voice-over, but they chose to up Jalal's darana dhamkana of Jodha instead, and thus distort his character very badly😡. So much for that piece of idiocy. Now for the rest.
Unpleasant bullies: In the opening sequence, Jalal and Ruqaiya outdid each other in deliberate nastiness, plotting together to plague Jodha, and rejocing in the extent of misery the planned attack on Sujanpur, and the consequent collapse of Sukanya's rishta with Kunwar Ratan Singh, would cause her. Even with my trusty kaleidoscope, I was hard put to make it seem ridiculous and thus amusing. The duo reminded me of nothing so much as a pair of unpleasant schoolyard or college bullies planning to rag an unfortunate fresher.
It is true that Jalal still firmly believes that Jodha is the culprit - which to some extent explains his repetitive threats: In dus dinon mein hum use pal pal maarenge, katra katra! But Ruqaiya had earlier professed to have doubts about this. Doubts which she seems to have suddenly discarded here. In fact she is the lead singer in this unholy jugalbandi!
Persistent sadism: As for Jalal and Jodha, it went from bad to worse. The whole long drawn out sequence of her having to do the tilak and wish Jalal victory over Sujanpur, with Ruqaiya gloating Kisi ko zaleel karna to koyi Jalal se seekhe! , made me feel weary and, yes, almost sick. I felt that I was back in a standard issue saas-bahu serial, with Jalal being cast incongruously as the saas, forever thinking up new ways to torment the long-suffering, meek bahu.
Not that Jodha is meek. In fact the only thing I liked about all of this was the way in which she marched off after his first session with her, even as he was saying that he had not given her the permission to leave!
Superb take: Amidst all this unpleasantness, I was lost in admiration at Rajat's ability, in the scene with Hamida Bano when he comes to take leave of her, to convey nuances with incredible facility.
There is Jalal listening to his mother say that he should leave for Sujanpur only after having Jodha Begum do the tilak for him. Just watch the series of fleeting expressions that chase each other across his face as he replies "Jaise aap kahein, Ammijaan!" ! It was fabulous. The whole idea of how he can taunt and plague Jodha even more dawns on him then, but he does not want to show that to Hamida, of course. So there is first the farmabardaar farzand, then quickly camouflaged but distinct satisfaction, and finally a sense of keen anticipation that we alone can decipher. And all this in three seconds flat!👏
To revert, I have had enough of explaining the respective psyches of Jalal and Jodha. I now simply take both as given, and I would, for what it is worth, recommend that you do the same.
Meanwhile Jalal sinks lower with each tiresomely repetitive and childishly vicious exchange with Jodha , who seems nowhere near likely to attempt anything bright and snappy in return; I am tired to thinking of responses for this useless girl! . He gives me a headache, even with my kaleidoscope, and without it, it would have been a full blown migraine!
Now on to the "jung" against Sujanpur, which turned out to be a joke, and a lousy one.
Episode 62: A rip-roaring farce!
The so-called "jung" was one for the record books for the totally farcical way in which it was conceptualized and shot. It would have won a Razzie for the worst "war" sequence hands down!😉
Firstly, the Mughal lookouts , such as there were, are so inept that they had no idea of the Sujanpur forces and their daku cohorts riding to the attack in such numbers till they were literally upon the Mughal camp, including the Shahenshah's khema. And this after Jalal had specifically warned Pir Mohammed about the likelihood of a night time chapamar guerilla attack by stealth!
There was apparently no one to spot the Sujanpuris, there was no alarm raised, and the raiders were able to come right up to Jalal's tent. But for his being always on high alert, even in his sleep, he would have been turned into a pincushion as he lay in his bed. As it was, he has to come out and go into battle in his nightsuit, without any battle gear. It was ludicrous.
Terminally inept aides: Plus, while the arrows are still whizzing past, all that Pir Mohammed can think of is that the Amer princes must have betrayed the location of the Mughal encampment! Does he not realise that this is enemy territory and even a bush would have both eyes and ears? I liked it that Jalal shut him up, and pointed out that the important thing at the moment was to tackle the attack.
Later, the same man comes bleating that the Mughals are outnumbered and unready. What do the Mughal soldiers need, breakfast in bed before they can fight? Again it is left to Jalal to assert, with his characteristic vigour, that despite that, they would win.
What sort of support staff is this? It was bizarre, and if I was Jalal, the first thing I would do on returning to Agra would be to order a court of inquiry into this crucial lapse, and chop off a few heads, so as to ginger up the rest. But seeing the kind of commanders he does have, the sar kalam karna option would probably have left the Mughal army literally headless! 😉
In fact the Mughal forces at Sujanpur seemed to add invisibility to their other failings, and it seemed by the end of it all that the 4 Ameris were the only ones around, to shoot arrows, to fence, and to carry water to the wounded!
The "jung" : The battle scenes, or to be precise the skirmish scenes, were well done. Jalal always fights very athletically and with swift savagery, and that came thru.
I did wonder, however, why the Sujanpuris - who looked like a motley crowd of ragtag ruffians rather than an army of a riyasat, no matter how small - stood so long in a circle around Jalal, instead of rushing at him all together. If they had done that, even he, with his famed jungi kabiliyat, would have been hard put to it to ward them off. Instead, they call on him to surrender, giving him an opening to make a fine little speech: Mughal parcham na kabhi jhuka hai aur na kabhi jhukega!
When the Amer princes shot mutiple arrows from a single bow, I felt for a second that I was back watching the Ramayana! 😉
The quartet might have saved Jalal's life, but their wooden faces remain unchanged. Especially Bhagwan Das, who recites that explanation of why he had taken the arrow meant for Jalal - from the need to save his behen's sindoor to their sworn duty to protect the Shaheshah - as if it was something he had learnt by heart.😉
I wondered too why these selfsame Amer princes peformed so badly against Sharifuddin, when they did so well now. It was not due to Sujamal having betrayed the secret access routes to Amer, for the battle was on open ground. Ah, well! It was clearly because there they had to become prisoners, whereas here they have to be shown saving Jalal's life!
I was struck by the long pause while Jalal considers whether Ratan Singh should be executed or not. It is not clear what passes thru his mind then, and the final nod is imperceptible. And when Ratan Singh is finally despatched, Bhagwan Das, who was berating him just before that for not having done his kartvya paalan, looks as blank as ever.
Now for Episode 63.
Episode 63: Dawn in the offing?
The title of this post is a triumph of hope of over expectation (with apologies to Dr.Samuel Johnson for pinching his definition of a second marriage ! ). Whether it is to be hope fulfilled or hope belied remains to be seen!
For once, I am not sure what to say about this episode. Basically, I liked it, for it did move things forward somewhat, even if it seemed to go further into the maze of the dature ka ark, and most of the characters were true to type, even in their extreme reactions.
There were also illuminating little vignettes that revealed as much as the big scenes.
- Hamida Banu taking balayi of Jalal, with by now overt and accepted maternal affection; she and Jalal have come a lon-g way from that bitter exchange in his camp in episode 2.
-Mahaam Anga's face lighting up when she sees Jalal riding in, and wrinkling in worry when Hamida Banu spots his wound; she really loves her erstwhile nursling. Ruqaiya's face reacting identically, while Salima's is bland and almost unconcerned.
-Bhagwan Das trying to soften the blow of Ratan Singh's death for Jodha by insisting that he was not murdered but died in battle, whereas the truth is that he was executed after he had been disarmed.
-The sudden agony in Ruqaiya's eyes when she realises that the dature ke ark ki dibbi was in Salima's room; she feels sick to the pit of her stomach at what she sees as betrayal of the worst kind by a sister for whom she had genuine affection.
-Jodha grabbing Ruqaiya's bleeding hand and nursing it between her own in instinctive compassion.
Now for the big, grandstanding scenes.
Jalal-Jodha 1: The Gordian knot:Contrary to most others in the forum in 2013, I was neither shocked nor surprised by Jalal swinging his shamsheer at Jodha when she confessed, and that too with such vehemence and without the slightest indication of repentance. I for one am not at all sensitive to such manufactured shocks, so I did not mind it at all.
In fact it was almost a given that he would do that; Bairam Khan has taught Jalal that sar kalam karna is the standard punishment when faced with such overt and unquestioned guilt in a gunaah-e-azeem,and Jalal would have automatically reverted to that in such a crunch situation. It would have been the same with most other medieval rulers, not just Jalal with his very short fuse.
Jodha knows that. Which is why, facing the Gordian knot of being unable to live up to the prescriptions of Rajput maryada towards her wedded husband, whom she now hates with more passion than ever before - Paridhi was very convincing when Jodha went into that angry spiel about Jalal to her brothers - and the compulsion of having to continue to live indefinitely as his wife, she tries to imitate Alexander the Great.
Except, of course, that she wants to trick Jalal into cutting this Gordian knot for her by cutting off her head. Her assessment is accurate, for Jalal, having apparently taken for granted, post Sujanpur, that Jodha too was innocent, must have been, first, shellshocked by her grand confession, and then possessed by blind rage.
The curious thing here was that the one Ruqaiya stopped was his second swipe at Jodha; he swings it once first and seems not to be able to complete it. Why? Does his will fail him? Then he gathers himself up and tries again.
The other curious thing was that Jalal was not at all bothered about Ruqaiya's hand, which must have been badly cut, but, as noted above, Jodha was.
The last second saving of Jodha's life is typical OTT drama, like the nuclear bomb in the George Cloone film The Peacemaker being defused at 11:59:59 (I did not mind that, as the scientist managing to save the world there was a woman). There would have been infinitely richer dramatic possibilities is he had cut off her head and then found out that she was innocent, but it is no use hoping for such riches, given that despite her 31 second daily disclaimer, not even Ekta can go so far in remixing history.
Jalal-Jodha 2: A splendid tirade:This was one peach of a scene. In the context of their relationship, this is going to be a major turning point.
I loved it that Jodha made no move to get up when he came up, and instead glowered resentfully up at him.
I also loved it that instead of attempting any kind of apology, Jalal launched into a farcical broadside against her for lying to the Shahenshah-e-Hind. Kya khud ko bahut aala samajhti hain aap? Ya phir hamare aude ki koyi ehmiyat nahin hai apki nazaron mein? Absolutely typical of the alpha male type!😉
Also to be noted is that Jodha's response is not a crisp Humein aapke saath apna poora jeevan vyateet karna asahya ho gaya tha, aur hum apne parivaar ko bhi aapse bachana chahte the. Humne kuch bhi anuchit nahin kiya. Hamaara jeevan hai, aur humein poora adhikaar hai ki hum jiyein ya marein. Which is what one would have expected of her after all the build up in the scene with her brothers.
Instead, she launches into a long, typical complaining patni-style monologue, recounting every instance of khunnas against her patidev right since their marriage.
Mahatva to hamara nahin hai aapki drishti mein! Khel samajha hai aapne humein, hamare jeevan ko, hamari bhavnaon ko! Hamara aur aapka sambandh ek khel hi to hai aapke liye! (But how does she see this sambandh? Who is to ask her that? Not the startled Jalal!)
Har baat par humein neeeche dikhane aur hamara upahaas udaane ke atirikt kiya kya hai aapne (very likely the chicken leg con trick) ? Then comes the daasiyon jaisa vyavahaar with her (presumably on the night halt on the road to Agra), and the mirchi fiasco, citing it as if it was almost on par with the dature ka ark accusation. Then the akaaran arrest of her brothers, and the bali of Ratan Singh at Sujanpur. Aur yeh sab bhi aapke liye khel hi to hai!
What is one to make of this, especially given that she supposedly hates him with a white hot passion?
It is even more interesting that Jodha mentions only the nazarband as disgraceful behavior in a pati towards his patni: Ek patni ko usika pati nazarband kar de is se bada apmaan kya ho sakta hai? Not only does she cling to the relationship she wanted to desperately to escape, but she seems to have forgotten about the infinitely worse zinda jalana!
It is not just, as so many would have it in 2013 - at times by bending and stretching the facts to fit this charming theory - that Jalal is, in his heart of hearts, and unknown to himself, obsessed with Jodha. It is evident from the above that it is ditto for Jodha as well. Real hatred, unmixed with anything else, leads to dry-eyed rage, not to angry tears and a litany of accusations.
Unlike some, however, I would not blame Jodha demanding the patni ka darja on a non-reciprocal basis, and carefully avoiding any mention of all the times when she insulted Jalal, like the shaadi ka joda burning. Why not, if you can get it? A little hypocrisy is a useful trait.
By scene end, Jalal was stumped for an answer, and no wonder.
As I wrote in an earlier post, he had, at one point, especially after Jodha's poem, begun to believe that the Amer ki shehzaadi was special, that even if she still hated him, she was, unlike all the others around him, unselfish and undemanding, and capable of pure affection, as towards his unborn child. In short, in a class apart.
His furious rage when he was confronted with what seemed to be her guilt was directly proportional to the strength of this earlier conviction.
Jalal will now have to reboot himself inside out, and as his sense of justice is very strong, also make public amends for the public accusations he had made against the Amer quintet.
Ruqaiya: For once, she came across, in l'affaire Salima, as intelligent, fair-minded, logical and conscientious. Something of the old Ruqaiya, if not the whole. I was duly grateful for that, as also for the genuine sorrow, as distinct from anger, that she feels at what seems like a complete negation of her hitherto affectionate relationship with her cousin sister. When she sets out the case against Salima, it is with the coherent logic of a competent and dispassionate public prosecutor, there is no overt rage, and there is even a measure of reluctant understanding of where Salima could be coming from.
Except of course that they are going wrong because neither Ruqaiya nor Jalal has any understanding of simple, uncomplicated, undemanding goodness of heart, whether in Salima or in Jodha.
Nor do they seem to even envisage the possibility of evidence being planted on an innocent person. That too in that rabbit warren of a harem. In their place, I would have seen the dibbi being found in Salima's rooms as automatic proof of her innocence, not her guilt!😉
Much too much!: Finally, I am by now fed up of this endless ham-handed dature ka ark imbroglio. At one point, I almost wished some disgruntled harem inmate would poison the whole lot: Jalal, Jodha., Ruqaiya, Mahaam, Adham, the works, all except Rahim. It is stupid and demeaning, this endless ranting and raving, and the consequent waste of good actors. Soon, they will forget how to perform well.
Already, Rajat scrunches up his nose, making it look like a misshapen potato, at the drop of a hat, as his Jalal narrows his eyes into a manic glare, before charging off like the Energiser bunny, and invariably in the wrong direction. One of these days, as they say in the fairy tales, the wind will change while he is doing it and his face will be frozen in that expression. A fate too horrible to contemplate, and not just for him!😉
Enuff said! Let us move on.
Episode 64: Blessed relief!
So it was not hope belied after all! For I was concerned, in 2013, about how Jalal would climb out of the hole into which he had fallen without losing his dignity as an emperor. Like a parent apologising for having wrongly punished a child, he had to be able to climb down without crawling; it would never do for him to become a common, garden variety of repentant husband, pleading for forgiveness from a haughty wife. That is why, every harsh scene between the two of them made it tougher to get over the transition gracefully and convincingly.
But he did manage it after all, not the least for the public part.
The CVs redeemed themselves substantially as Jalal returned to form in the Diwan-e-Khas, with Shamsuddin, and finally with Salima, and Paridhi's Jodha outdid herself throughout, while looking good enough to eat even when glowering at Jalal thru her long veil. The girl is tailormade for all this chamak dhamak jewellery and rich looking fabrics; gone are the days when she used to look like an upmarket version of her prettiest daasi.
Jalal-Jodha 2- Conclusion: I was grateful that this was there right at the beginning, so that the dramatic tempo was carried over from the previous day.
It was one crackerkjack of a winding up, with Jodha's bottled up anger and grief cascading over Jalal in a relentless flood, as her eyes welled over with hot tears and her voice cracked under the emotional strain.
Beginning with the Ek patni ko usika pati nazarband kar de is se bada apmaan kya ho sakta hai?, she goes on, her tirade gathering strength as she proceeds. Ek stree ka maan, sammaan, uski maryada, uski pratishta, sab kuch aapke liye khel hai na? ..
She then wades into his notions of justice: Aaj Ruqaiya Begum ne kaha ki hatyara koyi aur hai, aur aap maan gaye. Kal ko yadi uska apradh siddh nahin ho saka to koyi doosra, phir teesra, aur phir chautha! Nyay bhi aapke liye keval ek khel ban chuka hai Shahenshah!
Then comes the coup de grace, an impassioned declaration of why she made a false confession of her guilt. Haan, humne jhoot bola.. kyonki jaise bhi ho, jis vidhi se bhi ho, yeh khel rukh to jaye!.. Baki nirdosh to bach sakein! Humne aapka jhoota aarop isliye sweekar kiya kyonki aapki patni hone ke dand se kayi guna shresht hai mrityu ka dand! Itni ghrina ho chuki hai aapse ki is se achcha hai mar jaana. Isliye jhoot bola... Humne marg chuna mukti ka, aapse, aapke aatank se, is khel se!
Paridhi did herself proud, for it was a very demanding scene, and her Jodha could easily have tipped over into shrill hysteria. She managed to stay in control throughout, and if she took what could be called creative liberties, as when she said that he had imprisoned her and her family akaaran, disregarding the whopper of a clue, the dature ka ark in the kesar, that is the standard tactic of any lawyer for the defence!
Incidentally, Paridhi has one tremendous advantage that ought to stand her in good stead in her future career. She can cry buckets of assorted tears - angry tears, grieving tears, whatever - and still look gorgeous, and not, as most of the rest look, like something the cat just brought in. Her nose never looks like that of Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer, her eyes do not puff up and become unsightly slits, and she must the delight of the make up artist as the least demanding of the lot!
To revert, I was delighted that Jodha did not let Jalal get a word in even edgeways. There was no let up, from the moment when she rose to confront him, like a furious nagin with her hood spread out and ready to strike, and let him have it with both barrels (apologies for the mixed metaphor!), till the time she folded her hands in savage irony and made a vinti that he leave at once.
Jalal: shocked silence: Not that he was at all ready to say anything, and that pleased me a lot too. I was afraid that he might fold up and start apologizing abjectly, for while that might have forced her to relent, it would have detracted heavily from his aura as a Shahenshah (well, a nutty Energiser bunny at times, true, but a Shahenshah all the same, and not Manav or Arjun from Pavitra Rishta!) , and it is crucial for the Jalal-Jodha love story that he retains that aura for as long as possible.
No one would have dared to dress him down like that ever before, or dismissed him in his own palace, or told him so many home truths about himself, his methods of meting out justice and much else. As he tells Ruqaiya later Is baat ka ghumaan nahin tha ki is tarah se pesh aayegi wo humse.
It would all be salutary from him in the near future, as he ponders over the words and absorbs the lessons they hold for him, but for now, he is both speechless and uncertain of his ground. Which is why, after listening to her tirade with a rigidly resentful expression, he beats a strategic retreat to recoup and rethink his tactics and his Jodha strategy, even as the other problem of tackling the latest suspect simmers at the back of his mind.
Jodha: mourning a loss?: Oh yes, before I forget. There was, as Ela had cleverly noted in my 2013 thread on this episode, amidst the torrent of anger and resentment, a fleeting but tantalizing flash of a different emotion in Jodha's eyes. This is at the beginning of the scene, when she says Humne bar bar saugandh khayi ki hum nirdosh hain, humne kuchch nahin kiya, par aapne hamari ek baat bhi nahin suni. ...Aaj Ruqaiya Begum ne kaha ki hatyara koyi aur hai aur aap maan gaye! Clearly a touch of the little green monster, good old jealousy, and this without Jodha even realizing it!
Plus, one would have expected that after getting all her bile off her chest, Jodha would feel limp but light hearted at what she had achieved. Not so, for she sits down and dissolves into a fresh bout of tears. Why?
Is it that just as Jalal raged against the loss of what he had believed Jodha to be, she too is mourning the loss of the budding empathy that she had felt after Jalal's praise of her poem and the special respect and regard he had showed her at the jashn? Of the prickly but real camaraderie that had put out a few tentative shoots after the duel and the aarti ki thali encounters? Of what might have been, but is now, as she believes, scorched to dust and ashes? I believe so.
FAQ 1: Now here is my take on a question which might be of general interest. This was about why Jalal went to Jodha to question her about the minor matter of her lying, and not to Salima to take her to task about the much more serious matter of her supposed guilt. The pat answer to that is that Jalal is obsessed with Jodha and thus hurt by her lying to him.
I feel that he went to her first not because he was obsessed with her, which he is, or hurt, but because he was on the defensive. He is above all a warrior, and in a battle, when you are on the defensive, you attack at once. It is a running battle between them and he has lost this round, so he wants to pretend he has not by getting on a high horse and accusing her before she accuses him. He is defensive and so extra aggressive.
Whereas Salima is different. He is not sure about her guilt from the beginning, as the whole back story as far as she is concerned, from her being a close relative to the present, has been positive, and that gives him pause. Perhaps also he has become more cautious in this second case because of the Jodha fiasco. This is even before Jodha's calling his justice a joke, which of course reinforces this hesitation, whence the appeal to Shahabuddin.
FAQ 2: The other question: why does Jalal go to Ruqaiya for consultations about Jodha's reaction this time, whereas he did not do so on earlier occasions? I think it is because
(a) he does not realise where he is headed with Jodha. If he did, he would never include Ruqaiya in the matter. And
(b) he is now on very uncertain ground, having been blindsided, not only by the unexpected vehemence of Jodha's searing denunciation, but also by the depth of the pain that lies beneath it, which he grasps, though not completely. He wants to consult the only woman he is close to, to get a handle on this poori tarah se alagh female's mind, but he has dialed a wrong number, for a Ruqaiya can never understand Jodha.
Hamida: Wise counsel: There is only one woman who can be in sync with what Jodha feels at the moment, and she is his Ammijaan. He will turn to her eventually, but he is not there yet.
Incidentally, this is in fact the whole purpose of that incredibly warm scene between Jodha and Hamida Banu; it has set Hamida up to play the bridge between the two she cares for the most. You would all have noticed that while Hamida never fudges Jalal's faults, she invariably also puts them clearly and lucidly in context, gently but convincingly. No one else could have done that for Jodha, and certainly not Jalal himself.
Jalal ne apna bachcha khoya hai.. Uska gam hum jaante hain..
Insaan ka rubab aur taab uske khoon se milta hai, Jodha, par taaseer parvarish se milti hai.. Yeh Jalal ki galti nahin hai, hamari hai. Uski parvarish ke waqt hum uske saath nahin reh paaye..
Thus, as Hamida leaves her, it is patent that Jodha is busy assessing what percentage of the blame for her patidev's atrocious behaviour should be assigned to the lack of laalan paalan from her beloved Ammijaan😉. The look on her face at the end of that passage is inimitable!
The Diwan-e-Khas: A high wire act:The BIG question after Episode 64 was of course how Jalal would get out of the pit he had dug for himself without losing his dignity and, as a supplementary, how he would, given that his sense of justice is very strong, make public amends for the public accusations he had made against the Amer quintet. In the Diwan-e-Khas scene, he manages the second gracefully, but the first is of course for the long haul.
The preceding consultation with the wise and sincere Shahabuddin brings us a troubled and tentative Jalal, who realises what he has to do regarding both Jodha & Co and Salima, but not how he should do it. That Jalal both seeks candid advice and, when told that he has done wrong and has to set it right, takes it in the right spirit, says much for his innate good sense.
I am sure that Jodha's strictures of a short while earlier must still be ringing in his ears, but we have also to note that if the ground had not already been fertile, not the best of seeds can take root there and flourish. Jalal already carries the proto-Akbar within him. Jodha waters this seed and provides the warmth of her own moral certitudes. Both count, but neither counts for more than the other.
Rajat's Jalal excels in the Diwan-e-Khas segment. An emperor cannot and does not apologise in public for his mistakes, any more than the government apologises these days when a murder suspect is found to be innocent and is released from jail. Mansingh and the Amer princes understand this, even if Jodha does not.
But Jalal does everything short of apologising, and does it with sincerity, candour and what, in a lesser man, would pass for humility. As when he indirectly acknowledges that his knee jerk rush to judgement on Jodha and her brothers was a mistake: Hum shukraguzar hain hamari Ammijaan ke aur tamam hazraat ke jinhon ne Mughal insaaf ki bulundi kayam rakhne ki koshish ki.
He does not fail to praise the Amer princes lavishly: Hum unki bahaduri aur unki wafaadari ke kaaayal bhi hain, and he acknowledges that Bhagwan Das saved his life by risking his own. Hum tehedil se unki taareef karte hain, aur unhein Mansabdari nazar karte hain.
This is unknown territory for Jalal, but he tackles it head on, and tries his best to look the Amer princes and Mansingh, and Jodha too, in the eye as he speaks, though he lowers his gaze time and again. He falters only twice.
The first is when Mansingh, visibly relieved at the turn of events, conveys the readiness of his father and uncles to stay on as imperial guests till the culprit is caught: Aapka aadesh poorna hoga, and adds kyonki humein bhi sultanat ke honewale uttaradhikari ke kho jaane ka dukh hai (something that Jodha never does). Jalal looks down and away, and when he raises his head again, he is unobtrusively blinking away his tears. There is still a film in his eyes as he expresses his khwahish, not his decision, that Mansingh should come back to him.
The other is when he tells Jodha Begum' that she can return to her khwabgah (a lovely term, the house of dreams). He raises his eyes to hers, and runs full tilt into the cold and unrelenting hostility in hers, which could scorch a rhinoceros at 100 yards. He holds her gaze as long as he can, but his eyes fall and he looks sideways to hide that fact. As she turns on her heel and leaves, his troubled gaze follows her. And Ruqaiya's eyes never leave his face.
Salima: In the opening stages of the faux seduction scene, Jalal is smoothly assertive as he declares his intention of staying the night and moves into the first stages of unfamiliar intimacy, ignoring poor Salima's petrified stillness.
His expression in the closing shot is fascinating. His eyes question without being too obvious, try to gauge her with limpid persistence, again without betraying the least hint of animosity or suspicion. For the success of his experiment depends on her remaining unaware of his real intentions, and thus unwary. I could not help thinking that in another age and another station in life, Jalal would have made a superb poker player or counter-intelligence agent.
As for Salima, she might be Jalal's cousin now, but she must have been Bhagwan Das's sibling in a prior birth. Both have a talent for utter and total blankness of expression, no matter what the circumstances!😉
A narrow escape!: This apart, I am sure that as he embarked on this dibbi mission, poor Jalal must have been dreading the dire prospect of having to do a Salima with all the 300+ (I have no idea how much of + there was) harem begums, none of whom would have shuddered delicately in aversion like the blank faced Khan Baba ki amaanat. Every one of them would have grabbed him pronto, especially the ones he has been avoiding with assiduity. 😉
Result: he would have been so busy trying to get away with his imperial dignity intact that he would have lost the precious dibbi at No. 3 hoojra, and then would have been clueless, literally and otherwise.😉😉😉
4:20: But what really made my day - and I hate the Comedy Central types of show - was the 4:20 minutes (what a perfect fit for that master charsaubees , Mahaam!) of a laugh riot between Maham and Javeda. Entirely predictable, at times corny, but good, clean, old-fashioned fun of the old Johnny Walker type (yes, yes, I know that shows me up for the Jurassic relic I am😉, but at least some of you must have heard of perhaps the best ever comedian in Hindi filmdom!) and I was still gurgling with laughter in the second viewing.
It was all such a pleasant change from the raving and ranting and poisoning and plotting of the last fortnight! To top it all, the left handed compliment that Javeda unknowingly pays her saas - aap to auron ko phansati hain, wo bechari to khudh phans gayi - at the very end was deadly! I also liked the way in which Mahaam is, overall, indulgent towards the inanities of her scatterbrained bahu.
Things are looking up, folks! Did I not tell you we would climb out of this slough of despond?
So on to Episode 65 in the next post!
Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
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