Friends, yesterday's episode was all about the need for Jalal to somehow bring back Jodha. It seemed to me like an episode where Jalal not only articulated his own need to bring Jodha back into his life somehow ... but he also got an earful from Hamida and some great advice from Salima that galvanised him to actually gather his troops and set out on a horse himself with a mission. He said he would not come back without Jodha and he set off an a long trek, having no idea of exactly where he could find her!
Meanwhile of course, his enemies ( Maham and Sharif) were looking forward to an interlude in Agra without Jalal there, so that they could indulge in their own plots and plans and machinations. Atga has also been left in charge of affairs till Jalal's return - so I suspect Adham will also now be at his worst behaviour with Atga on the financial accounts front. All in all, in the coming week, I suppose we can expect both tracks to continue. On the one hand we will be following Jalal and Jodha on their treks ... and on the other hand we will be witness to his enemies running their lives with sinister intentions behind his back!
The episode itself began with a continuation of the Maham-Sharif meeting. There was a lot of pretence between the two as the cluck-clucked over the fate of the Jodha-Jalal relationship. Sharif seemed to be filled with pity for Jodha and Jalal and especially pointed out that this was the second time Jalal was acting suspicious of Jodha's fidelity - and naturally Jodha would be miffed and walk out. Maham on the other hand, waited for Sharif to depart, and then did a lot of talking to herself. She had other evil plots going on, and so it was convenient not to have Jalal around to see all that. She thought to herself "Jalal will surely try to bring Jodha back. I'll have to try and stop this, but meanwhile I can get a lot done when he's not there!"
There were four lovely sequences I want to highlight in today's analysis. Each of these scenes seemed to take Jalal one step closer to making the determination to find Jodha and bring her back into his life.
The first of these scenes was Jalal talking to himself and the portrait of Jodha in his room, asking again and again why she did not put up a fight for her own dignity and for justice and prove Jalal wrong! I loved the way he said "I have just fallen in love and lack the experience, but you who have always fought for all just causes, why could you not set me straight?"
The second scene I want to highlight is the way Hamida tore into Jalal for letting things between himself and Jodha come to such a pass. "Bring back my daughter to me" Hamida said. It was no longer about Jalal or the formality of her "daughter-in-law". It was a mother crying for the lost daughter and there was such a mixture of anger and distress in Hamida, it was great to watch - she even took away the Jodha portrait from Jalal's room saying he had no more right to keep it.
The third scene I want to highlight was the short interlude at Jodha's tulsi plant where Jalal talked with his two other wives Ruq and Salima. Ruq came of her own but Salima came because Jalal had called her. Ruq argued against Jalal running to find Jodha while Salima argued for the urgent finding of Jodha. The big difference in Salima's dialogue was that she said categorically to Jalal "You have fallen in love with Jodha, so you alone know how to rectify the situation." There was shock on Ruq's face as she came to terms with the fact that almost everyone now acknowledged that Jalal had fallen in love with Jodha, including Jalal himself.
The fourth scene I want to detail is the lovely makabra scene where once again the souls of Jodha and Jalal talked to each other. This scene was important to give us a longer and wider perspective of how these two people saw the situation between them. Did they think it was an unsolveable impasse? Did they blame each other or themselves? Did they merely discuss the state of their individual distress? Or did they articulate hope of reconciliation?
There was of course the scene of Javeeda following Maham to the surang and then losing her trail. But it is a developing story, so maybe we will see more of it in the days to come, to be able to better analyse what is happening on that front.
The precap is interesting because it suggests that the Creatives will put a bit of speed into the whole storyline. In the precap, Jalal has already arrived at Amer, where he probably thinks Jodha was most likely to be. He is welcomed by Bharmal and Mainavati, but when they ask Jalal "Isn't Jodha with you? Did she not come with you to Amer?" that's when high voltage thunderbolts hit Jalal. It comes home to him that Jodha is not at Amer either, and so the whole disappearance of Jodha takes on a mega-proportion.
Jalal must have realised that if Jodha was not safe at Amer, she was totally unsafe somewhere else on her own in the wilderness, amongst unknown people and danger-ridden circumstances. I think thisreal big shock awaits Jalal in the Friday episode. I am also wondering if Mainvati will approach Shaguni Bai to get some clues as to where Jodha may be and whether Shaguni Bai may give some cryptic answers that Jodha is in some Kanha temple somewhere, and she will be brought back to Agra safe and sound by Jalal. That at least should give Jalal a few possible destinations to head for next!
Overall the episode was one of Jalal "making an unshakeable determination to bring back Jodha" and in this he was aided by his own inner promptings and the goading of his mother and Salima. Beyond that "steeling of the mind" in Jalal, there wasn't much else in the episode. But still it's a step in the right direction.
I am still thinking that if by April end there has to be the consummation scene we have two weeks in which Jalal needs to hunt down Jodha and fight off any kidnap attempt by Sharif and bring her back safe and sound to Agra. One part of me wants to see Jodha back in Jalal's arms, yes, but another part of me wants that reconciliation and consummation away from Agra somewhere where they both are in isolation, maybe even in the jungle itself? It would be far more exciting to see them making out in the wild than (without eyes and ears peeping from behind curtains in their Agra hojra). Don't you agree?
Okay here are the four scenes handpicked for today ...
Jalal talks to Jodha's portrait and confesses he is a rank amateur in love!
A broken and beaten Jalal walks up to the portrait of Jodha in his room with a slow and weary gait. "Such anger, such ire" he says to her. "I just got a bit angry and said things to you to go away and you really went away?" he asks. "You didn't even give me one answer, you never told me I was wrong even once, blaming and accusing you? What can I do Jodha Begum, that is how I am! This is the first time I have fallen in love. I don't have experience in love."
"I know I get angry very fast, but like you used to manage me every time, you should have managed this time too. OK, so a galti happened by my hands ... in fact not just a galti but a gunaah, because I suspected you. But were you not the cause of it? Why did you not tell me the truth, why did you keep it all a secret from me, why did you lie to me? "
"I am just a Shahenshah, I am not God to be able to read your mind. I am just an ordinary man and galti has happened by my hands. But you should have fought with me Jodha Begum. You should have told me I was doing and saying the wrong things. You fought for the rights of the baandhis, for the rights of my sister Bakshi Bano, for the rights of khwaja seras and also the rights of the aam praja. But why did you not fight with me for your own rights?"
" Okay I know I said all kinds of nasty things from anger, but does that mean you should leave everything and go away? Don't you have any rights over this family, this mahal and even over me? If not for my sake, you should have stayed at least for the sake of Ammi Jaan who thinks of you as her own daughter. You should have stayed for the sake of Rahim who calls you his Choti Ammi and never goes to sleep without hearing bedtime stories from you. You should have stayed for Salima Begum who considers you her own sister and you should have stayed for the awaam who pray for your welfare day and night!"
Jalal was calm throughout this speech. But his voice was choked with emotion and his throat and face were tight with pain.
My comments on this scene:
I think this is one of the nicest scenes I have seen. We saw Rajat in that mighty angry scene the other day, and then we saw him in the shocked scene in Jodha's hojra as the letter was being read to him by Moti ... but this simple scene of him talking to the portrait of Jodha really touched me. There were four reasons why:
a. I loved the way he said "I am in love with you, but I am so inexperienced in love. That why you should tried to straighten me out rather than go away". That is such a lovely statement from a man who ruled half the sub-continent to accept that he was an amateur in matters of the heart.
b. I absolutely loved the way he said "You always fight for this cause or that cause, why did you not fight against the injustice I was doing to you? Why did you not put up a resistance? Why did you not help me to help you?" It was such a cry from the heart asking for her help rather than just her understanding. He sounded like a man all at sea at this game of love and he was almost pleading for help rather than just love.
c. I loved the way he said "I am just a Shahenshah, I am not God, to be able to read your mind!". What a sentence that was - an admission of the limits of his much-vaunted powers. Later in the episode Ruq says to him "You are the Shahenshah, and you must be above emotions. You cannot afford to have emotions that make you run after Jodha." But there lies the new way Jalal is seeing himself these days. While Ruq still thinks the Shahenshah should be above the levels of an ordinary man, Jalal himself admits that he is after all just another man (albeit with a high official role) and there are limits to his ability to be an all-powerful Shahenshah!
d. I also loved the way he soon realised that even if not for his sake she had formed a lot of great relationships with his mother, with Salima, with Rahim, with the praja ... and started entreating her to return at least for their sakes if not his. That was the way he was positioning himself - at the last rung of her friendship ladder. It was humbling to watch him do this.
Folks, in a way it was sad to see Jalal standing and talking to a mute portrait of Jodha in her physical absence. It was heart-wrenching for me, because by this episode he had lost that shock and that anger, he was broken, and he was bewildered as to what to do next. He was incapable of immediate action, I suspect, because his mind was befuddled. So when he spoke to the portrait it was for asking for her help rather than just her love or for re-hashing the events of the past few days.
He was saying "Please help me. I feel lost in this world of love. I've never been there before. Even if I have made mistakes, could you not help me rather than leave me? Why did you not fight me and correct me? I so need your help, for only you can know what I am going through. The love between us will at least let you feel something of what I am feeling!"
Folks, I also felt as if even though Sharif had commissioned the portrait with less than decent intentions, the portrait was at least doing its job for Jalal by giving him a chance to speak to Jodha even if she was not physically there. Sometimes it's easier to talk to a portrait that doesn't answer back, and keeps mute while you vent. The portrait by keeping silent and absorbing all his pleadings was doing a good job in giving him an opportunity to speak to her without further hurting her.
Hamida lays into Jalal for separating a distraught mother from her daughter!
As Jalal stands before Jodha's portrait asking questions but getting no responses from the mute image, Hamida enters the room with her voice quivery and high-pitched in anger. "Have you at least now seen your own galti Jalal?" she shouts at him. "Have you by now at least understood Jodha's importance in your life?"
Jalal tries to calm her down saying "Ammi Jaan ..." but Hamida cuts in with a great deal of pent up anger "Don't even try to call me Ammi Jaan. Where do you even understand the value of relationships? For you every relationship is just a label and nothing else! Not only have you done this to yourself, you have even made me unworthy of Jodha."
"Ammi Jaan, forgive me, I have made a big mistake" Jalal says with heartfelt distress.
"But then why am I having to suffer the consequences of your galti? Why do Rahim and Salima have to suffer this? Why do the people of the Sultanate have to suffer this? Jodha is not just your wife Jalal, she is also my daughter! Jodha is such a "nek- aurath" that even the shaitaan cannot suspect her. And you did that?" Hamida's voice was almost shrieking through this tirade.
"Ammi Jaan, I did not do all this deliberately" Jalal tries to say to her. But all she replies is "Bas Jalal, don't try to give me excuses. Even if it wasn't deliberate, even if done innocently, a gunaah is a gunaah. And everybody has to take responsibility for their own gunaahs. I am proud of Jodha for finding an answer to the insult on her dignity and fidelity by walking out of here. No woman of any dignity can watch her sincerity and loyalty being thus treated like dirt. At least as a King you should have placed some value on loyalty, fidelity and honest sincerity. Our Jodha is a heera and you could not understand her value."
"Ammi Jaan, at least please don't be angry with me, please forgive me" Jalal pleads through his tears. Hamida breaks down herself "How can I forgive you. You have broken a mother's heart. You have accused a mother's daughter. If you cannot give my daughter place in your heart, what do you achieve by keeping her portrait in your room? I am taking my daughter's portrait with me".
"Ammi Jaan, please don't be angry and please try to forgive me," Jalal repeats. Hamida says to him "Isn't it your own law that the victim of a gunaah must herself forgive the gunegaar? You are the gunegaar of Jodha. Go to her and get your pardon. As for my pardoning you, I can do so only when you bring my daughter back to me."
And with that Hamida walks out of the room, leaving Jalal bereft of even the mute portrait of Jodha that was all that was left with him to remind him of her!
My comments on this scene:
Hamida was splendid today. Her voice has a natural quavery quality even when she speaks normally, but in this episode it seemed to shake and tremble a lot more than usual. She was immensely angry with Jalal, and she could not see how his so-called love could make him capable of such insensitivity to a girl like Jodha who had all the time demonstrated her "nek-ness".
Hamida never did see Jodha as anything but her own daughter - so much so that even Jalal had once declared that maybe his mother loves Jodha more than she loves himself. But Hamida carried her love of Jodha into another level entirely by saying "Why do you make me suffer your actions against Jodha? Why must I lose my daughter? Why must Salima, Rahim and the praja lose her?' She said the words "my daughter" at least six times.
She also pointed out to Jalal that a gunaah is a gunaah whether done deliberately or not ... and pleading innocence on account of having done the mistake without ill-intention does not absolve the act. She kept saying "You are the gunegaar!". She said that also at least four times.
But, folks, the interesting part for me was the fact that she grabbed the painting and took it away. Now what this is going to mean in terms of the storyline, has me all agog. Is it possible that the painting would have gone into the background if it was in Jalal's room when he was away searching for Jodha for two weeks, but now that it is in Hamida's room plain for all to see, it may cause Bakshi to betray signs of disturbance, or it may make the portrait painter talkative if she is called in for some other job?
There must be some reason why the Creatives showed Hamida walking off with that painting. I am curious to see if it will now lead to some suspicion of Sharif in some oblique way? What do you all think?
Ruq gets a reality check as Salima exhorts Jalal to find his Jodha, his "love"!
Jalal, with his mind rattled by repeated flashbacks of his shouting at Jodha and his mother shouting at him, finds himself sauntering towards the tulsi plant so carefully fostered by Jodha. It is so symbolic that he seems to find himself there as he says to himself "It was all my fault that I never saw your wafaadaari Jodha Begum. I now have to repair this situation".
We see intercuts of Jodha also in deep distress, trying to sleep away the night in an uncomfortable place in the village she has reached, talking of her own soul's deep hurt. "I love you a lot Shahenshah" she says to herself, "But you have really hurt me a lot!"
The camera then pans back to Jalal by the tulsi plant reliving the trauma of more unpleasant flashbacks. Ruq then comes there and places a hand on Jalal's arm saying "Jalal, I know you are very worried about Jodha Begum. But you are a King and cannot afford to become this emotional. Till today you have never become so emotional about anybody, so what is all this now?"
"Till today I have never done such injustice to anyone either" says a rueful and self-berating Jalal. "You have no idea how much I have hurt Jodha Begum. I have accused her of infidelity, and that too with her own brother. Ruqaiaya, I am terribly ashamed of myself."
Just at that moment Salima comes there and says "Did you call me Shahenshah?" That gave Ruq her first reality check that she was here uninvited, whereas Salima had been summoned expressly. "Yes Salima Begum, I need you a lot today" Jalal says to her. "Without even attempting to find out the truth, I have suspected Jodha Begum and hurt her heart a lot. I blamed her without proof, I even gave her orders to go away. I gave her a punishment that I myself am bearing now".
"I know Shahenshah" the wise and calm Salima says "I ask for forgiveness but I must say you did not do right in behaving thus with Jodha. I also know that you are deeply in love with Jodha Begum. And that's why today you are in such deep distress". Both Jalal and Ruq look up as Salima says this. There is wonderment in Jalal's eyes that Salima knows his heart, but we can also see how Ruq's heart is sinking with this realisation that everyone knows where Jalal's heart is.
Jalal as much as admits he is in love by not refuting Salima's statement. "Then in that case, please show me the way out of this mess?" he pleads to her. "You always show me the right way, and I need you to do this now again." But Salima refuses to directly help him. "I am sorry," she says, "but in this matter I am in no position to help you. Between a husband a wife, who are not just two people but who have become one, where is the place for the third person? Neither my presence in the matter nor my advice can help. Only the two people concerned can solve it. In this case the hurt was created by you making it all the more imperative for you to heal it. No one else can do this for you. In relationships, ups and downs are natural, and sometimes one or another person makes a mistake. In this case you have allowed galat faimis to enter the relationship, that you alone can repair. You have to now face Jodha Begum and make known to her all your feelings for her. I know for a fact that Jodha must be now extremely hurt by your suspicions and accusations. And she must be very angry too for she has left without telling anybody. But I believe she will understand your plight and she will surely forgive you. She needs you now. And only you can bring her back to this palace."
Jalals face shows dawning comprehension "Yes, he says ""if I gave her the hurt, I have to apply the balm." But Ruq on the sidelines of this conversation so far, cannot tolerate Jalal listening to and following Salima's advice. She butts in with abruptness and vehemence "Jodha left of her own volition. Why should Jalal go and get her back?"
"Nothing is to be achieved by aggressiveness, Ruqaiaya" says Salima with a great deal of calm. "This is the time for you to show your love Shahenshah."
"You are right, Salima Begum, I will go after her and bring her back safe" jalal promises solemnly. Ruq raises an eyebrow with disbelief. I think with every passing word from Salima and Jala she has felt Jalal slip away through her fingers.
My comments on this scene:
I think this is the scene that I wanted to see for a long time, but when it finally came it was different from what I had imagined. I had always imagined a scene where Jalal would openly tell Ruq "I have fallen in love with Jodha!" But it didn't happen that abruptly or rudely and so I was really glad that Ruq (no matter how evil she is at times) didn't have to suffer that humiliation of an upfront and ruthless declaration. Even for the people I don't like, I prefer the truth to unfold slowly and painlessly.
The grandeur of this scene was two things. One, Ruq realised that while Jalal had not sought her out, he had actually asked for Salima to come and help him. That was Shock No. 1 for Ruq. The second shock was when Salima said without a hint of doubt "I know you are in love with Jodha Begum, Shahenshah". And Jalal did not even begin to refute that statement. In fact he built on it by saying "Precisely, that's why I need your help right now".
Throughout the arguments of Salima, Ruq tried to keep a straight face but her emotions were there in her insecure eyes and her quivering lips. Anger, ire, disbelief and a gut-wrenching feeling were plainly seen on her countenance. With every passing word of Salima's advice, and with every concurring sentence of Jalal's, it was as if nails were being hammered into Ruq.
You know what, folks, I actually found myself feeling a bit sorry for her, because when Salima told Jalal to face the truth that he was in love with Jodha, it must have looked to Ruq like the whole world already knew his state-of-the-heart and she was the last standing person to have to acknowledge it. She had kept her eyes closed to this truth choosing to not accept it. Now it was plain not just in his words but in his actions.
The determination with which he went off saying "I will find Jodha and I will bring her back" was more than Ruq could bear. She spent a whole minute or two blinking back her tears and steeling herself to accept the inevitable.
Will she finally be reconciled to the truth and accept that she has lost the battle to hold Jalal's heart? We don't know. But she seems to have lots of time on her own to think about it, for Jalal is not going to return to Agra in a hurry! The life of Jodha and Jalal is now on a different trajectory and Ruq unfortunately is not in their lives any more in any significant way.
An odd tantrum here or there from Ruq may still happen, but it may not be able to change the drift of Jalal's heart. And even though Maham will try to instigate Ruq, I think inside her heart Ruq will now give up and refuse to be Maham's puppet. Let's see ...
The souls of Jodha and Jalal at the makabra talk of what hurt them the most!
We are back to the scene of Akbar's makabra where the two souls of Jodha and Jalal are talking about this whole issue that separated them. "I got you back in my life that day you drank the pison, but then I lost you again due to my suspicions Jodha Begum" says the soul of Jalal. "You merely lost me Shahenshah, but I lost everything that day" replied Jodha's soul, "because for a wife, her husband's vishwas is the whole world. I lost everything when you showed "sandeh" on my character."
"I was so scared where you were, how safe you were, in what state you may be ..." his soul says. Her soul replies "But I was not scared, for what I had to fear losing I had already lost. When you took me out of your heart, it was as if I had been separated from my own life. I was unable to tell out the truth, but I thought you would be able to see it in my eyes. But no, you actually took my silence to be my acceptance of guilt. And you took my love to be a sin."
"Yes" his soul said with resignation "I thought you were the gunegaar and that was my gunaah. I never realised how my suspicions would drive us so apart. And maybe I was in such distress, for I had started loving you deeply. In my deepest dreams I could never imagine that there would be someone else in your dreams. And all that struck my mind was how I could regain my place in your dreams."
My comments on this scene:
I always love the makabra scenes when they are shown because it is like getting a deeper look into the souls of Jodha and Jalal and getting a glimpse of exactly how they were gauging the issue at hand. Of course, the last time we saw the makabra scene was when they had given us the dialogue of "This is our akelepan ki aakhri raath" which alas, went for a six! But even so I have not lost my eagerness for these makabra scenes.
I particularly loved the one sentence Jalal's soul says that "Maybe I was in such distress because I had begun to love you.". That, folks, seems to be the sum and substance of the whole problem of separation they are facing. Yesterday in reply to one post I had written that if there was no love between them, there would not have been this degree of distress on both sides. Trust deficits always look worse when there is a lot of love in a situation.
Lovers have such high expectations of each other that often they also have every high expectations of trust that are difficult to live up to in real life. Lovers become hypersensitive to the issue of trust and find fault with each other for the slightest things. And especially, new lovers always look to see if the other one is demonstrating trust at every turn, as if that is a measure of how deep their love is.
In a way this makabra scene showed us that both Jalal and Jodha had cognised the fact that as new lovers they had to learn a lot of new things about love and trust. They realised that maybe they were both so sensitive of each other's trustworthiness that they allowed their love to get pushed to the background as they wrestled over who was showing how much trust in the other.
I think they would have realised also that the trust issue was actually a non-issue in the face of love. Where there is love, trust or its absence is not such a heart-breaker anymore for love heals all chasms, however deep the misunderstanding.
It is always lovely to see what two people think in hindsight about a problem that seems so insurmountable when it happens. I think this makabra scene gives the sanket that eventually the realisation of their love has washed away the pains - and they were able to talk of it all years later with a lot of equanimity and forgiveness for their own selves.
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