Originally posted by: ghalibmirza
Omg read sunnysa ka comment, hilarious! You are one witty darling...tonight will catch up on all the comments as tomorrow is my day off...wink!
Mandy - Did you not know that She was always in love ?!!!!!!!! of course with herself, all along.Originally posted by: sashashyam
No, Mandy, she was not in love with him, for at this point, she knew as little as Jalal about what love is. She was simply comfortable with him, for he fitted perfectly into her conventional idea of a traditional Rajput royal groom, plus he was at least willing to envision the prospect of his getting Jalal ka sar for her!
Instead, of course, she got his sar, poor chap!
Shyamala
Originally posted by: jayaks02
Read Amer ki pukar - It is a very special episode when I watched it first time.
Jalal secretly a little relieved that Khan Bhabha is off, sets out to that mission he has been wanting to do ever since he heard the name Jodha. His eyes gleam with anticipation, excitement, some kind of kuroor or wanting to conquer etc when he calls Abdul.Loved your writing especially the detailing around Bairam Khan's overstepping his role and taking Jalal for granted. A diplomat's view of protocols is indeed very detailing and revealing. I am sure these things do mean a lot in today's rajaneeti (International Diplomacy).What I loved of all the lines in this episode commentary of yours, is below one, the mostAt least Jodha does not lack consistency, even if it is consistency in illogicality and a lack of commonsense!You know I love lines like this, when it refers to my fav character. 😉😉😆Intricate details is what makes your writing a GEM. Thoroughly enjoyed.
Originally posted by: jayaks02
Have seen interesting view points on movie Vs Serial. HR Vs RT, who is better etc.
I find RT best in TV(Indian) of course. Fawad Khan is my other fav from PAK.But HR lent a very subtle taste , a majesty, an elegance, a special respectability to the Akbar. I liked his take on Akbar and found it absolutely fantastic.RT could have been a smashing hit if the story also revolved around him , his characterization maintained a certain balance with respect to other wives, his reforms were not snatched from him and attributed totally to his better half. Wish Akbar's entire personality of a superb administrator and a secular monarch upheld in script !!.It was not RT's fault in the slightest sense - Not even 0.00001% - IT was all due to script. But somehow the image of Akbar of serial is the latter version who roams around Agra palace and pujari of Jodha is not going away. I dreamt of JA love story when I stumbled upon JA serial, ate/slept/dreamt/drank this love story. But what a disappointment it has been for me and most alike. 😡Whereas HR's Akbar's image is intact as a dignified one throughout the movie - Even deleted scenes where he reconciles with Maham was also very well shot from emotional angle. ⭐️👏Till the very end, aura of Akbar was kept intact in movie ANd the victory belongs to Ashutosh G and AKBAR also.The one in JA Serial by the time it ended, only had the name as Akbar, and nothing else.
This is going to be a three in one, given that Episodes 8 & 9 were mostly as flat as a pappad, and almost entirely void of content.I shall pick up the very few points they had to offer at the end of this post. In fact, I begin to think that by the time they had finished with the magical No. 7, the CVs decided that we should not be spoilt with a succession of good and very good fare, in case we got visual indigestion. So they added these two deadly dull ones, somewhat like the way you give a baby Woodwards Gripe Water!😉
So let us concentrate on No,.10, which was a crackerjack of an episode, with Jalal at his swashbuckling best.
The revelation in the title is a double bill: first that of Jalal's identity to Jodha, and then, to her and to us, of how far his icy courage, even with death staring him in the face, could go. Coupled with this are his astuteness, and his quick-wittedness, both of which are phenomenal. A bunch of unanswered questions rounds it off.
At the top of his game: Jalal was in rip-roaring form, and despite the Damocles sword of having to rescue Abdul hanging over his head, he seemed to be enjoying himself like a lively, resourceful schoolboy playing truant.
Having inveigled the tubby mithaiwala into revealing the location of the prison (in the previous episode) - it was sheer delight to see the mischievous twinkle with which he tells the chap:Choki baat kahi hai aapne! Main to kahoon ki aapko is rajya ka gupt mantra hona chahiye! - he swiftly disposes of an unwary, mariyal- looking guard at the main entrance to the prison, and takes his place, complete with the uniform and the sword . And if the choga was splitting at the seams under his arms due the difference in their builds, why, no one would have been able to spot it! 😉
One should not miss the astuteness with which Jalal locates the identifying mark on the dead guard's arm and duplicates it on his own with the point of his knife. His attention to detail shown by the fact that before going into the prison as a soldier, he turns all the three rings on his right hand inside , so that the valuable stones do not show and thus betray him as not being a simple sipahi.
The impulsive youngster: Jalal looks exceptionally handsome in the simple sipahi's outfit, proving that he does not need any chamak-dhamak to enhance his looks. He oozes royalty, strength and power; arrogant, sharp and dripping with self-confidence even in such parlous straits. He is also an excellent actor, with the body language to fit his role as a sainik.
He is now ripe for mischief, and he is not going to stand still on guard duty, that is for sure! Fortune favours him - the goddess probably has a soft corner for a handsome young man - for Jodha's palki makes its appearance, and our boy wonder swings into action without losing a second, and without a second thought!
I was in stitches seeing him swiftly position himself as one of the front bearers of the palki. As soon as he has slotted himself in there, he proceeds to behave in a most un-bearerlike manner, casting sidelong glances upwards at the princess. It was sheer luck that he did not stumble and bring the palki down! 😉
Once the palki has been set down, and Jodha descends from it, Jalal stares at her unblinkingly, and his eyes, till then narrowed in thought, brighten as if a lamp had been lit inside them.
A strange, unrecognized longing: Very soon, however, the brightness gives way to wide-eyed, startled shock and anger as Jodha retails all of Jalal's misdeeds to Suryabhan, rounding her peroration off with an emphatic: Isi liye hum uska sar, uska ahankaar, aur uska samrajya pairon tale kuchala hua dekhna chahte hain! Jalal has never before been treated to such a catalogue of his crimes, committed knowingly and unknowingly, and he is stirred to an anger that is rooted in this realization of how he looks to Jodha.
A question arises here: why is he angry at all? Since it was his aim to spread the khauf-e-Jalal as far and as fast as he can, he should in fact have been pleased at this proof positive that his campaign has worked, for he is hated here in Amer, and thus feared, to a satisfactory extent.
There is only one answer to this conundrum. What makes Jalal angry is that it is Jodha who thinks so badly of him. Already, along with the nascent possessiveness and the obsession that she should be his and his alone, the desire to have her accept him and care for him is beginning to take root in his zehen. Soon, this yearning, which he himself does not recognize as yet, will spread and take over both his heart (yes, it is there! ) and his mind. These are the two factors that, even when Jalal is in a druken rage against Jodha, govern the way he behaves towards her.
The Mughal prisoner: As he walks alongside Jodha's train of daasis, Jalal's eyes narrow in anger as they voice their certitude that Jalal ka sar is now near at hand. Both then, and earlier when he is listening to Jodha rip into Jalaluddin Muhammad, he displays iron self-control, and not a muscle in face betrays the rising rage within him. This self-control foreshadows, and shows glimpses of the great tactician and strategist he is to become. And it pays off, for he learns precisely Abdu l is being held prisoner
Next he rushes to Abdul's cell and abuses him loudly in order to attract his attention. Even before Abdul recognises Jalal, his rock-hard conviction that Kisi bhi waqt mere Shahenshah aayenge, aur tumhari nazaron tale mujhe le jayenge illustrates the nature of the relationship between him and and his master.
Of caring and responsibility: One can only marvel at the extreme risks that Jalal runs to save a servitor,even if he is also a friend. It is proof positive that Jalal has a very acute sense of responsibility, and yes, a heart as well that knows how to be compassionate and caring
If that was not so, he would never have risked this life, and the destruction of all his hopes of victory over Rajasthan, to come right into the heart of the enemy's citadel to rescue Abdul. In the same situation, Bairam Khan would have left Amer, leaving Abdul die under torture. That is the difference between him and Jalal.
Another example of Jalal's kindness and consideration to those who serve him, which I have cited earlier, is the understanding way in which he waves away Zaheer's objections to his leaving the camp. That is not the way most absolute kings would have treated a servitor in such a case, they would have shouted at him or hit him for daring to raise any objections.
So the seeds of kindness, caring, and affection are already there in Jalal, they only need nurturing.
His mother cannot do that as she has lost all her hold over him , since he feels , and has must have had it drilled into him by Mahaam Anga, that her leaving him with a nurse was a total and cynical abandonment of her son to save her own life.So it will have to be someone else, Jodha being the most likely candidate for the job. But for that to have effect, she will also have to show that she cares for him, and that is not going to be easy.
The Shahenshah and the Rajkumari: So now we have the Shahenshah standing to attention in front
of Abdul's cell, eyes discreetly lowered
as Jodha approaches, but still casting sidelong glances at her.
When Abdul retorts to Suryabhan: Bahut kareeb hai wo.. Itne ki kisi bhi waqt uski shamsheer tum tak pahunch sakti hai.. , Jalal smiles into his moustache.. As Jodha launches into her usual tirade against Jalal and asserts that there is no way he can penetrate the walls of the Amer fort and get here, Jalal hardly reacts, being by now familiar with her routine!😉 But Abdul's mocking smile disappears when she mentions the foot-chopping and the desecration of temples.
The curious thing, illustrative of the lack of sharpness and perceptiveness in both Jodha and Suryabhan, is that it occurs to neither to deduce, from Abdul's cryptic but confident pronouncements, that Jalal might have penetrated into Amer. Both are busy making vainglorious statements of the kind that go before a fall.
Be that as it may, it appears that like Hercule Poirot, who could read writing even when it was upside down, Jodha too can read faces even when they are upside down, as that too irrespective of the get up. Thus she recognizes the face in the water in the sipahi standing guard before her, and she swiftly seizes Suryabhan's sword and holds it at Jalal's throat.
I spoke earlier of Jalal's icy courage. He gives a demonstration of it now. With a sword at his throat, and exposure and death only inches away from him, he still does not bat an eyelid, and not a muscle moves in his face as he brazens it out. He is obviously one of those who habitually play at dice with death. 👏
I was entranced by the suppressed mischief in his eyes as he looks at Jodha full in the face and, asked how he was present at the baudi ,answers, in the the fluent rural Rajasthani dialect, undoubtedly a carryover from his childhood in Umarkot: Manne koyi nahin bataya tha ki wahan jaane ki anumati ne hai.. Kyonki hamare yahan to koyi bhi aa jaa sakta hai bina rok tok ke..
And to the follow up question: Kahan ke ho tum? , the eyes are bright and compelling as he answers, a half smile twisting his mouth:Umarkot!
Finally, the cheekiness with which he comments, after having 'proved' himself to be a Rajput soldier, Mahaul hi shaque se bhara hua hai.. Hawa hi itni zahreeli ki sans ke to mare, na le to mare.. Phir bhi choki baat kahi aapne.. and he looks her full in the face... Yahan koyi bhi Mughal ho sakta hai.
Reckless excellence: There are other things to admire in this arrogant cavalier.
There is the superb swordsmanship that could overcome and disable at least 11 soldiers - this was my count, but there might have been a couple or so more at the sides - and then the sheer physical strength needed to bend those thick prison bars so that he could enter the cell, cut the chains and rescue Abdul. This last reminded me (and Holmes aficionadas will bear me out) of Dr, Grimesby Roylott in The Speckled Band, who could bend a steel poker. And of course Sherlock Holmes himself, who could straighten out the bent poker!
Finally, the arrogant declaration of both his identity and his intent in the message : Agli mulaqat jung mein hogi.. Jalaluddin Muhammad - left on the prison floor, and written in the only medium available, blood, presumably that of the 11 incapacitated guards. Curiously enough, the message is bilingual.Now it is obviously for the benefit of the Rajputs and us, but why then the Persian version?
This is vintage Jalal all over. The flamboyant gesture, the problems with its logistics notwithstanding, is exactly the kind of thing Jalal would do, though, by doing so, he further jeopardises his already tough escape, and in the pre-cap, is getting ready to fight a round dozen opponents with a limp Abdul on his hands to boot. But of course we know that, like d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, our boy wonder will emerge a winner, which is the only saving grace!
Jodha does not have that much to do here. But in the striking face to face encounter with Jalal in the prison, when she sees the identification mark on his arm, her genuine regret and her desire to make amends, even to a simple soldier, for having suspected him wrongly, are brought out very convincingly. Her face softens and the eyes offer an unstated apology.
And in her tete a tete with Suryabhan, she is sweetly grateful for his assurances, but at the same time self-assertive.
At the end, Jodha is furious because Jalal has made a fool of her, and she has unknowingly saved his life. In fact, she does that twice, not only during the prison encounter, but earlier, though she does not know it, when she stops the execution of Abdul. If she had not done so, Jalal would have come charging out, dagger in hand, and however hard or well he fought, he would have been overpowered and killed, or worse for him, imprisoned and humiliated.
In the whole episode, however, what stands out, above all else, is Jalal's ice-cold nerve in the face of near certain exposure, and all that this would entail.
The questions:
1)
Jalal could neither read nor write. So the message must
have been written by Abdul, even in his battered and exhausted
state. The blood would have had to be taken from the wounded soldiers
scattered all over the hall in front of the cells.
It must have been Abdul who did it, for there is no other option, unless the CVs got Saraswati Devi to suddenly decide to bless Jalal and make him proficient in writing! As Sherlock Holmes used to say When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.
Abdul is a cripple, and his crutches are nowhere in evidence. How on earth was this calligraphic exercise accomplished, and how long did it take? Ten minutes would seem an underestimate. This very precious time would have been better used in trying to get away safely, don't you think? It might in fact have made all the difference between life and death for both him and Jalal.
2) Where was the time for Jalal to fight the soldiers, pull Abdul out of the cell, and get the message done before the royal group returned to that hall? Maybe he had a Time Turner, like Hermione in The Prisoner of Azkaban!😉
3) The departing contingent led by Jodha and Suryabhan is very close to the prison hall. Even as they are looking at the dead guard being carried in, they are alerted by a loud groaning sound, presumably from Jalal's wounded victims, and rush back to the hall, to find the birds flown. Now the prison is not a rabbit warren of many corridors, but seems to be consist only of the main hall and some adjacent halls. How then did no one see Jalal rescuing Abdul after disposing of 11+ soldiers, and carrying him out of the prison? And where were Suryabhan and Jodha when all this mayhem was under way?
Shaguni Bai: I am not going into Mainavati's meeting with her, except to note that her pronouncement: Jo Jodha ka haath thaam lega, wo is yug ka sabse bada raja kehlayega! gladdened my heart. Atta girl, I said to myself, this prophecy of yours is Ekta-proof!😉
Episodes 8 & 9: I am not going into the horrible blinding of Zaheer, except to note Bairam Khan's response to Zaheer's anguished cry: Hum Shahenshah ke wafaadaar hain!- Par Mughal Sultanat ke nahin. It is this very distinction that Bairam Khan voices later, when he is complaining to Salima Begum about Jalal and the Takhatmal case, and which, eventually, leads to his downfall.
Nor am I going into the verbal joust between him and Mahaam Anga, which was reminiscent of two scorpions, stings raised, circling each other warily.
The face in the water: There is a dreamy, prophetic quality to the way in which the unknown face in the water haunts Jodha, so much so that she sees it even with her eyes closed. She looks puzzled and troubled as she asks the image: Aakhir kaun ho tum? Kyon aankhen tumhara chehra bhula nahin paatin? The closing shot of Jalal's face in this sequence is arresting, with the features looking are if they had been fashioned with a knife, so sharp are the planes.
Sujamal & Jodha: The desolation on Jodha's face, as she remembers her fencing bouts with a blindfolded Sujamal, who still manages to disarm her every time, stays with you. As does Sujamal's explanation of how he pulls that off: Man aur shareer jab ekaagra hokar kaam karte hain, to aatma saath deti hai.. Aise mein aapki talwar hi aapki dhaal ban jaati hai, jo waar karti bhi hai aur waar se bachati bhi hai.. This philosophy reminded me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull!
Suryabhan: His lovelorn effusions about Jodha are really poetic: Kyon aisa hai, Jodha, sochoon to thara naam sujhe, aankhen band karoon to tu hi nazar aaye, talwar dekhoon to aankhen dikhe thaari, har waqt man hai teri yaadon se bhari..kyon kuch samajh nahin sakta tere siva.. Jodha, aakhir kaun ho tum? Unfortunately, his mono-expression, plasticine face has no room for the high romantic. No wonder the director keeps him behind a screen when he is spouting all this!😉
Editing by Zee Anmol: I think there is some amount of editing going on here. For one thing, every episode is under 20 minutes. Secondly, a discussion between the Rajputs in the maikhana, about their getting hold of Jalal's harem after defeating him was missing. When I heard that the first time, I felt sad that the Rajputs here seemed to have the same attitude toward the womenfolk of the enemy as the Mughals (bar Jalal, I presume). The kind of respect and honour to be accorded to all non-combatants, especially women, as part of the traditional yuddha dharma seem to have long since vanished by the 16th century.
The dunderhead Abdul: He is remarkably ill-prepared for his disguise as a jyotishi. He would have done far better to have come as an ordinary man, which would have kept him safe. He looks panicky, and he does not even take care, when he pushes Suryabhan's largesse into his kamarbandh, that he should not dislodge the Mughal gold coins there. And he lands Jalal in an extremely sticky situation.
Then again, in the prison, as soon as he recognizes Jalal, he starts smiling, which, if there had been any keen Rajput observers, would have been deadly. Again, when Jalal is answering Jodha's question about his native place, and later when he is asked to prove that he is a Rajput soldier, Abdul's face is taut with tension before Jalal responds, and he is smiling immediately afterwards. Both could have been very dangerous for Jalal.
Jalal-Jodha :Lastly, a speculative exercise about the current relationship between Jalal and Jodha.
What Jalal feels for Jodha is a rapidly changing thing, so
anything one says now might be overtaken by the next episode. In the short term,
however, as I wrote earlier on another thread, Jalal is going to find out that
his new begum is more like a hedgehog
than a velvet pillow 😉(that makhmali badan nonsense; when she is sitting
in the palki and he can see nothing
of her but her face, how does he spot the makhmali badan?)
Still, I think he feels:
1) Great appreciation of her bepanah husn (I have my own views on
this,but it is what he thinks that counts, after all!). Akbar was said to
be a lover of the beautiful in general, and in a woman, it would go without
saying! But this would not be an obsession, for he is used to beautiful women,
after all.
There would be a strong element of desire, but it would not be decisive or
dominant.
Love is still far away, and in any case, right now he does not know what love
is.
2) Anger at her having held him at the point of a sword. What, a mere woman to
dare to do that to ME! Still, this is mingled with reluctant admiration for her
courage, which gains ground once he is back in his camp.
3) A burning determination and desire, linked to No.2, to give her a proper
comeuppance. He thinks this would be best done by making her come to him
voluntarily, as a way of saving her Amer from destruction at his hands.
4) Lastly, a growing discomfort, camouflaged as rage against her, due to the
harsh home truths she voices about him. That gets under his skin and rankles,
especially, as discussed above, because it
is Jodha who is voicing them.
Ok, folks, this is it. I'll be back on Monday.
Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di
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