Friends, yesterday for the whole episode we did not have any scenes with Jodha. But I cannot complain about the episode at all because every scene, otherwise, was full of relevance and added to the overall plot of the story, taking it forward smoothly. I cannot call even a single scene we saw a "filler" or "superfluous".
And in a strange way, thank God, we did not get scenes of Jodha that were just an irritant rather than being worthwhile. If we had got some scene of her, just for the sake of introducing a Jodha scene, it would have been like that oiling of the hair scene or waking up in a dream scene, which wold have only made us gnash our teeth that she continues to languish at Amer, feeling nothing much and doing nothing to progress the story.
Yesterday there was good movement on the Maham front. She was cleverly punished by Jalal who took away her "taakhat" and "haq" but left her with the Wazir-e-Aliyah title (which without "taakhat and haq" was a meaningless title). I thought it was shrewd of Jalal to do this - for he stripped her of all powers without stripping her of the title and achieved "maximum result with minimum overt humiliation".
Maham for her part did not want to take it lying down. In front of her eyes, Atga and Munim Khan got promotions and this added to her distaste of what had happened to her. But when her son Adham swore to kill Atga for this state of affairs they were in, Maham said in her typical attitude of "badla" that "You are the only thing I have when I have been stripped of everything. Do not squander the freedom you have. All doors are not closed to us, my son, there must be a window open somewhere. In fact I already know of one opportunity we can exploit. I cannot tell you about it yet till the right time comes - but believe me we will soon have everything back that we lost today!"
In a much later scene JijiAnga comes to Maham's room to commiserate with her after Jalal's punishment. Maham snarls at her and says there are two enemies of hers that have brought her to these dire straits - one being Jodha who came between her and Jalal, driving a wedge between mother and son, and the other being JijiAnga's own husband Atga Khan who needlessly ferreted in the Sujamal-Dilawar affair and then sneaked to Jalal about Maham.
JiJiAnga tried to tell Maham that she was in her lowered circumstances now because of her own unmitigated greed for power, but Maham could not see any reason beyond her own thirst for revenge. In this I must say that Maham doesn't look like she is only hell-bent on squashing down Jodha and Atga. I got the distinct feeling that this time that Jalal himself is also in Maham's sights, and although she did not say so openly, the precap scene gave me the uneasy feeling she intends to squash down Jalal as well.
In the precap, Maham seems to be in the surang. I am a little confused about this scene, but it looks like that bundled baby is being held aloft in one of her hands while she speaks to whoever is in that surang. "I will climb on your shoulders to get back everything I have lost" Maham says this with a great deal of ferocity and a very ugly gleam in her eye. I don't know if I have got this precap scene right (or someone else can tell me if what they saw and understood was slightly different). But it does look at least like Maham has not called it quits. In fact she's sharpening her sword and planning something huge as a revenge for all the humiliationshe has suffered in open court yesterday. I am expecting some spectacular fireworks to burst now, and Jalal had better personally watch out!
Other than Maham dominating a large part of the episode yesterday, there was a lovely swordfight practice scene of Jalal, when he was ferocious and venting his frustrations over Jodha not being by his side. He fought his sipahis with so much pent up anger and such fearless moves and with an overdose of venom, that Atga had to soon call the whole practice off, since Jalal had even wounded his hand but had fought on without even realising it. Throughout the practice Jalal saw visions in his mind of having that swordfight practice at Amer with Jodha, and he also looked at the tulsi plant nearby and imagined Jodha there. In fact, Jodha was so much in his thoughts all the time, that while he was fighting viciously his mind was also going astray every couple of minutes, and he was risking getting badly wounded.
This whole scene was beautiful because Atga then tended Jalal's hand and also used the opportunity to talk to Jalal about adding one more staff member to help with the accounts investigation - and he suggested Hakim Mirza. But Jalal vetoed the idea for he had the financial great Todarmal in his sights. He asked Atga to send Todarmal a paigam rightaway to join the Agra investigation team. I think we are now seeing the end of Adham staring at us, for surely Todarmal, is a sure and experienced hand with accounts and can spot fraud from a distance.
Jalal then continued the scene even more sweetly by taking care to water the drying tulsi plant in Jodha's absence, and then saying the Gayatri Mantra before it in prayer ... when surprise of surprises, little Rahim joint in the prayer, often prompting the halting and unsure Jalal. Rahim said to Jalal that Jodha had taught him all the Hindu scriptures and mythology, including the Gita which says "Success comes as per one's actions". Jalal had to agree for he realised that his separation from Jodha was no doubt a "karma phal".
For my detailed analysis, I thought first I could choose to dissect Maham (who seemed like the crux of yesterday's episode) and I thought I could analyse the DEK punishment scene. But instead I ended up choosing the three consecutive scenes I loved best for their "sweetness, poignancy and forward-lookingness". The swordfight scene, the Todarmal entry dialogue scene and the Rahim-Jalal tulsi prayer scene are my choices today.
I loved these three scenes, because although we all know that Maham is planning something huge and chilling in the background, why dwell on the negative? Let's focus on that which makes life very pleasing and happy and blissful. The softer emotions are always all the sweeter to see.
The Swordfight Scene ...
Jalal was spectacular in this scene as he thrust and parried with his sword, handling three of his sipahis all at once. The scene was beautifully choreographed, and the way Jalal (i.e. Rajat) bent his body backwards and forwards to avoid the slashing swords of his sipahis, and then lunged at them taking the advantage, was a really good sight to watch.
In fact there was at least 5-6 whole minutes of the swordfight and it was thoroughly engrossing. In the midst of some of his angriest moves, Jalal halted just briefly to engage with the vision of Jodha in his mind. The first of these visions was of Jodha swordfighting with him at Amer recently when he had commented to her "You seem to be so angry with me, Jodha Begum!" Jalal realised that his own sword practice was nothing but his own venting of his frustrations and anger as well.
Meanwhile Munim Khan and Atga Khan who were watching from the sidelines were wanting an important word with Jalal, but Munim Khan, looking at Jalal's explosive sword-weilding asked with some trepidation "Atga Saab, the Shahenshah's mood seems not to be OK. Is it the right time to talk to him about our important matters?" Atga replied "We don't have a choice. We just have to wait till the Shahenshah's practice is over!"
As they both watched the sword practice continued on relentlessly, again and again Jalal got halted midway in a sort of trance whenever his mind went to Jodha. His eyes fell on the tulsi plant where he imagined her doing her puja ... and at other times, he just stood motionless and still, not caring that his sipahis were attacking him, till at the very last moment, he managed to somehow parry them. Time and again his mind was driven to remember Jodha with sadness ... and his swordmanship moves looked to be last-minute personal saves and parries made by a man with a straying mind. Atga could stand by watching this no longer as he realised that Jalal was "not all there" in this whole practice. "Stop! " Atga shouted as the sipahis apologised for their relentlessness. Atga told Jalal "You are hurt and you don't even know that!". Jalal saw his own hand bleeding and Atga continued to tell the sipahis "This was supposed to be practice, not a war!".
The Todarmal-centred discussion scene
Atga then proceeded to tend Jalal's hurt hand as they were seated beneath a shamiana. Jalal explained that the soldiers were not to blame for his hurt for they had just been following his orders. "I am sorry" Jalal said "but my mind was roaming elsewhere."
Atga said forcefully to jalal "Even a small hurt on your hand can give the whole Sultanate a lot of pain Shahenshah! Where was your mind wandering? Thank God this was just practice and not a real war. If it had been a real war and your were not alert you could have been badly wounded." Jalal was frank with Atga. He said "I got badly wounded in the heart that day, Atga Saab, when Jodha Begum refused to come back with me to Agra. In a way I am glad I got this hurt on my hand, for this is going to remind me of her. If she had been here she would have herself applied a balm to my wound." Jalal's expression was one of such wistfulness that Atga, after looking at him, looked away in pain himself.
"Okay tell me" Jalal then said changing the subject, "what brought you here?" Atga thought about things for a moment and then said "I know this is not the right time to broach this subject on my mind, for you are not yourself these days, Shahenshah, but the matter is so urgent that it needs your invention really fast now."
"What is this matter, tell me?" Jalal invited Atga. Atga said "If you remember Shahenshah, before you went you had asked me to thoroughly investigate the accounts. I am afraid there is a lot of mismanagement of the Treasury funds. There is also a lot of "gadbad" regarding the "lagaan and vasoolis" that are supposed to reach the Treasury intact. And as for the incomes and outgos also there are a number of complaints."
Jalal looked concerned ."What is your recommendation Atga Saab?" asked Jalal. "Huzoor, we need someone to keep an eye on these matters with firmness. He has to be a trustworthy and competent person. He also needs to be an experienced hand. I think, perhaps, Hakim Mirza could do this job?" said Atga.
"No Atga Saab, I need Hakim Mirza to look after Kabul" said Jalal. Atga then said "In that case who else can we give this responsibility to?" Jalal suddenly remembered Todarmal, for in their last meeting at the ashram Todarmal had talked of how he had managed his income by allocating it wisely on his many charitable activities. "I have a person in mind for this job" Jalal told Atga. "He is very "imaandaar" and very experienced. He is Todarmal Ji".
Atga seemed to remember the name, but he had some reservations. "Yes Shahenshah Todarmal is very reliable and experienced no doubt, but he used to be a loyalist of Sher Shah Suri ..." Jalal replied Atga quickly "Yes, but Sher Shah Suri is not alive any longer. And it's the hallmark of such loyalists that they are loyal to whoever is their baadshah. He has helped our family and me personally twice. I saw with my own eyes that he is very good with accounts. He is sure to be an asset to the Mughal Sultanate. Atga Saab, send him an urgent paigam to come to Agra ... I want to see him here as one of our trusted people." Atga rose to follow the orders.
The tulsi plant scene with Rahim
As Atga left, Jalal's eyes chanced to fall on the tulsi plant that Jodha has so cared for and prayed to every day. Its leaves were drying up with neglect. Jalal rose to go to the plant and talked to himself "Come back Jodha Begum, if not for me, at least for your tulsi plant that you used to pray to." He then turned to Moti Bai a bit sharply and said "Go get me some water at once, haven't you seen that this plant's leaves are drying up?" Moti then fetched a pot of water and handed it to Jalal with a "Pranaam Shahenshah".
He proceeded to water the plant and then he took aarti from the diya lit there and folded his hands Hindu style in prayer and started reciting the Gayatri Mantra which long ago Jodha had taught him. He managed to get past the first two lines of the mantra haltingly, but to his utter surprise a little voice next to him, that seemed to know the whole mantra by heart, started prompting him on the last two lines of the mantra. It was little Rahim! Jalal looked at the little one with great respect and then went down on his haunches to be level with this great soul!
"Oh wow, Khane Khana" Jalal said "you know this mantra by heart?" "Oh yes," said Rahim proudly, "Choti Ammi has taught me this." Jalal seemed to smile wanting to hear more about "Choti Ammi". He carried Rahim to a seat nearby and both sat down next to each other for a tete a tete.
"What else has your Choti Ammi taught you?" Jalal asked Rahim. "Oh, a lot." said Rahim and started counting his lessons. "Ramayan, Mahabharat, stories of Arjun, stories of Bhim, and the story of Karna ..." "Who are these people?" asked Jalal. "What, don't you know?" said Rahim showing off mightily. "You are so big and yet you don't know all this? These are all stories of the Mahabharat - about Pandavas and Karavas. When I taught Choti Ammi about the Quran Sharif, she taught me all this."
Jalal smiled to himself in silent happiness. Jodha's name and her every little action was making him happy. "And yes," Rahim remembered "she has taught me a lot about the Gita also." "What has she taught you from that?" asked Jalal, dying to hear more. Little Rahim recited the quintessential Gita verse "Karmanyevaadi karaste ma phaleshu kadaachana". "Oh, that sounds great" Jalal said, "but what does it mean?" Rahim proceeded to explain down to the "level of Jalal" "It means Keep doing your duty without worrying about the result because the result of all actions is hidden in the action itself. The type of actions you do will decide the type of results you get.'" Jalal couldn't help but be impressed "Shabash, Khane Khane, you are more experienced than your years reveal" he said.
Rahim then went on to add something that made Jalal's eyes mist over, "When Choti Ammi Jaan comes here, I will tell her to teach you all this also." Jalal looked long and hard into the distance and said "Ameen. At least may God grant your wishes." Rahim then ran away to play with a hasty "Khuda Hafeez", but Jalal was left all by himself pondering this little great talk with the little great man. "You said right, Jodha Begum" he said to himself, "The quality of our actions dictate the type of results we get. And I can see that I am reaping the results of the kind of actions I indulged in!"
My comments on the episode and especially these three scenes:
As I said before I had a choice this morning whether to go into greater detail on the Maham factor which was big in this episode, but I decided against it. I thought I will cover maham in greater detail in the days that follow, for she is sure to be in the thick of the action in the coming episodes.
Talking about Maham today was only going to make me feel negative, I knew, for Maham was clearly not giving up on her situation and was spinning even more evil than before with a direct attack on Jalal himself this time possibly. I decided instead to look at what I loved about this episode instead of what troubled me ... and I am happy to say, my heart is full of positivity again after I decided to detail the three scenes I loved.
What I especially loved about these scenes is three things:
What a lovely way this was to keep Jodha present in the scene than to show her just for the sake of showing her, and that too doing something inane in Amer. Here we saw how much Jalal was missing Jodha without his having to say a word.
First there was this vehemence with which he was remembering Jodha which came out in his swordfight practice. Then there was a calmer way he was missing Jodha in the way he told Atga frankly that he missed her healing touch on his wounded hand. And then finally was this very poignant way he showed he missed Jodha by watering her tulsi plant and then praying the Gayatri Mantra to it. The plant not being allowed to dry up was such a symbolic way in which he kept her memories evergreen in his mind, wasn't it? And finally, we had the lovely interaction between the small man Jalal and the big man Rahim (the learned Hindu Scriptures scholar!) who extolled Jodha to the high skies as his Hindusim teacher ... and Jalal seemed to love just hearing Jodha's name so praised by these little lips.
Jodha was alive and present for Jalal in the person of little Rahim whom she had help shape into a very "erudite" brain. Jalal was as impressed as he could be with Rahim, for having absorbed everything that he had been taught, but we could see the rueful smile playing on Jalal's lips as he realised that Rahim was counting on Jodha's return to start lessons for Jalal as well.
I loved the scene, because I saw how wonderfully Jalal bowed to Rahim's superior "knowledge", how much Jalal loved hearing all about Jodha from him, and how much Jalal prayed that at least Rahim's wishes for the return of Jodha to Agra should be blessed by God!
Diksha and I had predicted (Maddy too, if I remember right) that Jalal may call on Todarmal to help Atga with the accounts investigation for he was such an experienced hand with accounts. It was a very good scene when Atga was seen searching around for a pair of helping hands to control the accounts and Jalal remembered that Todarmal was an ace at this.
History also tells us that the murder of Atga by Adham happens in the presence of Todarmal, so it is all adding up.
Now I wonder about one more thing. There are some spoilers saying Jodha is likely to return to Agra for Shivani's wedding. But I am wondering if all these spoilers can be believed and if there is some chance that Todarmal may travel via Amer somehow en route to Agra and collect Jodha and Shehnaaz from there to travel on with him to Agra?
My hope stems from the fact that I don't want Jodha to come back to Agra for some extraneous reason such as Shivani's wedding, but for her own reason that she cannot live without Jalal and has realised it. So if there is some chance that some other work brings Todarmal to Amer, my hope is that Jodha may say she is ready to go to Agra now - and can he be her escort? That would fit my wishes perfectly!
3. Poor poor Atga is looking at the beginning of his own end. The tighter the noose becomes around Adham's neck thanks to Atga delving deeper and deeper into the accounts mystery, the closer Atga is to his own end.
Remember how when Atga blamed Maham for the Dilwar-Sujamal fiasco, Jalal took out his sword in anger against anyone casting aspersions against his Badi Ammi ... but Atga merely said "Take my head if you wish, Shahenshah, but I have to tell it to you like it is!".
Both Atga and JiJiAnga are such a fine pair of decent people, and since there are so few decent people at Agra this couple - husband and wife - stands out.
JiJiAnga too was a Dai Ma for Jalal, and it was so interesting to see her tell Maham that just because they were Dai Mas to the Shahenshah, their personal and political ambitions cannot exceed limits. Maham just scoffed at her and her husband and spewed venom at Jodha. But I am sure JiJiAnga was not unduly alarmed for she must have seen Maham like this, spewing nastiness at others often. JiJi would have never guessed at the plight that awaited Atga!
Unfortunately Adham now is directly holding Atga responsible for everything to do with his downfall and Maham's ... while Maham is apportioning half the blame to Jodha and half to Atga.
Terribly sad for me that to get Adham and Maham out of the picture we have to sacrifice Atga. "Kuch paana hai toh kuch khona hai" goes the saying, but my heart bleeds.
Okay so much for today's post. Aren't we due for a new promo now, since the old promo's scene has already appeared yesterday? Do you think we will see a "Jodha-return" related promo now ... today?
Geet - Hui Sabse Parayee
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