Friends, another episode passed yesterday with all sorts of dire reactions from the forum members. Within seconds of the episode ending last night, a barrage of information came to me via PMs, SMSes, and WhatsApps ... the information and feedback from the friends who wrote to me was varied and sometimes quite astounding and even alarming. People started speculating wildly, based on the words of Atga that "Jalal has changed, and people change like this for one of two reasons only. Either they are in some nasha, or else they have made some new unhealthy relationships."
People bought into this theory so much that every word that Jalal shouted at Jodha looked like it was caused by Jalal's crazed new love for Atifa! Every angry rant from Jalal about Jodha's love being useless was taken as a hint of Jalal veering towards marriage with Atifa. It became widely assumed that Jalal had really fallen for Atifa and he was no longer in control of her chaal as we all thought yesterday. Jalal was accused of denigrating Jodha's love because he had lost his senses to Atifa.
In fact, the attention of everybody was so much on Jalal and Atifa and their future possible relationship, that everybody almost forgot that Atifa and Jalal occupied together less than a couple of minutes on screen in the whole episode yesterday. Jalal's behaviour with Jodha, his words against their love and his harshness with Jodha, and Atga's words to Jodha ... all seemed to give everybody the feeling that Jalal was gone so head over heels in love with Atifa that there was now fear he would insist on marrying her (as per some history!) and that it would take some dire kidnap drama or loss of babies in Jodha to being him back to her.
One rumour also had it that in Facebook there was some hint by someone that a new promo had come out that Jalal and Atifa were caught in bed together by Jodha. And further speculations along this train of thought made people write PMs to me that the yuckiest idea they all had was that Jalal must have slept with Atifa during the shikar just after he saw Atifa undressing in her khema ... and although we were not shown this scene, this ghastly nightmarish event must have occurred for sure.
In all this widespread panic that Jalal was being reeled in unsuspectingly by this vixen Atifa, the whole premise that Jalal may be in control with Atifa's chaal went over for a six. Despondency again raised its head among the viewers that Jalal did not perhaps know what was happening and he was uncontrollably being entrapped by Atifa and he had lost his head and heart to Atifa ... his every harsh word to Jodha seemed to be proof of his new and growing and uncontrollable love for Atifa!
Friends, I don't want to try and change opinions of those who wish to think the worst of Jalal and Atifa and their "unsavoury attraction", but I want just one minute of your time to share my point of view.
To me the two things are entirely separate. What is happening between Jalal and Atifa is on one side. And what is happening between Jalal and Jodha is on another side.
With respect to Jalal-Atifa, some may think Jalal is being cleverly teda and is in control and is entrapping Atifa faster than she is entrapping him. Some others may feel that Jalal is attracted beyond control to Atifa and is close to sleeping with her or even marrying her. My own feeling is that Jalal is in control and knows how to deal with Atifa. Whatever your opinions on this subject, let's all just see that this Jalal-Atifa matter need not be linked to the Jalal-Jodha clash, even if Atga says so to Jodha.
If we just study the Jodha-Jalal dialogues of yesterday (without linking it all to the Jalal-Atifa issue) we realise that Jalal is terribly angry with Jodha because Khyber entered the harem, he is terribly angry and believes that Khyber has to be killed - and it has become a major prestige issue with him that the public thinks him so weak as to allow this darinda into his Begums bedrooms. It shows up the deficiencies in his law and order machinery and his inept security systems. It probably also irks him bbecause it all happened when he was on "shikar" and enjoying himself without a worry about the Palace and its safety.
Since his guroor is involved here, when Jodha says he should not kill Khyber he attributes it to her guroor - and he says "You want me always to dance to your tune even if it makes me look like a wimp of a Shahenshah? My orders mean nothing then in public eyes? You want to subjugate me, make me your puppet, just because I love you and give you freedom? And then by asking for your "wish" in the midst of a crucial order of mine to have Khyber executed and made an example of, you have ridiculed me in public eyes?"
It struck me through this conversation that although Jalal was speaking of Jodha's guroor, he too was venting his ire that his own guroor had been punctured in public. He was smarting under the shame of it all. He was checkmated by Jodha at the centre of public attention by her asking for the "wish" that he could not go back on. His hand had been forced at a time when he so wanted to show his unbridled authority to take harsh political decisions and to take the law and order of his kingdom into his hands. He already was chafing under the first forgiveness of Khyber that Jodha had made him give, and now that Khyber had crossed the lines yet again, he was just itching to make a huge public statement of his authority and yet Jodha stopped him from doing that. His ego had taken a battering - and he put it all down to her ego wanting him to become her puppet!
Now as if this issue was not already complicated - gurooor versus guroor - Atga added an extra dimension to it and implied that all this "intractability of Jalal" was a result of his association with this Atifa. People who saw the episode bought into that idea wholesale perhaps (as the Creatives wanted us to do!) so the general negative outcry was that Jalal was a slave of Atifa and that is why he is so against Jodha now and is throwing their love back in Jodha's face.
Folks, nothing much has really happened further on the Atifa front for Jalal yesterday. So please relax and let's all realise that the Creatives are creating this drama of the Atifa association tainting Jalal's behaviour to Jodha. The Creatives made Atga seed that mixed up idea into our heads, and into Jodha's head, just to make more dramatic effect in this track.
The point to separate in our minds, as I would urge everybody, is to keep the Jalal-Atifa issue on one side and to keep the Jalal-Jodha dynamics on another side.
- In the Jalal-Atifa case, nothing further has happened after the shikar and even if something does happen, we will still have to evaluate if Jalal is doing things knowingly or not.
Let not fall into the "imagination trap" set for us by the Creatives. If we keep our perspectives clear and separate the two issues, we will be calmer and watch the show without these knee-jerk reactions to Jalal's behaviour. We will stop attributing the Atifa motive to Jalal's every behaviour. And we will be able to see that his relationship with Jodha is definitely not beyond repair since it's just an ego clash.
All is not lost. Jalal may still prove to be a clever guy as far as Atifa is concerned ... but he is temporarily blinded by an ego bruise where Jodha is concerned. That's where we stand. All the rest of the audience reaction to the episode yesterday is nothing but imagined dire predictions caused by seeing the level of anger in Jalal.
Folks, I think with or without Atifa in the picture Jalal could still have been just as angry with Jodha over Khyber ... and I for one do not at this stage want to mix up matters and view the rift in the Jalal -Jodha ego clash through the lens of Atifa. That is my final take out from yesterday's episode.
I do not want to over-react to Jalal's anger on Jodha and think "Oh my God, all this shows how far he has fallen unwittingly into Atifa's honey trap! He is now going to insist on marrying Atifa and will come to his senses only if Jodha loses the babies!" This is not the way I plan to assess the situation and roil myself!
On the contrary I want to think now "Okay, so Jalal may or may not be in control of the Atifa affair. My personal conviction is that he may be in control so I will continue believing in that. Meanwhile he is having an ego clash with Jodha. I will not complicate my imagination by mixing up these two issues. I will wait and watch how Jalal solves his Atifa issue and how he solves his Jodha issue. Both may be solved by different means - or both could be solved together by a single common happening. Let me wait and see what will now help Jalal solve both these issues individually or together. Meanwhile I will not fall prey to the Creatives attempts to make me think badly of Jalal in the Atifa case just because he is shouting out of ego in the Jodha case!"
Those who want peace and calm and a straight head during these episodes of confused crisis are welcome to join my point of view if they feel comfortable with it!
Accha, having aired my position on things, I will now go into the gist of what all happened in yesterday's episode ...
Jodha is fast sleep in her hojra when Khyber comes stealthily creeping inside. He parts the flimsy purdah and stares and smiles lovingly at her sleeping form, and then gathers the courage to actually sit on the bed next to her to begin to caress her hair.
But just then Sharif appears in the room shouting "Khyber, I will not leave you alive for the temerity you've shown in entering my Jodha Begum's room." Jodha comes awake with all the commotion only to see two men looming at her bedside - Khyber and Sharif. Jodha's eyes grow large in alarm.
Sharif makes a direct lunge at Khyber to dislodge him from the bed, but Khyber just picks up Sharif with one hand and hurls him across the floor. Sharif then makes an attempt to stand up and gets into a hand-to-hand combat with Khyber with the same results. Khyber just picks him up again and hurls him back to the floor even more viciously than before. Sharif shouts to his sipahis to catch Khyber, whereupon the sipahis start slashing Khyber's back with hard sword slashes. Khyber turns and takes one look at both the guards and lifts them both off the ground and hurls them to the floor in a heap.
Sharif makes to rise again but this time Khyber holds him so tight in an armlock that Sharif starts gasping for breath and seems on the verge of being crushed to death. Jodha, who by now is frightfully disconcerted, shouts at the darinda "Khyber, leave him alone, Khyber!" Hearing his name from Jodha's lips, Khyber lets go of Sharif and stares at Jodha again trying to express his admiration through his eyes. A few more sipahis enter the room then, and on Sharif's bidding to catch Khyber, one of them blows a poison dart at Khyber. The darinda then goes all woozy and semi-comatose, and is easily chained and led away. Sharif with one last lecherous look at the dishevelled Jodha also leaves.
Later at the Palace gates Sharif is addressing some sipahis. "Khyber could not have done this without a gaddaar helping him. I will find that gaddaar and finish him off" says Sharif. But just then at the gates there is an announcement that Jalal has arrived. Sharif thinks to himself "If the Shahenshah hears about the fracas he will not spare Khyber. And even Jodha Begum herself will be unable to stop Jalal from punishing him!"
Jalal enters on his horse, followed by all the members of his shikar trip including Atifa, Atga, and Tansen. As they all dismount, Jalal asks Sharif is all is well and Sharif says "Yes it's all OK". Jalal then turns to Atifa, at whom he has been shooting glances even while speaking to Sharif "Hope you enjoyed the shikar trip?" Jalal asks Atifa and then adds "Take rest now, we'll meet later." Atifa looks charmed and bats her eyelashes at him. "What is this I am seeing?" thinks Sharif as he notices Jalal giving Atifa extraordinary attention, "the Shahenshaha doesn't seem to be able to take his eyes off Atifa!" Sharif gives an evil smirk as he registers this new information. After Atifa has left them all Sharif then confides to Jalal, "There is an important and urgent mater to bring to your notice". Jalal nods.
In the next scene, Sharif is seen with both Atga and Jalal in Jalal's hojra, after having debriefed Jalal on all the happenings concerning Khyber in Jodha's room. "What?" shouts Jalal, "in my absence that darinda escapes jail and reaches the harem and no one is able to stop him? What security is this? He had the guts to touch my Jodha Begum -and I will kill him." Sharif adds fuel to the fire shouting "If he had the guts to touch Jodha Begum, he sure doesn't deserve to live." Jalal then asks "The question on my mind is how the darinda managed to reach the harem?" Sharif replies "I went on my regular rounds of the jails and found him escaped from there. Had I been even a moment late that animal would have done worse to Jodha Begum. As I went to Jodha Begum's room, that darinda was touching her ..." By now Sharif had become so personally involved in the story about Jodha Begum and her being touched, that Atga was taken aback by his vehemence. "Enough" Jalal said to Sharif, "don't go on and on about that aspect. I will not spare that darinda now!"
Atga then gets a serious doubt "Sharifuddin Sahib, how exactly could the darinda have gone from the jail into Jodha Begum's room without being seen by anybody?" Sharif looks at Atga with a slightly clever look and replies "Some gaddaar has surely helped him, that's for sure, and I will find that gaddaar." Jalal then tells Atga "I want that darinda executed, Atga Sahib, make preparations for that."
Sharif then leaves Jalal and Atga but as he is leaving he stops to think to himself "I cleverly did not tell Jalal and Atga that there was a surang leading directly from Khyber's cell to Jodha's room! It's my kismet that I know about it!"
After Sharif leaves Atga tells Jalal "Huzoor, I know he's your behenoi, but I thought Sharif had no right or decency to talk in these ugly terms about Jodha Begum being touched. It was not his place to do so." But Jalal simply says "Make all the arrangements necessary now, and I will visit Jodha Begum myself" and with that Jalal leaves.
Atifa in her room takes out all the jewellery and clothes given as gifts to her by Jalal during the shikar trip and starts admiring the pieces, when her husband suddenly enters the room. "See all the bakshish I received from the King for my singing. Hereafter we can live in luxury here" she says but her husband smirks sceptically. "Don't take me for a bewakoof. I know the difference between bakshish and tohfas. These are all tohfas lavished by the King on you along with his unwanted attentions. My decision is now final. After Eid we will leave here ... not just this Palace but we will leave Agra itself and go far away." "Why can't we stay longer?" asks Atifa, but her husband grips her too tight as he shouts at her "We've had too much of the King and his attentions and his tohfas. I don't intend to become rich on my wife's attractiveness to him. Get ready to go back to your usual humble life. Get ready to move." With that the husband leaves the room leaving Atifa to look dismayed.
In her hojra, Jodha is in terrible uljhan. Pacing up and down the floor, she says to herself "How could the Shahenshah have taken a decision to kill Khyber without mercy in this sacred month of Ramzan?" Jalal then appears in her room and asks in soft tones "How are you now? Sorry I couldn't drop in on you earlier but I was making arrangements regarding that darinda. I promise you we will execute him publicly." Jodha gets very shaken by Jalal's words and with eyes as round as saucers she asks him "But in this holy month of Ramzan why kill someone? You could just forgive him?" "As a Shenshsh I cannot postpone my decisions just for Ramzan" Jalal replies, but Jodha doesn't give up. "Inside the Shahenshah there is a man surely with a "dil"?" she says. "My "dil" tells me to go ahead and show my powers as a Shahenshah ... or tomorrow anyone can have the courage to enter my private quarters with impunity. Khyber has to be made an example of regarding my strictness with these things."
Jodha starts talking back to Jalal now with more vehemence "Shahenshah, I am sure he did not come here of his own. Someone has instigated him. And besides he did me no harm!" But Jalal has heard enough and he starts shouting loudly "There has been harm to the law and order of my state and my guroor. And you are supporting a man who entered you room in the middle of the night in stealth?" Jodha then replies in amazement "What has happened to you, Shahenshah? He is not even a man he is just like a docile "pashu" and one word from me and he just stopped hurting everybody."
Jalal cannot take her insolence. He barks back "What do you want Jodha Begum? You just want me to dance to your tunes, don't you? To do your bidding, to become a puppet on your strings? If I do as you say I am supposed to be a "nek dil insaan" and If I don't then I am a barbarian, even if I am a Shahenshah, right?" Jodha is aghast. "Where are you taking this discussion?" she says in despair. "I am taking things where they should be" he replies, without giving her time to catch her breath. "Don't think I am someone ordinary, people fall at my feet and do my bidding here. I am the Shhahenshah Jalaluddin Mohammmed Akbar" he says with a ruthless reiteration of his authority, but she replies "You got the title of Akbar for showing compassion and not for killing people". "But being a "reham dil" does not mean I will stand by and watch someone enter my harem like this. Khyber will be killed so brutally that nobody will dare even think of such a scheme again" he says.
And then he turns and leaves the room with venom and restrained anger. Jodha says to herself after he leaves, with tears in her eyes "What has happened to you? You are not a person I recognise any more and you have changed. Sometimes I get the feeling that there's no love in your heart for me anymore!"
In the courtyard of the Palace a huge scaffolding is being erected to chain Khyber to - in readiness for his execution. People throng the area, both praja and the people of the royal court. Jodha stands and watches all this with great sadness and a sense of despair that she is not able to stop all this. Atga sees Jodha in her downcast mood and says to her "I can understand your sadness, Begum Sahiba. The Shahenshah has surely changed a lot now. I think you must be thinking now of the Shahenshah's decision to execute Khyber?" "Yes indeed," says Jodha with a deep sigh, "I tried so hard to dissuade him but he was not even ready to listen to me."
Atga then said "I told you he has changed a lot now. People change like this only for one of two reasons. Either they are under the influence of some nasha, or else they have entered into some unhealthy relationships." "I don't understand what you are trying to tell me" says Jodha with a sinking heart - for Atga's words are impinging upon her soul." Atga replies "I myself don't understand what troubles me. At a sacred time like Ramzan, there should be mercy and compassion in the King's heart." "Can you not try to talk to him as his atalik, because he treats you like a father? Maybe he will listen to you?" Jodha pleads, but Atga replies "It's no use, I've tried. He has climbed a high horse and will not let go of his "zid" now". Both Jodha and Atga look away from each other in dismay. The futility of their interventions hits them hard.
Khyber meanwhile is chained to the execution dais and scaffolding and he groans and grunts in his usual fashion. The assembled public are all derisive of him and yet curious to see this man-mountain who has caused so much chaos. Jalal then is announced into the gathering there. Silently in a corner of the gathering Khyber's handler too apeears with a blanket covering his head. Jodha moves forward to see what Jalal is about to do. Khyber looks at Jodha pleadingly and she gets even more concerned.
"Today after years I am execuiting a kaidi in public. It's become necessary. He tried first to kidnap my Begum and I forgave that ... but today he has had the temerity to enter her room at night. I will make an exemplary case out of his execution. I will also hunt down his accomplices and finish them off. Today, I as Shahenshsh Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar give orders for the execution of this darinda right here and now." Jalal's ruthless announcement causes Jodha immense pain and Hamida too wears a very uncomfortable look. Atga, Mansingh and Todarmal look shaken but Sharif seems to enjoy the moment.
People then start taking law into their own hands and start stoning Khyber relentlessly as he bleeds and groans in pain, writhing in agony against being thus helplessly chained. The executioner also starts moving forward with his ready sword. Jodha eyes steel over and she makes an instant decision. As all the women of the harem watch, she says to Jalal "Shahenshah, I need to talk to you right now, at this moment." "Not now" says Jalal. But Jodha doesn't yield an inch. "No, right now," says Jodha with such firmness that he is forced to listen though he doesn't want to. "Do you remember the promise you made to me after the war that you would grant any one wish of mine that I ask for in my lifetime? The time for redeeming that wish has come now. "
Jalal remembers that wish he granted reluctantly. "What is your wish then. Tell me" he says with clenched teeth. "I want praan daan for Khyber. He should be spared and not executed." Khyber looks very thankfully at Jodha as she says this. Jalal retorts "You know I have already issued orders for his execution?" but Jodha says with a steely voice, "Yes but you can undo that if you are able to stick by your vachan to me."
Jalal's voice goes menacingly low "Is this your final decision then?' he asks her in a tone filled with hatred of the compromising situation he is in. "Yes" says Jodha. The surrounding praja and especially Ruq and the other women there are astounded by Jodha's request, but Jalal is by now red with anger. He has to grant the wish to keep his word and yet keeping his word makes him publicly an object of ridicule that he is not even able to carry out his huqum on a matter where it's important to him and his ego and his authority.
Very reluctantly he finds himself checkmated and has to declare the execution halted even as the executioner has his sword raised for the fatal blow on Khyber. "Let him go, let his life go" he shouts at his sipahis. The praja derisively say of Jalal, "The King has gone back on his orders. His wife has made him do this!" Jalal, unable to stay there a moment longer leaves the gathering. He thinks to himself, still in unbridled anger and hurt "I gave you so much love, Jodha Begum, and here you have made a mockery of my love and my authority as a King." Jodha just looks thankfully relieved as does Khyber as he stares at Jodha lovingly.
The episode ends there, but obviously the anger of Jalal is spilling over into tomorrow's episode as well. Jodha is seen in the precap telling Jalal, "I am a Rajvanshi and my pati's maan and sammaan are very important to me". But Jalal cuts in roughly "Don't tell lies Jodha Begum. Nothing matters more to you than your guroor. You wanted to show everybody in the public that the Badshah of Hindustan dances to your tune and you made me do just that. I think you are unfit for the love and freedom I have given you!"
My comments on the episode:
Relax, folks, and let's not let our imaginations fly away too far and too fast on the Jalal-Atifa issue just because the Creatives are pulling us like puppets on a string on the Jalal-Jodha clash!
