Originally posted by: lashy
JODHA-MOTHI
'Please get a hold on yourself' the forlorn friend advices the beautiful queen - who was now frantic and her form dishevelled as she sat on her bed. It was obvious she'd been hysterically sobbing at her helplessness for a good while now!
'HOW?' Jodha wails 'Every moment that Vishkanya stays close to him...she gets closer to him and now they're about to wed too..and I cannot do anything about it...how do I save him...if something happened to him I will never forgive myself for it...I have to protect him!'
These were the same lines she'd uttered after Jalal had been wounded following the tiger fiasco - this was how distraught she was then too. However, the driving force behind the two instances are quite different. In the earlier instance, while Jodha was all out to save an Emperor of the Sultanate and a victim of her folly from succumbing to injuries, here she is desperate to save a 'man' - her husband' - the one she's begun to love despite all of the flaws that he's depicted lately. Perfectly put, except that I do not know of any new flaws that Jalal has been exhibiting of late. Please elaborate.
'Don't lie to yourself...' Mothi argues 'You are not restless because the Shehenshah is going to wed Benazir...it is because you have started falling in love with him'
Jodha is aghast. Momentarily, she bucks up - there was no way she was going to accept this 'love-waala' excuse 'No...nothing of the sort' (Made for each other these warring lovers!)
'Your face is the reflection of your emotions and one can very well see how much you love him' Mothi continues 'And YOU know why he's doing this...he is doing this to avenge the anguish he felt when you'd pushed him away that night...he wants to agonize you...you might call it ghrina...he might call it Prathishodh...however, I call this LOVE' (Yayyy...that's what we call it too, Mothi😛)
'Remember...' Mothi reiterates 'Ever since the day that you'd pushed him away, he's lost the smile on his face...he's become so forlorn and lonely...'
Obviously, Jodha refutes it with empty words - her face as pale as can be 'I don't have any such feelings...I don't consider him my husband...but he is the mark of my 'fortune and goodwill'..so, I can't let him come to harm...even if he punishes me, gets angry with me or throws me out of Agra! I have to save him because I...I...I...'
Mothi (and the audience) wait with bated breath - for Jodha to finish her confession(???) - but, that wasn't meant to happen today!
Splendid scene this!👏
Yes, and Paridhi nailed it to perfection. The half sob in her voice as she says wo to main nahin jaanti when Moti asks her why she bothers about Benazir marrying the Shahenshah if she herself does not care for him, was very well done and made one's heart go out to her.
But I must add that I found Moti's repeated affirmations that Jodha has fallen in love with her husband rather odd, like a conjurer forcing the hapless guinea pig from the audience to "choose" a card from the pack he is holding out. Perhaps the CVs have decided to put up that placard of mine Abhi shuru hoti hai Jalal aur Jodha ki amar prem kahani!
I noted that you persist in spelling Moti's name as Mothi. It is subliminal thinking, for she does look motheaten, flat and dull. Alas for Ankita Dubey ! It is the second worst change of cast after Lavina replaced Smiley and Ruqaiya's character went for a six.JALAL-ATGAH
Jalal's expressions when brushing off Atgah's 'What's been eating you lately' is praiseworthy
Him sitting by the fire - recollecting the two vachans he'd granted her, while the chilly winds of Agra felt chillier - was a beautiful scene. 👏
The defeated expressions he had on his face for those 5 seconds held so much of significance - and this is what I read them as -
'Why has it never been enough' he thinks to himself as he sits down 'Why has whatever I've done for her never been sufficient...why can't she feel for me the way I for her...and when I know that she doesn't then why does my heart ache so much...I am thoroughly unconvinced about this wedding and agreed to it purely to rile her... why am I acting so irrationally and when I know I am, I don't want to stop it...what is this power that she holds over me...what IS this pain I feel - a pain that any amount of humiliation I give her does not seem to diminish...if anything, it only torments me more!'
Jalal has been mistaking this pain as 'Ego'. Once he realizes it's 'love', he'd realize that attempting to get back at the one you love rarely gives you 'peace'
My dear Lashy, take a bow, or several, in fact, for this gorgeous piece of writing. 👏 I do not know if this is what the CVs had thought of when they visualised this scene (always assuming that they do have thought processes!😉) but I am sure this is what Rajat had in his mind for Jalal, seeing that he is obviously of the Stanislavsky school of method acting, like Marlon Brando and Dilip Kumar. You have managed to insinuate yourself into Jalal's zehen, and if you keep doing this, he will issue a nazarbandh order against you, to protect his emotional privacy!
But I do not agree that he attributes all his confused thoughts and feelings to his bruised ego. The M word is very much there at the back of his mind, lurking around and just waiting to surge worth and take over his dil, if not his dimaag. That is what scares him, thanks to Mirza Hakim's idiotic pontification about mohabbat making a man so weak that even a Shahenshah can be brought to his knees.
OTHER POINTS I LIKED TODAY
Shareefuddin's possessive 'Damn! Why do you have to love him so much?'😆It was very well done.
Salima's unrelenting unprejudiced support for the right - i.e. Jodha!👏
Salim Chisti's awakening to the fact that Shehenshah will indeed wake up to a new realization and that the black clouds in Agra will move over to make way for sunshine!😳 I do not know, Lashy, why it is repeated here so often that the Sheikh's soulful pronouncements are trotted out frequently to cheer up the drooping viewers. The last time I heard him say such things was when Jalal went to the dargah and met the Sheikh. That was a long time ago. The paigham from him during the butparasti shindy was not about this angle at all. I think this putting down of the Sheikh's prophecies is becoming a Goebbelsian exercise!
Jodha's marked appearance of relief in finding one believer - one supporter to her theory. Nothing can be more frustrating when you know that you are saying the truth and yet you have none beside you to support you in it! She was grasping at straws here - I was elated she discovered welcome backing in the form of Salima Begum! Yes, her whole face was suddenly lit up as if a light had been switched on inside her.
PRECAP
Sunny, your Jai Kali ..I mean Ekta's Jai Ma Kaali tune is here...😆
I would love to watch this routine of ending Ben instead of the kiss-suck poison route that we'd all been dreading. However, having said that - I do not want Jodha's saviour act to come at the cost of retribution!
I would be rejoicing if this precap was true and NOT a dream as many fear - I loved Jodha's fiery form when she hauled Jalal to Agra...I would love to see her don such a form again!
I'm sure the audiences would love it too!😃
I am astonished at having been right for once in second guessing the CVs. It happens only very rarely, as they are allergic to logic, which is what I swear by. This time, however, I responded so strongly and viscerally to the Durga dushtasamharini symbolism that when I chose to believe the precap, I did it from the heart, not, as usual, from the head. And lo and behold, I was right!
I shall open up the Moet Chandon only at 8:30 pm tonight, just to be on the safe side!😉
MY TAKE-
I truly hope once this Ben saga is wrapped up that the makers don't decide to see-saw the characterizations any further. This serial is Jodha Akbar for a reason - not Jodha...not Akbar...
I still stand by my feelings that Jalal's character need not have been dragged down through the ditches just for a supposedly heartless man to realize that he could be in love.
I do hope that whatever the problems and MUs that the couple face ahead - personalities are not compromised to this extent - hopefully, we're never again left wondering 'Where's my Jodha' and 'Where's my Jalal?' Well,that is a tall order,seeing that the CVs do not seem to be at all sure of what kind of Jalal and Jodha they want to inflict on us.
For now, I am glad that Benazir has apparently been pincushioned (sic) good and proper, though the river fish that happen to take a bite out of her corporeal remains before they are retrieved might not share my viewpoint!😉
Debate Mansion
Anupamaa
