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Anupamaa 23 Aug 2025 Written Update & Daily Discussions Thread
Originally posted by: sashashyam
Thanks, Mandy. Look at the suppressed sorrow and resentment in her eyes.
I loved both her and Hrithik in the film. It was all so graceful and believable. Like the suhaag raat scene when she withdraws ever so slightly and he understands and goes away, or that wonderful one when she writes his name and shows it to him, and he confesses that he cannot read or write.
All this jewellery is real. Tanishq made it for the film, and I read that they used over 450 kgs. of gold for them, besides the gem stones. The whole lot went on a travelling exhibition round India when the film was released in February 2008, and then the individual pieces were sold, very likely at inflated prices!
For anyone interested, do look up http://www.patrikalive.org/2014/01/aishwarya-rai-bachchans-most-beautiful.html for more shots of the most fabulous jewellery I have ever seen! Not the stuff Ekta Kapoor shows us!
Shyamala
My Farewell Tribute to Rajat's Jalal
Part 4
Folks,
Ok, here we go again!The very best today, the fantastic Episode 50, is at the very end, but please do not jump straight there, for there is a lot to hold your attention from here to there as well!😉
1.As for Episode 42, my Spice-Crossed post is quite amusing, and those interested can look it up in full at
But as this is a Jalal-centred thread, the only relevant part is a kind of score card that I had made after Jalal's wicked cracks during his conversation with Jodha and Mynavati. Rajat was very good there, eyes dancing with suppressed mischief!
Jodha-Jalal: the score yesterday: Okay, so she wants that (to hoodwink her parents that all is hunky dory between her and Jalal), and of course she needs Jalal's sustained cooperation to carry it thru. So she goes - after some strong persuasion for the extremely practical Motibai, who has 10 times as much commonsense as her mistress - to see Jalal. He agrees to oblige her and, after some coaching, to lie thru his perfect pearly whites for her sake.
She in turn, helps him bathe, most reluctantly, it is true, but still she does it. If she had had any sense of humour, she would have dissolved in infectious laughter at her own plight, and Ekta's serial would have been shortened by about 200 episodes! But our Jodha is not burdened with this attribute, so she does not appreciate her spouse's mischievous grins.
So far, they are quits.
Jodha-Jalal: the score today: Now for today's happenings. Jalal is extra welcoming and warm to Bharmal and Mynavati. He lays it on thick about Jodha to her mother. A hint of a grateful smile is visible on Jodha's face.It is, however, immediately chased away by Jalal mentioning, with a straight face, but an impish gleam in his eye, meant for Jodha, that she had learnt a new rivaaz from him, at one try, the day before. Like Queen Victoria, Jodha is not amused! Round 1 to Jalal.
To pay him back for that mischievous sally, Jodha scolds him for coming into the room with Lord Krishna's idol with his jootis on. Jalal must have wondered, at this point, why all his khaas Begums seem to be eternally after his beloved jootis! His eyes, as he slowly raises them to Jodha's, look almost grim - for it is a very cheeky remark - but he makes a quick recover, and apologises, blaming his forgetfulness. Mynavati is amazed at the good humour of her javaisa, and Jodha smiles in secret triumph. Round 2 to Jodha.
Not one to go down without a fight, Jalal now hints very broadly at perfect conjugal felicity between Jodha and himself, mentioning her having pulled him up about the jootis the night before too, and wondering about the wounds on her arm (from the broken bangles of the night before last) which, he says, were not there the previous night. Jodha turns pink with embarrassment at the implications of his remarks; and as Jalal leaves, the two of them eye each other like Kilkenny cats, eager for the next sparring match.
Maybe the bangle bit was rather insensitive, but the rest of it is a perfectly legit, no holds barred boxing bout, from which Jalal retires having won on points. This is not yet the self-destructive spousal hostility of Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf .
Alas, this is soon going to change, and change drastically, for the worse, after the Mahaam-induced fiasco of Begum Jodha's lazeez khana.
I am not going into the whole chilli episode and its aftermath, for it was all contrived and not really credible at any stage. But the way it ended showed that Jodha is a perfect Scarlett O'Hara to Jalal's Rhett Butler. Their interactions have the same sharp edge, and the same, unfailing ability to get the other's back up and to maul whatever it is that is budding between them. The only difference is that here, unlike the muted tragedy of Gone with the Wind, not even Ekta Kapoor can change the happy ending. But what I fear is that the longer such unnecessarily harsh interactions between them continue, the more difficult will it be for the CVs to effect the eventual transition to a loving and trusting relationship gracefully and convincingly.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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2. Episode 43 is very revealing about the psyche of not just Jalal, but of his currently prime antagonist, Jodha. It does this not thru what is shown, but what is not shown but can be clearly inferred. I am attaching the key passages that bring this out, not just for Jalal but also for Jodha, and for the same reason as I had cited earlier: one cannot analyse Jalal without taking into account Jodha's reactions and her inner feelings. You can see the whole of it at
But the real heart (no, not dil!) of the episode lies not in these OTT passages, but elsewhere.
Jalal: It was there when Jalal picked up a green mirchi from a bowl full of them (what on earth for? This is Mughal Agra, not Bangkok, where such a bowlful is de rigueur for Thai guests) and bit into it, to the consternation of Ruqaiya. As he relates the story of the emperor who was made immune to poison by being fed a little of it every day from his childhood, and ends with Aadat daal raha hoon...Jodha ke zeher ki aadat daal raha hoon, the sudden bitterness in his voice sears the screen.
My thoughts went back to that other scene in one of the very early episodes, where Jalal, meeting his mother Hamida Banu, reveals how deep is his sense of being abandoned by her as a baby, and the corrosive bitterness that has never left him for the whole of his life.
And I realized anew how right Sangeeta was when she wrote yesterday on my thread : I think also the spice thing further enrages Jalal as it opens up that wound of abandonment/not being cared for, b/c after all food is nourishment and a source of comfort. That he wanted her to feed him, I think on a deeper level, he wants her to care about him; and feeding someone is one way to do that. So, that he thinks she mirched it up is not just an insult for him, but another rejection.
This is a wound that runs deep and festers, unknown even to him. But the chilli incident rubs it raw again. What he hears Jodha say to Motibai (as she assumes, though it is Jalal standing there) rubs it even rawer.
After listening to her disparaging, and singularly unfortunate and misleading comments about the incident- He could not take even slightly hot food, then why did he make me cook for him? He could not handle the Amer ki mirchi, and main to Amer ki beti hoon (the implication, that he could not handle her either, was unmistakable) - not even the most sympathetic onlooker would have believed her earlier denial about the mirchi. Certainly not Jalal.
When he tells her that she has burnt not just his tongue but his zehen, the anger is but a mask for the unacknowledged hurt. As he rages at her in ever increasing fury, what he is really saying is I did everything you wanted of me and more. How then did you do this to me? Why did you do it?
If he really hated her as he claims all the time, there would have been only vengeful anger, none of the bitterness of Jodha ke zeher ki aadat daal raha hoon. The hurt comes from what he wants from her, though he does not even know as yet that he does so. What I wrote some time back, my Shahi Shaadi 5:Storms brewing thread, seems to be coming true already.
What I am waiting for is to see when it dawns on him that what he wants is not her. Not the possession of her, legally or physically even, for if he sought the latter, she, as a dutiful, wedded wife, will not refuse her husband that intimacy no matter how much he frightens her (Not right, but it does not vitiate the argument) . What he will want is for her to want him, in the sense of caring for him, even if the idea of love is very long in coming.
Now he can, soon enough, command her dutiful obedience in all acceptable things (I was a bit off here, but never mind!) , but not her respect and her caring. This will gnaw at him, and we shall see how he handles that entirely unfamiliar situation. ...No one can protect him from that sense of deprivation that will eat away at him from within. It is going to be very interesting.
That sense of deprivation is there already, and it is clearly eating away at Jalal. And Ruqaiya's taunts about Jodha having made him suffer a shikast are like twisting a knife in that wound. Everything he does thereafter - the tiresomely repetitive threats to Jodha, telling Ruqaiya about his seeking revenge on Jodha. setting Ruqaiya up to defeat Jodha at chess and thus humiliate her in front of the whole court - is all part of a desperate attempt to somehow drown that inner desolation in triumphant hate.
Jodha: There is something new afoot with her as well.
On the surface, it is difficult to understand what precisely frightens her so much - and for all her untimely assertions to Jalal earlier that day, she is really afraid of him, and not just because of what he might reveal to her parents.
Looked at logically, the worst he can do is the latter. Now since he has promised not to do so, has attached no other conditions to that promise but the hamaam caper, and is a man of his word, she can be pretty sure that he will not spill the beans. There is another reason for her to believe this: once he drops the charade of a happy marriage, he would have lost the one hold he has over her, and she would escape his control. He would never want that, so it would be in his interest to maintain the secret.
As for his ferocious but unspecified threats, she can easily see that he cannot really do anything to her in practical terms, short of sending her back to Amer, and he shows no signs of wanting to do that, for the same reason as above, that she would then escape him.
So then, all Jodha has to do is to pretend to be a happy newlywed in front of her parents, listen to Jalal's daily dose of dire threats with one ear, and carry on as before.
But this is not what she does. She is in a flood of tears at the beginning, worried about her mistake in showing krodh in front of him after the chilli fiasco - and she is not the crying sort - and later, her complaints to (supposedly) Motibai about Jalal are more plaintive and despairing than angry.
When she realises that it is Jalal who was behind her (what can one say of this young lady's olfactory sense, when she cannot smell the difference, at 3 feet, between Jalal's undoubtedly top of the range itr and Motibai's mamuli scent, if at all she has one? ), she does not slip into her veerangana mode. Instead, she proceeds to show him all her weaknesses, and for the first time ever, openly complains to him about the way in which he is treating her, and about the peedha he is causing her.
I was zapped by this last; where is her habitual spine-stiffening pride, which would never let her show him that he can make her miserable? This is not the old Jodha. In fact it is almost like a hurt wife accusing a harsh husband of ill-treatment. And when he, now convinced (with considerable justification, as noted above) that she was lying when she had denied all responsibility for the chilli disaster, goes off into his standard threatening spiel and leaves in a huff, Jodha's woebegone face, and the haunted expression in her eyes, hint at something new, for there is in them none of the rage one would expect.
His professed hatred for her is beginning to affect her badly, and make her miserable and weepy. This is curious and revealing, for this hatred was precisely what she claimed to want, and she should have been relieved and happy about it.
There is another odd, revealing little moment that points in the same direction. At the end of that charming interlude with young Rahim, after he announces that he is the Shahenshah ka beta, his mother tells Jodha that she is the Shahenshah's Begum Salima Sultan. For a long moment , Jodha's eyes hold an indefinable, troubled expression. Is it a sudden sense of isolation, of exclusion from what she assumes that this pleasant lady, another spouse of their husband, who moreveor has a son from him (Jodha would assume that Rahim is Jalal's son), enjoys? She gets hold of herself soon enough, and salutes Salima very graciously as her senior, but as the two leave, that troubled expression is back in her eyes. The carefree, headstrong princess is beginning to grow up, to feel things that she has never felt before.
The journey that will end in a lovers' meeting has begun, all unknowingly, for her as well.
Phew! I think I could easily set up as the resident IF psychologist!!😉😉
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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3. This is a snippet, or rather a collage of snippets, from a minor episode. Bu together they highlighted Jalal's innate sense of fairness, even if the other concerned is his permanent bugbear Jodha, and his innate kingliness, which comes thru clearly in the way he handles the parcham matter and saves the poor banjaras, whom he sees as part of his awaam and thus entitled to his protecton, from being imprisoned or worse for no fault for theirs.
Needless to say, Rajat handles these sequences with total competence, eschewing, to my relief, any OTT flourishes.
Folks,
There were only 4 main points that emerged today ( and these two were about Jalal).
1) Jalal, even he rightly cuts short Jodha's vigorous argument with Adham Khan and shooes her back to the palace, admires her unhesitating readiness to stand up for what she believes is right, and to fight for it with anyone, any place, any time. That can be seen, firstly, from the relatively gentle way in which he dismisses her, as compared to the harshness with which he snubbed Ruqaiya over the Zaheer affair, almost yelling at her.
And secondly, from his imagining Jodha, almost involuntarily, amidst the Amer dancers at the jashan, bearing the Amer flag with pride, and in an utterly natural way, devoid of any arrogance or self-righteousness. It is revealing that he is not just dreaming of her, but that this is how he perceives her. He regards his vision of Jodha with no trace of either anger or sarcasm. For once, he genuinely approves of her and her ways.
It is the same when Jodha announces her readiness to compete against Ruqaiya, citing her Rajvanshi heritage of never backing down before a challenge. For a brief instant, Jalal looks benign and even admiring.
2) Jalal handles the parcham matter to perfection. He investigates it swiftly and effectively, and then does justice to the poor banjaras - truly a Solomon come to judgement (with apologies to Shylock an to Shakespeare!). He next puts Adham Khan in his place (or as near to that as possible given Adham's temperament), and finally, also seizes the opportunity to organize a delightful surprise for Bharmal & Co. (who, incidentally, seem to hav given the go by to their beti ke ghar paani bhi nahin peete rule, as they are now enjoying their javaisa's hospitality without any qualms) .
Jalal has now come into his own, and is fast maturing into a just and decisive monarch, who can put his absolute power to use for the good of the awaam .
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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4. This one is for a single scene, but what a scene! There are other, and even more dazzling ones to come, like the one of Jalal kneeling in front of Kali Mata and doing a maatatekhna, but this was a worthy predecessor to those.
When Jalal recalls the anguish and traumas of his childhood, his face and eyes reflect his inner, re-awakened torment with such realism that our hearts turn over in empathy. And when he hugs that Hindu child and weeps, there is not the slightest awkwardness about an emperor in tears, for we share what he feels and we weep with him. It was a minor tour de force for Rajat.
This scene was also remarkable for something else. It demonstrated, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Jalal's strikingly positive traits, such as a sense of justice, of fairness to all his subjects, and of religious tolerance ( a very, very rare trait anywhere in the world at that time), were always there, and were not created by Jodha, though her influence might have amplified and strengthened them. It taken true greatness for an absolute ruler to reverse his decision because he realises that he has done injustice to a child.
Shadows of the past: No, the scene that lingered in my consciousness was that of Jalal - not the Shahenshah - kneeling on the floor of the Diwan-e-Aam, embracing the little Hindu boy, with eyes brimming with unexpected tears. Of the recalled anguish, and the lost look on his face, as the shadows of the past rise again to haunt him.
His father's brother lunging at him, sword in hand and murder in his heart, livid with hatred for Humayun, as Jalal cowers behind his aunt, who manages to shield him from her husband and save his life. Bairam Khan and Mahaam Anga standing by him, and with him, against all odds, with rocklike loyalty, yes, but also with genuine affection and caring.
As Jalal says, no one knows better than he the trauma that the absence of parents causes to the abandoned child. Not every child would have his good fortune in the presence of his Khan Baba and Mahaam Anga, he adds, but still Bhale hi wo walidein ke bina sari duniya ki fateh kar le, par wo kahin na kahin, andar, akela hi rahta hai.
So there it was again, up front and centre, the hurt that is still unhealed and festers within him, and the loneliness that eats away at the innermost core of his being. I have written of this often in my earlier posts, and I will not repeat any of that now. Today, the wounds of the past in Jalal's zehen were ripped open again by sheer chance, and the simple plea of an uncomprehending and yet courageous little Hindu boy.
The denouement of that scene was incredibly moving. And the striking, and strange thing was that the pain that was so visible in Jalal's eyes was mirrored in Ruqaiya's face,which twisted in empathy. A lifelong friendship cannot be dismissed or written off so easily; it has its own intimacies and symbiotic bonds.
Jalal's reversal of his original judgement is not on the merits of the case, which were in any case very poorly set out by the complainant. In any autocracy, the incredible folly of the husband in not stating his real complaint - about the seizure of his house and his cow and of the attempt to convert him to Islam by force - and instead railing against the regime as a whole in loud tones, would have produced the same punitive response (it is to be noted that the response is from a Minister, not from the Shahenshan directly). The wife then makes matters worse by attacking the Shahenshah directly and dragging in his marriage to a Hindu queen. It is no wonder that Jalal's temper flares up and she is sent to prison as well.
But for the equally incredible good sense of the child - his Aapka mere liye kya aadesh hai? brings the Emperor up short - things would have stayed as they were. And if his parents had had even a fraction of his natural, diplomatic articulateness, they would have got justice from the Shahenshah right at the beginning.
Nonetheless, it is only because Jalal, after that initial spurt of anger at the parents, has the kindness of heart, and the empathy, to understand the plight of the child deprived of both his parents, that he sets aside his own rule and restores to the child his home and his happiness. It takes a measure of greatness, especially in an absolute ruler, to recognize his mistake and to correct it.
That he explains the reason for his doing so to the whole assemblage is another mark of a great ruler, the recognition of the need to carry his people with him.
It is also significant that this time, he does not dress his reversal up in reasons of state, as he did while explaining to his advisers his decision to marry Jodha. It is primarily an emotional response to an emotional wrong, and he has no hesitation in acknowledging it as such. Or in weeping in public, or exposing his inner wounds to the public gaze. He is too strong a character to have such reservations; he goes by what he feels is right, and he will then not change his path for anyone or anything.
This needs to be noted. I have always held that while Jodha might, in the future, amplify and strengthen Jalal's positive traits, such as a sense of justice, of fairness to all his subjects, religious tolerance ( a very, very rare trait anywhere in the world at that time) and so on, she does not create them. They are already present in him, and they have already surfaced at various moments independently of Jodha: his assertion, when chastising Adham Khan for his atrocities in Malwa, that even in a war, there would be no oppression of women, children or the aged is a case in point.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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Ok, folks, enough of mooning and sighing about the duel between our Odd Couple, and get your heartbeats back to normal. A cold water splash for those young ladies who had, as per their posts, fainted, not just to to revive them, but to shake the visions of themselves as Jodha out of their minds!! 😉
...
The Fencing Bout: Yes, yes, it was mindblowing, terrific, out of the world, rocking, and whatever else any of you wants. .😉 But, the fact remains, as doyelpakhi has pointed out elsewhere, that the context was totally unconvincing. It was as if the CVs has decided that the fencing match had to be copied from the film, and that yesterday was the day to shove it in, and so they shoved it in willy nilly, and plausibility be damned.
So we had Jodha, who had apparently thoughtfully carted her sword and the white fencing attire to Agra, suddenly get up one fine morning and decide to shed her ultra heavy daily Christmas tree getup for the aforesaid whites, and do a spot of fencing practice right next to the Shahenshah's quarters. Why the face veil, then, when the bindi is a dead giveaway? In fact, she could easily have been challenged, or even attacked, by some watchful guard, who would rightly have taken her for an armed intruder. The whole thing looked like a hastily assembled patchwork, quite unlike in the film, where the context had been worked out perfectly.
The duel itself, on the contrary, was wonderfully choreographed and superbly executed by both the actors. Paridhi in particular seemed to have put her training in fencing to good use, and matched the more experienced Rajat every step of the way. Jodha must be physically very strong for a relatively small made woman if she can push the much heavier Jalal back so hard, even allowing for the surprise element!
The duel in the film was more lighthearted and flirtatious, for there was no such backlog of overt animosity between them there. Whereas here it is an extension of their daily bouts of angry one-upmanship, and it seems at times as if Jodha would really like to land him a deadly blow.
One can of course read anything one wants into their eyes, especially hers, in that long moment when they stare at each other from 6 inches away (kudos to the actors who manage that without going cross-eyed, and still maintain their respective expressions).
My take is that rather than doing something as commonplace as flirting, Jalal is angling for an opening to the person he senses that she is, even while making a subtle, sensuous attempt to disorient her by his physical nearness. Jodha is trying equally hard not to give him that opening, and also to shut her senses to the closeness of this very attractive man, and whatever hitherto unknown sensations that stirs up.
Which is why she neither trips him up with a smart retort about the huge risks he had run to save another servitor, Abdul (Oh Abdul, where, oh where are you? You are sorely needed!) , nor does she let him prolong the near clinch, but sends him reeling with a smartly timed and very hard shove. The expression in Jalal's eyes as he looks at her at the very end is most revealing: he looks frustrated but still curious, while she seems angry, mostly with herself. But why? Is it because she has sensed a weakness in herself for her handsome husband that she never knew existed?
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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6. This was truly an episode to be savoured , of the kind that makes one wonder, and weep over, what on earth happened to the script later down the line.
It is a delicate collage of emotions barely realized or not at all - from the superb conclusion of the fencing bout to the incident of the dupatta that was not kheenchofyed . As we watch Jalal, now ruminating over what makes Jodha tick, her dil or her dimaag, now chortling in glee as she exclaims Shahenshah, hamara dupatta chodiye!, one chortles in delight oneself, secure in the knowledge of what is to come.
Rajat takes Jalal, smoothly and effectively, thru a whole range of varied emotions and reactions. His Jalal is all sensuality and control during the fencing bout, endearing, affectionate , and extremely indulgent to Rahim in the Diwan-e-Khaas, steely in his veiled warning to Sharifuddin as he issues his orders about returning all the loot to Amer.
And, last but the best, delightfully mischievous as he teases his new Begum by telling Rahim: Tum bade hokar mere jaise hi banoge , accompanied by a sidelong look up at Jodha, then Agar tum chote na hote, to hamari Begum ka dupatta kheenchne ki gustakhi ki sazaa milti, with another upward glance. Rarely does one get to see a flirtation conducted so delicately and yet with such assurance!
Folks,
It somehow seems entirely appropriate that the half century of Jodha Akbar should be celebrated with what can only be called a super-superlative episode. I would have preferred that marvellously apt term coined by Mary Poppins, but whenever I have tried to use it, the IF resident censor declares that I cannot post with such unknown words!
Episode 50 was a layered delight - like the millefeuille beloved of Austrian patissiers, or even better, our own sohanpapdi. One took off layer after layer, as scene followed scene from the beginning to the precap, and each was better than the last. It is meant for repeat watching, savouring known pleasures with fresh appreciation: I have already seen it 4 times and I need more.
Ah yes, the pas de deux of the title. As in the ballet, this too had the now forward now backward movements of the classical romantic dancing duet, except that here only we knew that it was all, if not quite romantic, decidedly pre-romantic.
Let us take the scenes in chronological order, thus avoiding the tricky task of grading them.
The Fencing Duel - Conclusion: The easiest way to ruin a lovely scene is to botch up the ending. Here, it was the opposite; the end was so beautifully and so delicately done - sassy, mischievous, and withal admirably candid - that it enhanced the appeal of the ferocious duel that had preceded it.
The ubiquitous Jalal ka dil motif was there all right, but only to provide a neat opening for Jodha to return Jalal's shamsheer with a couple of cheeky lines to accompany it. She looked very handsome while pronouncing them, which must have softened their edge for Jalal!
He shows how good a loser he is by acknowledging that she had got the better of him, which not many men, not to speak of emperors, would have done. He caps that by generously praising her as a behatareen sipahi, which is, to my mind and surely to Jodha's as well, a greater compliment than being called just a yoddha, for a soldier has to have not just technique, but concentration and discipline as well.
For those who are wondering why Jalal asks her, for the third time during the bout, why she had not killed him, it is because he is trying to get her to say that he is her pati and so she cannot, as a dutiful wife, bump him off. But Jodha does not oblige, and he is instead treated to a reiteration of the Rajput code of honour, plus a put down of the practice of killing others as a way of showing off ones own prowess.
Jalal, unfazed, listens to this little homily with a slight smile, and as he turns to leave, he delivers his coup de grace. When he says that never before had his shamsheer let him down, but it was not its fault, Jodha fully expects him to add that it was because of her fencing skills, and she puts her little chin up in anticipation.
Jalal, however, is the master of the unexpected. Kasoor aapki khubsoorati ka hai...and this is said with no emphasis, no change of tone, just as a simple fact. And he turns away and leaves, without a backward glance.
Not quite, perhaps, for maybe he did look back from farther away.He would have been pleased with what he then saw, for Jodha is standing absolutely still, with the oddest expression of muted satisfaction on her face, like someone rolling a delicious but unfamiliar sweet on her tongue and savouring it to the full.
...
And Jalal continues on the path he had taken during the fencing bout, of trying to make out what makes Jodha tick - her dil or her dimaag - what she is all about, and what more unexpected discoveries about her lie in store for him. He too is well on the way to becoming a lost case, though of quite a different kind!
...
Hamari Chotiammi: This one too is a delight, if in a different way. Jalals unaffected affection for and indulgence towards little Rahim, and his readiness to halt the proceedings of the Diwan-e-Khas till he sorts out the child's problem, are utterly charming and, more important, revealing of the inner man behind the Shahenshah.
They form a counterpoint to the silken smoothness, that of an iron fist in a velvet glove, with which the Shahenshah deals with what he knows will be a recalcitrant Sharifuddin, commanded to disgorge all the ransom he had extracted, after the defeat of Amer, from the hapless Bharmal. Jalals Hamein ummeed hai ki hamare hukum ki tameel hogi is not an ummeed at all, but a veiled warning, and Sharifuddin, after an instant when his eyes are red with baffled rage, falls in line at once and promises full compliance with his orders.
He even schools his countenance to an indulgent smile as he watches Jalal play with Rahim. But as Shakespeare would have said, Jalal has to beware of one who smiles and smiles again, while harbouring black villainy in his heart.
...To revert, the best line in this segment is the very last one, as Jalal, ruminating over Rahim's new Chotiammi-cum-dost, easily identified as Jodha, says to himself, without even a hint of mischief, Rahim ko waqt dena hi padega. I was in stitches every time I rewatched it, saying to myself Young man, you are in the suds now, good and proper! You are not even going to know what hit you😉!
Hamari Begum ka Dupatta: This was really the piece de resistance of the whole. A scene full of newly soft sentiments barely hinted at but still clearly there, of all the traditional panoply of courtship, and this on both sides, ending with a revelation that is bound to ease the path to the future for this Odd Couple. It was like a perfectly done souffle, light as air and as insubstantial, but for all that, a melting delight for the tastebuds.
To begin with, Jodha is actually waiting for Jalal to come to see her and, presumably, complete the apology that he owes her for the Rahim fiasco of the morning. Which is why, when she is on the way to her rooms (and here, the way in which she gracefully acknowledges salutations from right and left, as she continues on her way, hints at a new found ease in her surroundings ) and the Shahenshah's arrival is announced, she pauses and looks back for a long moment, setting off again only just before he appears in the distance.
She then postions herself at a window, with her back to the room, a stance carefully calculated to convey her total indifference to the imperial visit that she is sure will materialise😉. When she senses Jalal in the room, she tries to look back out of the corner of her eyes without making it obvious. The field of vision is not right, and so, when her dupatta is tugged at, she assumes that it is Jalal. Her expostulation is a classic in its own way - the remonstrance is so patently fake, with its reference, not to her dislike, but to his having sworn that he would never come near her. Jalal, a good 6 feet away, must have been chortling in suppressed glee as she turns around!😉
Her reaction to Jalal's mischievous comments to her, via Rahim -Tum bade hokar mere jaise hi banoge (I asked myself at this point: Kisme? Dupatta kheenchne mein?) - accompanied by a sidelong look up at Jodha, then Agar tum chote na hote, to hamare Begum ka dupatta kheenchne ki gustakhi ki sazaa milti, with another upward glance - show no anger or even distaste. On the contrary, there is a sort of hesitant shyness in the way she looks very briefly at the duo on the floor, and when Jalal picks Rahim up and leaves, there is a hint of disappointment that he did not say anything to her. For any normal couple, these would have been insignificant signs, but for our Kate and Petruchio, they are nothing short of revolutionary!
Finally, while Jodha is still mulling over what has happened, the conversation between two other begums reveals to her that Jalal loves children as a whole, and not just Rahim (who she still thinks is his son). It is said that the British can forgive much to a man who loves dogs. For Jodha, read children. The revelation that the kroor Shahenshah actually loves kids is the first breach in the wall of hostility towards him with which she has surrounded herself. It will be very interesting to watch this breach being widened as new revelations about Jalal surface, till one day, it brings down the whole wall.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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OK, folks, this is it for now. I truly hope you are lasting thru these overlong posts and liking them too. If you did like this one, please do NOT forget to hit the Like button. I like to keep track of my regular readers, and if you do not signal your presence, how would I know that you were there at all? 😉
Shyamala/Aunty/Di/Akka
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