Friends, yesterday's epi has set the stage nicely for the great meeting of Jodha and Jalal during the maha episode which is to happen tonight. The important thing in yesterday's episode was that even if Jodha and Jalal have not yet met each other on a one-on-one basis, they have cognised the presence of each other at the ashram. Jodha recognised Jalal's voice while he saved her and Shehnaaz and the young widow from the stones thrown by the crowds. Then throughout the episode, Jodha stayed in the background but couldn't help keep watch on the wounded Jalal. Then finally in the precap, with the holi colours thrown by Jodha hitting Jalal's face, Jodha apologises to him not knowing it is her Jalal. He recognises her voice! The stage is now set for their face-to-face meeting very imminently.
Yesterday's episode was also memorable for two other things ...
One, the word "mohabbat" was widely explained by the very person we never used to associate the word with many months ago - Jalal. He gave two spectacular bhashans on "mohabbat" - once when he was saving Jodha, Shehnaaz and the widowed girl, when he turned against the irate public and taught them a thing or two about why love should be in every life, including that of widows, and why this young widow had every right to love someone for the second time in her life, and why a person who has lost his love is but a lifeless person who merely survives in life without thriving. Then again "mohabbat" became the topic of discussion between Jalal and Todarmal - when Todarmal asked Jalal about Jodha's absence and he told him his full story, also extolling "mohabbat" as one of those strange parts of life that makes so much meaning when it is there and so less meaning when it is not there.
Two, we finally had the much awaited entry of Todarmal in the story. It was a beautiful and unexpected twist for me when the hurt and swaying Jalal was caught by Todarmal and then given the best of medical treatment. Jodha recognised Todarmal, as did Jalal also ... but the best part was that Todarmal showed that he recognised who Jalal really was - the Shahenshah. The lovely dialogues between Todarmal and Jalal, where Todarmal explained how he had already recognised Jalal the last time they met, and the reasons why he gave Humayun's mohur to Jalal was all fabulously done. There is so much dignity in the scene when someone like Todarmal enters the picture and starts talking. Suddenly it is as if he has raised the quality of the scene and the dialogue several notches. I love the way he has taken a paternalistic role with regard to Jalal, especially on the issue of absence of Jodha, and I have no doubt that when these two meet and reconcile finally, Todarmal will be greatly instrumental in advising Jalal and Jodha about how to handle the ups and downs of their life with greater maturity than they both have done so far.
There is one other thing that stood out yesterday. The episode was not one of great action, except for the stone throwing and pole fight, but it certainly was one of great dialogues. For my analysis I have chosen to take two scenes: one, the Jalal bhashan to the crowd where he elaborates on "mohabbat", and two, the Todarmal-Jalal meeting when they talk of the previous meeting and this latest one, and again also of "mohabbat".
One more good thing: we did not see our villains at all yesterday - no Maham, no Ruq, no Agra in fact! Wow! Why are the Creatives in such a lovely mood to bless us?
Incidentally, are we to believe that one year or more has passed in the Jodha-Jalal marriage? We saw Jodha throw Holi colours on Maham many many episodes ago, and now there's the next Holi again? So soon? Why is the timeline so wonky?
Okay so here goes my analysis of my two best scenes ...
Jalal gives the public a bhashan on "mohabbat" and impresses Jodha and Shehnaaz!
The episode itself begins with Jalal running towards Jodha and Shehnaaz and the young widowed girl in a huddle against the stones being pelted at them from all sides by the angry crowd. Jalal runs up to Jodha, and covers the girls by placing his arms across them as if to ensconce them within the refuge of his body. A vicious stone hits Jalal's head which is just above Jodha's, and his blood then trickles down Jodha "maang" and down her face. "Paagal hogaye ho kya ke in aurathon ko martha hai?" shouts Jalal at the crowd. Jodha recognises the unmistakeable voice of her husband. Her eyes widen in shock. "Shahenshah? Yahaan?" she asks herself in disbelief!
But more stones now start hitting the huddled group in the centre when the crowd senses that a man too has now come forth to protect the women. Jalal rises away from the huddled girls and faces the stone throwers with fury writ on his face. "Ruk jaao" he shouts "If anyone even lays a hand on these women, the result is going to be very bad for them" he threatens. The crowd seems to stand stupefied for a fleeting moment, when sensing her opportunity and pulling her pallu over her face, Jodha quickly makes her exit without Jalal's knowledge. Shehnaaz follows.
"Who are you to give us orders?" one man from the crows shouts back. Jalal replies with menace "I may be whoever I am, but what is happening here I will never allow to happen." Jodha and Shehnaaz find refuge behind a tree not too far away as they continue to watch Jalal protect the young widow still left at the centre where she was. A plump looking man with some posture of authority says "Who are you to be deciding what happens here. I am the mukhya here, not you. Stay away from our issue". Jalal screams back "Why should I stay back from all this. And who the hell are you? Are you God to be doling out such big punishmments to this girl?"
The "mukhya" then says "She is a widow, and being such a one she has had the temerity to attempt a second marriage with a different purush. She is not just a "charithraheen", but her act has made our heads hang in shame. And these two other women had the guts to come to her defence?" The crowd loudly concurs with the mukhya. "You should be ashamed" says Jalal in a lowered voice. "You talk of dharm and religion and roam around with such kinds of negative hearts? Who says having "mohabbat" is a gunah? Mohabbat is the rain of mercy from the God above, that very few lucky people get to experience. If this girl's life is rising to glory a second time because of someone's mohabbat for her, what is your problem?"
One other man next to the mukhya opines "This is wrong. Her example will set a bad precedent with our sisters and our families too. Our society does not allow any vidhwa to love and marry again. You get out of our way. She has done a great apraadh". Jalal is deeply angered again and raises his voice even higher than before "Who says she is an apraadhi? And what is her gunah? When her husband died, did any of you go to her assistance? And when another good man is trying to bring back love and happiness to her life, are you all trying to throw thorns in her path? Did any one of you bother to see what her condition was when she saw her husband breathe his last in front of her eyes? Consider it God's mercy on her that he wants to fill her life with colour again. What you people are trying to do is the real gunah." Many of the bystanders who got convinced by Jalal's arguments thus far started dropping the stones in their hands, but some tenacious one kept up the arguments.
"She only has the right to love her husband. If she falls in love again, that's a sin" says one of the vehement guys in the group. Jalal fires to her defence "Who says a person cannot love a second time? And who says Allah cannot bring love a second time to somebody's life? Those who do not understand the beauty of mohabbat are "badnaseeb" people, but when they lose that mohabbat is when they realise its value and repent. This girl has every right to live her life, to be happy. Let's see who has the guts to punish this paak-saaf aurath". And with that, as the crowd stands silenced, Jalal goes to untie the hands of the young widowed girl, who turns up thankful eyes at Jalal.
All this while Jodha behind the tree has been deeply, deeply moved to hear such words of praise from her Jalal, to the concept of "mohabbat". Shehnaaz, standing near Jodha adds to this moment by telling Jodha "Lakshmi, looks like this man too has lost his mohabbat, isn't it? That's why he is carrying such distress in his heart, such fire. See how fearlessly he is making speeches in favour of "mohabbat"..." Jodha is more than ordinarily moved to hear this from Shehnaaz as a re-iteration of her own thoughts.
Not yet giving up, the mukhya then shouts at Jalal as he stands beside the widowed girl who has by now risen to her feet. "This stranger is now going to carry away this widow and make every widow in our samaj think its okay to start falling in love" he said pompously. "Today is Holi, when the fires will consume all "paap". We will finish off this girl and her paap too" he exhorted his men. The crowd again rose to his summons with loud cries of "Maaro!"
Jalal grabs a wooden pole nearby and stands ready and waiting for the attackers to strike him first. Jodha and Shehnaaz become very concerned for his own safety. Six men came forward to attack Jalal with their poles as he parries their strikes and single handedly vanquishes them all in a terrific piece of action. In the process, Jalal too takesa few blows on his head but continues till all men are on the ground. "Who else?" Jalal asked. "Looks like this is some big yodha. Let's scoot" the fallen attackers shout in unison and the disperse.
"I am disgraced that between men and animals there is no difference left" Jalal says to the mukhya and his henchmen, hanging their heads. "You should all be ashamed to call yourself men. Even mute animals understand the value of "mohabbat". One decent man has come forward to love this woman, to make her his wife, and instead of feeling happy about it, you are trying to decimate her? Remember, oh people, mohabbat is what life is about and if mohabbat is taken away, life become not worth living. If anyone has a right to decide her future it is only that man who has the guts to love her and give her back her life. It is he who is teaching her heart to beat again. Mohabbat is exalted by every religion. And this is an issue of mohabbat in a town renowned for the spread of this language of mohabbat. If there is no mohabbat in your hearts here, why are you working against the mohabbat in her heart?"
The shamed men leave the place with heads hung low. "Go sister" says Jalal to the young widow. "You can live your life as you choose, you are free, you can love as you please. May God never separate you from your mohabbat." The young girl goes with a gesture of thanks to Jalal.
My comments on this scene:
Jodha eyes are a picture of pride and remorse and astonishment. She has seen a Jalal advocating every value of that "mohabbat" that she herself thought of as the highest force of the heart in all mankind. Shehnaaz too is all excited, but Jodha's quiet face reveals more ... it reveals how deeply she has been affected by Jalal's defence of "mohabbat".
If ever Jodha needed words of apology to emanate from Jalal, I think this bhashan on "mohabbat" should have appeased her heart and made her feel that no apology is left to be said by a man who feels this much the loss of "mohabbat" from his life.
I asked myself, "After hearing so much on this subject from him, and having all her doubts answered, why then does she later demur when he asks for an apology to be accepted? " I thought about it, and felt that maybe since "mohabbat" is so important even to her, she is fearing letting it into her life again, such that it can wreak havoc again when it goes away. Her own experience of "mohabbat lost" may be something she doesn't ever want to go through again. Just the same as Jalal said in his bhashan that only a soul that has lost its greatest "mohabbat" knows and repents when it is lost.
Folks, I thought Jalal was splendid. He not only defended "mohabbat " as the highest of all human feelings, but showed in his eyes how loss of mohabbat can strip a life of and leave it empty and pining. Jodha saw his unspoken feelings and unshed tears and his deep distress, and it echoed in her also. But just because she didn't say a word, does not mean she felt lightly.
She was going through the very same feelings as he was. Only difference was that he was ready to risk "mohabbat" in his life again for he knew he couldn't live without it. But she still feared risking "mohabbat" in her life and was unprepared as yet to let it fill her life and then carry away her life if it should be gone again.
Two people in the same place, feeling the same sense of loss. One is ready to speak of it, and take the plunge again. The other is unready to speak of it or take the plunge again. Her silence was as eloquent as his words, I thought!
He defended mohabbat and with that part of his bhashan she was of one mind. But it was the part where he said what loss of mohabbat can bring where he and she reacted differently. He was saying "I am ready for it again, and this time I will not let it go". She was saying "I am not ready for it, in case it lets go of me!"
Todarmal helps Jalal physically ... and helps him also see a surrogate of his own father!
Jodha still standing behind a tree saw Jalal walking away and thought to herself "Kanha, he needs treatment for his wounds" But look at me, I am not able to go and help him." Shehnaaz then asks her to go back with her, but Jodha says she will go back doon and Shehnaaz leaves without her. As Jodha stays watching Jalal, he starts swaying slightly from the concussion on his head, and Jodha unable to contain herself runs towards Jalal to help him. But just then another man comes to Jalal's assistance and Jodha is halted in her tracks. "Aap?" says that man. "Kya hua aapko?" he asks Jalal. Jodha steps back into hiding again with a surprised look on her face as she recognises the helping man to be none other than Todarmal, with whom she remembers they had stayed when they were travelling the Sultanate in disguise as a Marwari couple.
"Help him, he needs treatment" Todarmal tells his men, as they all help Jalal walk to a room next to Jodha's for treatement by the vaid. "Thank you Kanha" prays Jodha, "The Shahenshah is now in safe hands".
Jodha then is seen going back into her own room in a stupefied state of shock and dismay. She heads straight for the Kanha murthy and sits before it and starts talking to Kanha with despair and dejection and bewilderment in her voice. There are tears in her eyes as she suddenly remembers flashbacks of Jalal accusing her of having an affair with another man. She remembers especially how he almost hit her and how he asked her to be gone from his life by sunrise. It is obvious that these raw feelings of hurt by Jalal's inseinsitivity have not fully left Jodha for her to be comfortable with his presence now at the ashram. The fact that he is wounded is one side, while the fact that he hurt her is on the other side, and both feelings are evidently in conflict.
Tears stream down her face as she asks Kanha "What tests and trials you keep giving me again and again Kanha. Isn't this the same Shahenshsh whom I removed from my life for he had no vishwas in me? Why have you brought him here today? He has already told me everything he wanted to tell me. Then why has he come here? I left everything behind for my peace and came here. Please do not bind me again in those feelings in my heart."
Just as she says she wants no more of Jalal's hurts, the flame before Kanha flickers and Jodha instinctively protects the flame. She still has this dichotomy that rattles her ... feelings for him and against him. "I know that like me, he too is in distress right now. But I cannot do anything for him. Please Kanha, let me not succumb to those feelings again!" she cries.
Just then Shehnaaz returns with some lep for Jodha's hurt which she then applies thinking Jodha is crying from the pain of her head wound. "We should also give some of this lep to that man who saved us " Shehnaaz says, " and also a bit of it to heal his broken heart". Jodha remembers the times she had applied lep for Jalal and prays to Kanha for his recovery.
In the very next room , Jalal is lying on a bed, distressed by the wounds on his own head and his heart. Todarmal and a couple of his men are around his bed. Todarmal asks Jalal "How are you now. No, don't get up. Stay resting". Jalal recognises Todarmal instantly. "Once more you have come to my help" he says "I think our relationship will continue to go forward?" But Todarmal drops all pretence and replies directly "Our relationship which started so many years ago will naturally go forward too, Shahenshah!"
"You know who I am?" asks Jalal. "Yes I recognised who you were even the last time we met" says Todarmal, "I knew you from the way you fought the dakus, and then I heard you speak to your wife, and knew my suspicions of your identity were right."
"If you recognised me, then why didn't you say so then? " asks Jalal. Todarmal replied "Because you were in disguise I thought your mission might be an important one which I should not probe into. It's because I recognised you that I gave you the mohur that your late father had so kindly given me for conveying his family safely. I could not have just given that precious mohur to anybody and everybody."
Jalal replied "Absolutely right. Wonder why I never thought of that before and I need to thank you for that and now this ..." Jalal looked around at the ashram he was in and asked "But how are you and I here?" Todarmal replied "I had told you previously that I do some charitable works. This ashram for the destitute is one of them. I also pay the teerth tax for those who come here but cannot afford the taxes."
And then Todarmal came to the one question that was key. He asked Jalal "This time have you come alone and not with your wife?" As Jalal's eyes wore a pained look, Jodha meanwhile was trying to take a sneak peek into Jalal's room to see how he was. Around them a lot of the ashramites were talking of how well he had fought off the irate crowds and how he had sustained such serious injuries. This made Jodha even more concerned.
Todarmal felt he had probed too much into Jalal's private life with a query about Jodha's absence and asked for forgiveness. "I am not affected by your question Todarmal Saab" said Jalal, "but I am afraid my situation now does not allow me to give you a good answer. But I can tell you, this love is a strange thing, indeed. It does not differentiate between an ordinary man and a Shahenshah and it forces people into such a state that one cannot even dream of."
Todarmal commiserated with Jalal. "Looks like you are in great distress?" he asked. Jalal replied with great soul-level pain "Jodha had to leave Agra because of my own behaviour to her. And I am thus roaming in search of her. I looked everywhere including at Amer but she was not there. Then thinking that she being a Krishna bakht she may have come to Mathura, I too have come here to look for her. It looks like here too I will draw a blank!" Todarmal wisely listened and replied "Shahenshah this is the town of Murlidhar. Everyone's wishes get granted here and yours too will. You will soon meet with Jodha Begum here. Tomorrow is Holi, the festival of colours. It will surely bring back colour into your life. But you take rest for now and let the vaid attend to you."
Jalal requests that his men also be intimated to come here as they would be scattered around looking for Jodha. Todarmal promises to do that.
The scene then ends with the vaid applying lep on Jalal, but Jodha brings her own lep there and gives it quietly to a guard and stays in hiding, while the vaid, who gets this new lep extols its quality and applies it to Jalal. Jalal remembers the last time Jodha applied lep on him, and the scene ends with both of them thinking of each other.
My comments on this scene:
Friends, Todarmal, as I wrote in my opening remarks, distinguishes a scene with just his presence,. He is such an upright, honest, no-nonsense man that the way he told Jalal that he recognised him was in itself a lesson in how to reveal critical information in the most graceful way possible. Jalal recognised him at once, and Todarmal returned the compliment many fold by recognising Jalal without any fanfare of melodrama.
The dialogue between them was statesmanlike. Todarmal told Jalal how he thought it would not be seemly to reveal what he knew of Jalal, when he was in disguise and probably on some important mission.. But then he said he also gave Jalal the Humayun mohur which cannot be given to just anybody and everybody. With that he showed that he was a man of such culture and so well-versed in official affairs and official life that he could appreciate when a King was on some important mission and he also knew who he could entrust with important official objects such as the mohur.
The part where he asked about Jodha's absence obviously affected Jalal and I loved the way he also apologised for it with a lot of decency and etiquette. It was equally befitting that Jalal should be so open with this open and honest man and tell him "Jodha left Agra because of my behaviour towards her." Todarmal did not flinch, nor did make much of this information. He acted as if such matters should not be further probed. He offered the solace that was needed without asking further pointed questions. He said "May Holi tomorrow bring back the colours in your life. This is Murlidhar's city and every wish gets granted here."
What a graceful man, what impeccable savoir-faire and decency, what an amazing grip he has on official and private matters (knowing the difference between the two) and what beautiful sentences he speaks without seeming to probe indecently or ask too much. He invited Jalal's own admissions but made light of them and ended the conversation with immaculate statesmanship!
What a contrast he will be to the crass souls like Maham, Adham and Sharif at Jalal's court when he goes to Agra with Jalal. I loved the scene so much that I saw it repeatedly, and not for Jalal, but to see Todarmal in action. Really the choice of actor in this case is great, his voice and diction are so gracious, and he really comes across as old-style absolute "gentleman" who knows when to talk and when to listen. It was such a grand scene for me, that I felt the whole episode was worth it because the episode ended with the words of Todarmal touching my heart as much as Jalal's! They don't make men like these nowadays!
Friends, let me also end with the latest spoiler. It seems to say that Jalal will fake his own death to make Jodha relent and accept his apology! So that explains the promo of the dead body covered by the bedsheet!
What will happen in this mega episode? I think in today's mega episode we will see Jalal recognise Jodha's voice during the Holi celebrations, and then he will try his level best to apologise to her, but in vain. He may then hatch a plan to act dead to make her realise his importance to her. I expect that once they both start clinging to each other in declarations of love, Todarmal will get into the act and start his "advisory service for the newly reconciled couples".
On Monday, the ashram stay may end on a positive note of discussion on how many will now travel back to Agra, and maybe we will get a small glimpse of Shehnaaz's background from Todarmal, as Shehnaaz may act reluctant to let go of Jodha, and so they may all decide to take her to Agra also.
