Dear Divya,
As promised, or rather threatened😉, here is my take on the Friday episode.
Shyamala Aunty
Jodha Akbar 318: Imperial escapism
Folks,
In the interests of accuracy and comprehensiveness, I should have added hysteria and self-pity, but that would have made it too long for a title, so I desisted.
Now, I saw from Divya's thread of yesterday that well over half her readers had apparently equipped themselves with an abundant supply of tissues 😉for Jalal's 6:57 minute peroration (cut to just under 5 minutes in the retelecasts after the 11 pm one, thus minus most of its rhetorical force), and seemed ready to cry with him over his Devdas take on his life.
On and on and on he went, repeating each point at least thrice, Nobody loves me for myself, is takht ki wajah se ... I am all alone, is takht ki wajah se.. my apne have turned against me, is takht ki wajah se.. ... I do not want to be alone any more.. I do not want any more takleef....
Because Rajat is a very handsome young man, who shares with his costar the ability to weep copiously without looking ridiculous, and because he is a fantastic actor who has superb voice control - his tone thickened as the level of misery went up, the voice rose and fell, but always with that undercurrent of extreme emotional stress - it all sounded very moving.
One did not think of what he was saying or of whether it made any sense at all for an emperor to wallow in such self pity. One thought only that here was this poor, unhappy, tormented young man who is at the end of his tether . One has to do something for him. One must hug him and soothe him and make him well again. The younger lot can amplify on this action plan as per their wishes and hopes!😉😉
But I have analysed his speech word for word, and here are my conclusions. I shall simply let him speak for himself, adding only minimal comments. You are all of course free to disagree with me, but please do give my take serious consideration.
Imperial escapism: First of all, let me dispose of the idea that Jalal is not running away from his responsibilities to his awaam, and that he has nowhere said that he was abandoning the throne and leaving it to another. Here are his own words.
Humne faisla kar liya hai, Jodha Begum, ki hum is takht ko khatam kar denge.Ab na hi yeh takht rahega na hi hamare sar par sultanat ka taj . Badshahat chhod denge hum, Jodha Begum. ( so much for the argument that he is talking only of removing the corrupting power of the absolute power that comes with the takht).
And again later, Humne faisla kar liya hai ki ne humein yeh takht chahiye nay yeh taj chahiye.
With this I rest my case on the "it is all an emotional outburst; he never meant to abandon his charge" argument. He clearly did mean to do precisely that.
Nor is this the first time he has done this. He did it before, for a different reason, during the butparasti crisis. In fact Jalal seems to regard the throne and the empire as something that is his possession, to give up or give away as he pleases, one day because he needs to keep his promise to Jodha, and another day because he is miserable that no one loves him for himself.
As for the argument that nowhere is he saying he will give the takht up to another, why, he does not have to give it up for anyone else. The minute he quits, he will be murdered, for a deposed emperor cannot be allowed to survive as a perennial threat to his successor.
Next, there will be a bloody civil war,with untold sufferings for his subjects, as I had described at length in my post Jodha Akbar 100b: The demands of rajadharma (https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/post/95362899)
There was no evidence then, and there is none now, that these vital considerations even crossed Jalal's mind. It was the same when he was unwilling to go to war with his Nigar Apa, and had to be jumpstarted by Ruqaiya and to a lesser extent by Jodha, despite the terrible fate that would befall his riyaya under a Mahachuchak-Abul Mali combo.
This repeated withdrawal syndrome in Jalal has been, for me at least, the most disappointing and disturbing thing in a character whom I, in all else, adore.
He is a monarch, and it is his DUTY, not his choice, to care for his people, and that should always be his sole priority. Kingship is both duty and responsibility, which is what our ancients have always taught us. It is a lonely, treacherous calling, and a king cannot, just because someone close to him has betrayed him, quit midway, and carry on like a crybaby: No one loves me... Aw... I am alone.. Aw... I do not want to suffer any more...Awww...
The reason why: Now for what makes Jalal want to abandon his takht, his taj, his badshahat.
As he puts it himself, Kyonki apnon ki baddua lekar, apnon ki nafrat sehkar, apnon ke khoon se hum badshahat nahin kar sakte hain.. And who, according to him,are these apne who have been turned against him by this shaitaani takht?
-Adham Khan, whom he says he loved as much an he did Mirza Hakim and Bakshi Banu, not very reassuring examples, but let that pass. Jis ki har gustakhi maaf ki, and yet he wants to murder Jalal. What can you say about this except that Jalal's ability to judge others is seriously defective? And does he think about how this har gustakhi ki maafi might have contributed to making Adham worse and worse? No. For it is all is takht ki wajah se. It is as if Adham's claiming the throne, despite being a baandi ka beta, is also because Jalal was the Shahenshah. If he had not been the Shahenshah, his argument goes, Adham would have loved him . And this despite Jalal knowing, at first hand in Malwa, what an unregenerate and brutal thug Adham is and has always been.
-Abul Mali, one of the worst cutthroats around, and Sharifuddin,one the slimiest weasels around, both of which should be evident at first sight to anyone. Jalal is apparently convinced that but for his takht, both would have loved him. This too defies all commonsense. Of course if Jalal had been a peasant farmer, neither would have rebelled against him, but they would surely have encroached on his fields and stolen his cattle and his crop!
-Mahachuchak, whom Jalal, for no reason but legal, sees as his mother, and from whom he apparently expects that she should love him, and if she wants to murder him instead , wo bhi is takht ki wajah se.I wonder when he last encountered this Ammijaan of his. If it was recently, Jalal needs to have his head examined.
- His Khan Baba, who, he laments , was his ustad, jinhon ne humein sab kuch sikhaya, jinhon ne humein yeh takht saunpa, wo bhi hamare khilaf ho gaye, of course is takht ki wajah se. This is a bit difficult to understand, but let us try. Bairam Khan did not rebel against Jalal because he wanted the takht, but because, like an exasperated teacher, he felt that Jalal was inexperienced and foolish and he was ruining all the very considerable work that he had done to build up the Mughal empire. Of course if Jalal had not been the Shahenshah, Bairam Khan would not have had anything to get exasperated about, but then he would not have been interested in Jalal at all!
-Mahaam Anga, whom Jalal has, in a shift that marks his emotional stress, started calling Badiammi once again, jinhein humne Khuda se badkar maante the (a capital folly in any one, worse in an emperor), jahan humne hamare doodh ki karz chukane ki har koshish ki (it is unending, this doodh ka karz!) , tajjub ho raha hai ki unhon ne hamari aulad ko baddua de di. Why? Of course sirf is takht ki wajah se.
How? If he had not executed Adham, but jailed him for life, Mahaam would have been content, and would have sung hosannas to Jalal.
Moreover, to listen to Jalal, it is as it he had not even heard the venom that Mahaam had spewed out, especially against her bete noire, Jodha Begum, both after the Sujamal affair and at the end of the Atifa track. Or perhaps he has listened and understood as well, but is in a state of denial about what that meant about the kind of person Mahaam Anga really is, a truth that he does not want to face. But this is not how a leader of men should be.
The curious thing is that if he had found out, during the Ruqaiya miscarriage affair,that Mahaam was really guilty, he would have killed her on the spot, and no one, not even Adham, would have been shocked. But then this is not the same Jalal, and the khauf-e-Jalal is now a thing of the past. Whence the waning of the fear element in his enemies as well, with worsening problems for the Shahenshah.
-And finally, the most visceral loss of all, that of Atgah Khan.After his Khan Baba and his Badiammi, ab humse hamare Atgah Saheb ko cheena. But how, unless you argue that Adham killed Atgah to get Jalal's takht, and so that murder is the fault of the takht?
Why does Jalal not see that Atgah died solely because of Jalal's own disastrous error of judgment, when he disregarded Todar Mal's and Atgah's warnings that Adham should not be left free to do whatever he liked? If you let a venomous snake go free and it bites someone, the fault is more yours than the snake's.
This galti , I had assumed, would be something that will haunt Jalal for the rest of his life. For the gravity of a fault, or a mistake, lies very largely in the gravity of its consequences. But I am not sure of this any more. If there had been one sentence in all of those 6:57 minutes where he lamented his mistake, I would have been satisfied, but there is none. Instead, Jalal rants on and on about the takht and its malefic powers.
The Achilles heel: In the end, it all seems to come down to this. For Jalal, his Achilles heel seems to be an obsessive need to be loved by those close to him, which, in a medieval king, as in any MNC CEO today, would be a major weakness. Listen to him as he rages on and on about the manhoosiyat of the shaitaani takht.
Is takht ne humse hamare apnon ko cheena, jinse humse mohabbat ki, unhe nigal gaya.. Rishton mein zeher ghol diya..Hamare apne ya to mar gaye, ya iski wajah se hum se door ho gaye (but if, regardless of the fact that Jalal loved them, these apne of his could be corrupted by the desire for the takht to the extent of wanting to murder him, how does he still see them as his apne? And still bemoans the loss of his relationship with them? It is plain nuts
And what is it with his Bar bar, tumhari wajah se, humare haath humare apnon ke khoon se rang jaate hain? Except for Adham, whose khoon is Jalal talking about? Not Abul Mali, who was never sentenced to death, and not Sharifuddin, who was only jailed before he got a full pardon courtesy Jodha Begum. Not BairamKhan and not Mahaam Anga. Who then?
Isne humse Khuda ki har neemat ko cheen liya ( what loss, may I ask? He is healthy, he is a great warrior, he has discovered a dil and love, and is loved in return, he has a loving mother, caring begums, and a big empire, which is thriving. What more does he want?)
Isne humse hamare sapnon to cheen liya.. hamara sab kuch cheen liya (What sapne is he talking about, the ones that have been corrupted by the takht?)
Sabko lagta hai ki yeh hamari taaqat hai, par yeh hamari zindagi ki sabse badi baddua hai ( This is near blasphemy. Does Jalal not value the chance that God has granted him, by giving him the powers of this very takht, to better the lives of millions of his subjects? )
Isne humein akela kar diya.. humari zindagi ka har ek sahara humse cheen liya ( What on earth is he talking about ? Does he not value all those he has left, who love him and are loyal to him? Jodha Begum, his Ammijaan, Ruqaiya and his other begums, Todar Mal and Mansingh, Munim Khan and, right now, Mirza Hakim as well? And as for being akela, that is the lot of any leader. It is always lonely at the top. The Jalal who said precisely this to Jodha in Amer after the Hawai incident seems to have now forgotten what he knew then)
Lack of perspective: It is this complete lack of a sense of perspective, and of realism, not to speak of misplaced priorities, that is downright scary in a man who holds the fate of millions in his hands.
Jalal does not seem to value what he has; instead he laments about what he thinks he has lost, the loyalty and love which, in most of the cases he cites, never really existed. He is well rid of these traitors who have been exposed now, and should count his blessings, but no, he must cling to his supposed apne, and insist, irrationally, that he has lost them isi takht ki wajah se.
He seems to lack a sound judgment of men, witness how so many befool him for years, fattening on his largesse while secretly plotting his assassination or his downfall. And the worst of it is that when their guilt is revealed, he does not blame them. He blames the takht, ie the fact that God made him the Shahenshah, seeing this as a mistake that should be set right!
If every medieval king who was betrayed by his near and dear ones, which was more the norm than the exception, were to behave like this, God save his subjects!
Plus, at least in this episode, the Shahenshah seems to be thinking only of himself and his emotional needs, which too is not what one expects of a great ruler. Does he think he is the first emperor to whom all this happened? No. Then again, much of it happened because of his own ill-judged leniency towards those he assumes to be his apne. Does he realise that? To judge from his long rant, no, he does not. He is busy blaming the takht for the consequences of his own misplaced softness.
A superb Rajat: None of the above, which concerns Jalal the character, takes away anything from Rajat's bravura take on this tormented emperor. Every nuance was in place, every emotion just right, neither too much nor too little. As Jalal raged and stormed at the takht and set it on fire (what fabric was that which caught fire so easily and blazed away so merrily? It was as if it had been doused in naptha!) , part of me was so exasperated that I wanted to clout him. But the other part was lost in admiration at the way in which Rajat brought this Jalal alive on the screen.
Jodha: A tower of strength: I never thought the day would come when I would pan Jalal and praise Jodha, but lo and behold,that day has arrived! Jodha on Friday more than made up for what she had failed to do the day before, when a bloodied Jalal arrived in her hoojra.
She was almost perfect in the way she handled him.
She sees that Jalal's raving about the corrupting power of the takht is not sui generis. It has been triggered by the shock of the baddua that Mahaam had given their unborn children. So she first stoutly dismisses the curse as of no account. Kucch nahin hoga, na humein, na aapko, na hamari santaan ko. I was very pleased to see that she does not cave in to any entirely understandable fears that she might have felt, but puts up a brave face and seeks to infuse him witht the same, stout-hearted courage.
She also realises that it was the fact that the Badiammi he had loved and respected all his life who had done this that had cut Jalal to the quick. So she tries to convince him that Mahaam could never curse him or his children, that her outburst was merely a maa ka vilaap. Jodha might not believe it herself, but she knows that it is vital to make Jalal believe it, so she tries hard.
Another day, during the Atifa track, she had tried to awaken him to his responsibilities to his people, to the duties of an emperor that must always take precedence over his personal emotions and needs. This time, she sees that he is too distraught and emotionally ravaged for such rational arguments to work. And it is for the same reason that she does not seek to counter his lament that he is akela by mentioning all those others who love him and are loyal to him.
What he needs, she grasps instincitively, is a very strong dose of emotional support, and she gives him a megashot. Her eyes lit up with caring and concern and love, she assures him that no matter what happens, no matter who is or is not with him, she will always be there for him. Hum donon ka sambandh is singhasan ki wajah se nahin hai.. hum har pal aapke saath hain, Shahenshah, chahe yeh singhasan rahe na rahe..Hum aapse prem karte hain Shahenshah, aapse! Na is takht se, na iski shakti se, aur na hi singhasan se. .. Aap kabhi akele nahin hain, Shahenshah, Jodha aapke saath thi, hai, aur sada rahegi..
Jalal may be dazed and worn out, but he takes in all that she is saying. His face reacts to her words, and when she assures his that she loves him, and him alone, not the man on the throne, he reaches up to cradle her cheek in his palm. And when she asserts that Jodha will always be with him, his face lights up visibly.
Finally, when she cradles him in her arms like a mother with a tired child -and there is always something of a mother in a loving wife - he relaxes at long last. As she appeals to her Kanha to give him the strength to cope with Mahaam's bitter curse, his eyes are closed and he is at rest.
Jodha has managed to ride out the storm and bring Jalal out of his personal hell, at least for now.
And in her later confrontation with Mahaam, during a visit which was perhaps a miscalculation on her part, Jodha does not back off from Mahaam's vicious taunts. She faces them down and, in the end, counters them with a ferociously confident assertion that she would give the Mughal sultanate its heir, and that the Mughal parcham would wave forever. Attagirl!!
The baddua: The whole of the first part of the Friday episode was made abominable by Mahaam's crude, vile ranting. As for the curse itself, everything that Lashy, Donjas and others have said to belittle its import and its impact is true. But it is also true that the bulk of the viewing public is going to see the future developments, and even the wording of the curse, which reaches out as far as Salim's well known rebelliousness, as the victory of evil over good. It might be happening all the time, but surely there was no need to underline that here, was there?
Mahaam: By episode end, she had begun to look positively demented. I was taken aback by her demanding from Jodha why she had not done anything to help Adham.
As for her earlier legalistic attacks on Jalal for not having had Adham tried, I was surprised that neither Jalal nor anyone else thought fit to mention to her, either earlier, when Jalal meets her, or now, that Adham had actually tried to kill the Shahenshah, a gunaah-e-azeem that needed no additional proof.
Questions of the day: 1) Why do Hamida, Jodha and all the rest stand there looking on as Mahaam is mourning over Adham's dead body? It was unseemly, and looked like the drawing room group in a regular TV serial.
2) Why does Jalal not have Mahaam removed as soon as she stands up and starts her accusations?. He waits till the baddua is well and truly over before he tells the guards to take her away.This too is exactly like the standard TV soap scenes, where the good guys stand around like lamp posts till the bad guys have finished with their abuse and accusations.
3) What is it with the over a day old bloodstains on Mahaam's clothes? Dried blood darkens with time, but these stains are as bright red as ever, and their continuity, or lack of it, rivals the blood trails on Jalal's face the day before!😉
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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