Folks,
First things first. Let me wish all of you, my gentle readers (this is only a traditional appellation; I am sure most of you are far from gentle!😉) a joyous, colourful, noisy and altogether fun Deepavali. May the lights of this, the most delightful of our festivals, illuminate the year ahead, and bring you the best of health, fulfillment, and peace of mind!
Coming to our serial, peace of mind was the one item in short supply for our lead couple. If there was one thing that stood out at the end of these 3 episodes and a bit more, it was the enormous difficulty, for them, of moving from move from enmity and suspicion on the one side, and acute exasperation on the other, to friendship, not to speak of love.
By the beginning of the Saturday night episode ( I have covered it only up the end of the Diwan-e-Khas scene; I will include the rest, including the super-stormy Jalal-Jodha encounter 2, in my next), it was clear that not even Jalal's public and unreserved apology to all the Ameris was enough to lift Jodha's mood. On the contrary, she seemed more miserable than she had probably ever been before, and all because Jalal had offered her a way out of the marriage she had repeatedly proclaimed to be a millstone round her neck. And it is this misery that led to her lachrymose and incomprehensible outburst in the latter part of the episode, which left Jalal first bewildered and finally furious. But of that next Thursday.
Let us start with the sole pleasant interlude during this period. We have already disposed of the second part of the Grand Accusation Scene Part 2 , between Jodha, Rahim and Jalal, last time .
Ambe Mata to the rescue: Jodha, her Rahim missile having backfired, is now at her wits' end how to proceed, for she never even considered abandoning her campaign to open Jalal's eyes to the perfidy of his beloved Badiammi. Kanha having apparently earned a day off after some heavy duty listening over the past week😉, it was left to Ambe Mata to do the honours this time. And she did it in style.
The CVs seemed to have got their act together again after the titanic upheaval in the Jodha Akbar team at Balaji, for they managed to sort out several seemingly intractable problems concerning, in no particular order: the solution of the dibbi mystery, the puzzle about the pirbaba get up, the relevance of Humayun's humshakal Mullah Beqazi, and what Jodha was doing out in the streets of Agra. In the process, they also
(a) provided an excellent, entirely plausible, and very favourable build up for Jodha Begum in the eyes or, to be precise, the ears of her patidev, who was till now convinced (almost exclusively by her, of course) that she hated him unconditionally and thought only of pulling him down at every opportunity. Yet there she was, dressing down a group of idle townsfolk in no uncertain terms for maligning the Shahenshah who, she pointed out to them , was their protector and father figure. She then hauled them over the coals for gossiping about the affairs of her parivaar which, she made it clear, were niji, and thus not open for public comment. The CVs further
(b) supplemented this with a very revealing comment to the aforesaid patidev, at the end of that very charming little exchange between the fake fakir and his real queen: Na to ek Shahenshah ki bhiksha maagna shobha deta hai, aur na hi ek patni ko shoba deta hai ki uske pati ko phailate dekhe! No wonder that as she went her way, the fakir's mouth twisted in a curious and entirely pleased half smile.
Institutional loyalty: Overall, I would say that it was more a question of propriety vis a vis her present parivaar and royal pride in Jodha than of loyalty to her husband per se, though the impact on Jalal would have been the same as if she had gone into battle to defend him personally! Nor it is specifically a Rajput trait, for I am sure Ruqaiya would have defended the Shahenshah as well, but not even a tenth as effectively. She would have had the whole lot clapped up in jail, and only stoked resentment among the Hindu subjects of the Mughal sultanate.
To revert, Jodha's defence of the Shahenshah is for the institution, not for the man.There is a distinction there. That is why she does not defend him on the charge that he is kroor. She cannot in all honesty do that, for she feels the same, and she will not lie for him. But she forbids any criticism of him in his capacity as the Shahenshah, in a blanket fashion, on the grounds that they are his praja and it is no more for them to criticise him that it would be for a son to criticise his father.
It is its way just as authoritarian a pronouncement as any Ruqaiya would have made - and she too would not have defended him so much out of possessiveness , but out of the shared pride in her Timuri nasl. It is the same, in a slightly different way, with Jodha. It is the attitude peculiar to royalty, and she has the same pride in her being royal, and her husband as well. As for the interpretation that she felt it was part of her wifely duties, I do not share it. In fact, Jodha Begum has a very selective approach to the subject!😉
Incidentally, no one in those days, Hindu or Muslim, would have dared to criticise the Emperor so harshly and loudly in the middle of the bazaar. It was a far fetched gimmick, though the scene was charming and of course it served a definite purpose.
Poirot at last!: To top all this, the CVs also fulfilled my deepest desire: to see Jalal do something effective re: the dibbi entirely on his own!
I am not sure he launched into this line of action because of Jodha's parting homily, that to get at the truth, one has to set aside all sambandh and all moh, ie that he has to set aside his unquestioning trust in his Badiammi. I feel it had more to do with his remark to Ruqaiya that if he did not solve the mystery soon, people would start thinking of him as incapable.
Whatever it was, he did some out of the box thinking, and it worked. More important, even the very clever Ruqaiya had not thought of this tack, having bought the dibbi maker's assertion that he could not see anything of the buyer because the person was in a burqa. It was only Jalal who thought of what even a burqa still reveals, the eyes.
That he decides to go to the dibbi maker rather than summon him to the palace, and possibly put his life in jeopardy, shows Jalal's innate consideration for the man's safety.
To revert, it worked for him and for us. Besides the long awaited solution, we were treated to the spectacle of Jalal masquerading as a pirbaba/fakir. Admittedly, despite the best he could do in terms of a quavering voice, plus assorted pleas to the public seeking alms for a gareeb, laachar, bhuka Allah ka banda, he could not help looking like the rusht pusht, khaata peeta individual that he really is. Any more than he could suddenly sport a 6 pack just because he had to do a hamaam scene!😉
But allowing for all this, it was great fun watching him, especially as he dived for cover when Jodha started moving his way. Earlier, as he spotted her scolding some other devotees of Ambe Mata at the temple for not keeping the premises clean, he must have said to himself: Phir se Jodha Begum?!? Yeh aurat mera peecha hi nahin chodti! Allah ka shukr hai ki hum is poshak me hain, nahin to yakeenan Badiammi ke baare mein phir se shuru ho jaati!😉
The eyes of Maham Anga: (With apologies to Laura Mars!) When the combined efforts of the dibbi maker and the artist (Tabassum, who had earlier painted both Jalal for Ruqaiya, and Jodha for Jalal, simply from the verbal descriptions) are in progress, Jalal's mounting tension is clearly visible; he is literally on pins, as stretched as a taut sitar string.
When the artist calls out to him that it is finished, he hesitates visibly, and looks away; he is afraid of what he might see.
Then he steels himself, moves behind the two others, and turns his head. His eyes widen in incredulous disbelief. Kya yeh wohi aankhen hain? Kya tumhein yakeen hai? he asks, in a desperate effort at negation. But that escape route is blocked for Jalal, and the blow has fallen.
As he moves away and stands with his back to the other two, the storm of fury and grief that rages within him is revealed only in two lone tears that trickle down his cheeks. He wipes them surreptitiously, picks up the dibbi and puts it in the bag, and leaves the room.
He has crossed his personal Rubicon.
In the final frame, Jalal is striding into the harem. The gut wrenching confrontation with Maham Anga that he has prepared hmself for still lies ahead. Also the trauma of a lifetime of trust shattered in an instant. For one who has had so few he could trust, the loss of this one will be shattering, and the wounds will run deep.
Shot of the day: Little Rahim's large, scared eyes looking up at the Shahenshah, while his body language vividly brings out the near panic that possesses him at that moment.
Question of the day: What on earth was the point of that entirely irrelevant and unduly long segment of Kunwar Pratap and Raja Bharmal? My best guess is that the poor chap hamming it up as Pratap, whose role in Pavitra Rishta disappeared after a 18 year leap, had been promised a certain number of days work, and the PH were simply filling in his attendance sheet😉.
My wish in 2013 was that Kunwar Pratap would attack and capture Bharmal, and hold him to ransom, thus helping finance his war against Jalal😉. Then we could have got to see how far the vainglorious boasts by Bharmal to Jalal about unsheathing his talwar panned out in a skirmish with the redoubtable warrior that Pratap is (regardless of the unimpressive appearance of the one playing him here!) But as usual, nothing came of that!
Historical footnote: Kunwar Pratap mentioned Halidghati here, but this cannot be the famous battle at that site, for that was 14 years later in 1576 (the Jalal-Jodha marriage was in 1562)
Maharana Pratap was defeated at the Battle of Haldighati in 1576 . Shakti Singh, Pratap's step brother, fought for the Mughals, but he helped Pratap escape after the defeat. Maharana Pratap regrouped and resorted to guerilla warfare against the Mughal army, and did win back a lot of Mewar's territory, though he could not defeat Akbar decisively.
Abdur Rahim Khanekhana, our little Rahim, was also one of Akbar's generals, and was in charge of the campaign against Maharana Pratap in 1580.
Now on to the denoument of the Great Maham Mystery.
Episode 70: The skeleton behind the mirror (Bolding not by my choice!)
I do not know about you, but for me, the abiding image after this turbulent episode, that eddied and swirled with violent emotions and violent reactions, was not that of Jalal kneeling on the floor of his chamber, throwing his head back, and screaming in unrestrained, gut wrenching anguish: Aapne hamare saath aise kyon kiya, Badiammi ?, even as images of a happier, more gentle past with her, and others of her braving cannon fire to rescue him from certain death, flash across his mind.
Jalal & Rahim:A revelation: Nor was it the incredibly charming scene where Jalal, with a grasp of child psychology that would have done a naanijaan proud, and is astonishing in a youg man who is a warrior and an emperor, and who does not even have a niece or nephew, coaxes Rahim's tale of the dibbi out of him at long last.
When he tells the child: Aapki Chotiammi se aapki naarazgi jaahiz hai. Unko aap donon ke beech ki baatein humein nahin Battani chahiye thi. ..Par hum waada nahin todenge, hum aapki sab baat manenge... Sirf ek sach batana hoga ki yeh dibbi aapko kahan se mili, Rahim!, I applauded vigorously, for his unerring, gentle understanding of what was really bothering Rahim was amazing. Then the other dibbis from Altaf Qadri's shop, as a test for Rahim's identification of the fatal one, the promise of a multitude of toys, and the vital assurance that Rahim would not be punished in any way.
It is thus that Rahim, ensconced in his ataliq's lap, and encouraged by his mother to tell the truth, is finally persuaded to unburden himself.
I am, right now, not going into the impact of that truth on Jalal's psyche. I knew it would shatter him and it does. When he says to himself, bitterly, Apne. Kabhi socha bhi nahin that ki mera hi saaya humari peeth mein khanjar bhonk dega, the full agony of this betrayal, by the one he loved above all others and trusted above all others, stands fully revealed. As we watch Jalal walking thru the palace corridors after leaving Salima's rooms, his face a mask of misery and his shoulders hunched as if under a sudden burden too heavy even for him to bear, the depth of the trauma is laid bare.
Let us rather consider what the way Jalal handles Rahim reveals about Jalal himself. He is able to look at the whole matter from the child's perspective, peep into the child's mind, guess what is troubling him, and then find a way to calm those fears convincingly, and all this without alarming Rahim in the least.
When contrasted with the way in which Jodha, a very kind person in general and extremely affectionate towards Rahim, and moreover one who is used to children, bombards him with leading questions and stampedes him into angry flight, Jalal's rating goes much higher.
The comparison also proves a point I have reiterated in the past. No one can accuse Jodha of being over imaginative, for she has no imagination. She cannot put herself in the place of another person and try to think as he would think, and this whether is is Rahim, whom she loves, or Jalal, whom she professes to hate.
Whereas Jalal, the quintessential alpha male, a species not generally known for its sensitivity, and moreover one who constantly advertises his heartlessness, can get effortlessly into the heart of a four year old and win the child's trust. What does this say about him?
Not just fatherly: As for Jalal having been fatherly towards Rahim and thus having succeeded, it is more than that. The father angle, and Jalal's/Akbar's ability to relate differentially to individuals, are both true, but this is not really what touched and delighted me about the Rahim-Jalal scene.
For not all fathers, even in this 21st century, can relate to and really understand their children, and in the 16th century, that too among royalty, the kind of indulgence Jalal extends to Rahim would have been rare even among real fathers and their children.
Next , you have to take into account that Jalal is a young and very macho man, and he has no experience of children in his immediate family. Even otherwise, how many 22 year olds even today would be able to or would have the inclination to relate to a child? Very few. That Jalal can is because there is a kid inside him, and that kid is an emotionally deprived little boy.
But even after allowing for this, what Jalal is able to do with Rahim is rare and impressive.
To learn how to handle adults and get the best out of them is one thing.
To love children in general is another. Jalal does that, but so does Jodha.
To be able to coax a frightened child, and one who is frightened of yourself, into revealing what you want to know something quite different, and it is a remarkable feat of sensitivity and perceptiveness.
The whole segment reveals more about Jalal than a lot of the past episodes put together. That is why I not only loved that scene at the emotional level, but I think it is very significant as far as our understanding of Jalal is concerned. So I wanted to highlight it so that it is not lost in the excessive focus on Maham's hammy villainy. I hope all of you will share my delight at this scene.
To revert, nor was it the scene that follows, with the slow changes in Jalal's face as Rahim proceeds with his story of how he found the dibbi. It is as if the features are being crumpled, one layer at a time, by the hand of fate, as the depth of the betrayal sinks into his zehen.
Jalal-Salima: True empathy: Nor the last exchange between Jalal and Salima, as he rises to leave, and asks her, simply, Salima Begum? There are different kinds of bonds, and the one between them, based on their shared love for his Khan Baba, is such that no explanations are needed. When she assures him that his secret will go with her to the grave, Jalal attempts a smile of grateful acknowledgement that does not quite come off. The weary sadness in his face and his eyes tugs at her heart, as it does at ours, as he inclines his head wordlessly and leaves.
Sharbat piyo!: No, it was none of the above high points, though each, in its own way, put us thru an emotional wringer.
It was the moment when Maham Anga, her mouth working and her kohl-rimmed eyes ablaze with the light of near madness, assures Adham Khan, frantic with worry about his fate and that of his mother: Hum kahin nahin jaayenge, hum yahin rahenge! Aap jaisa soch rahe hain waisa kuch nahin hoga! Hum dekhna chahte hain ki ab Jalal kya karta hai. Aage aage dekho hota hai kya! As Adham looks on in despair, his normally rough, brutal face now like that of a frightened child, she rises to her feet and turns away from him.
Sharbat piyo!
My skin literally crawled at the sound of those two little words. Was this a Lady Macbeth, as one of my young friends from 2013, Stargirl, would have it, confident that evil will prevail ? Was she a witch from centuries past, now reincarnated, and sure that the forces of darkness she has placated will see her thru this crisis ? Or was it something else? The last weapon of an intrigante sans pareille, a mistress of intrigue, incomparable in her deadly skill at weaving webs of deceit and betrayal?
Maham moves to another room, adjusts her cowl in front of a huge mirror in the light of a mashaal, then opens a secret door behind that mirror (there seems to be no special hidden latch, no key, nothing. So how this door remained a secret in the terminally nosy rabbit warren of the Agra palace is an even greater mystery than that of Maham's unshakeable self-confidence). She pushes open yet another whitish door that lies behind, turns back to us, and intones ominously Waqt aa gayaa hai. End of scene.
A totally paisa vasool scene, as they say of the movies. A cliffhanger of an ending, guaranteed (in 2013) to push BP levels across the forum to dangerous heights. My blood pressure is chronically low, and then again, even at the first viewing, I was not one to to drive myself nuts in frenzied, and ultimately fruitless speculation!
It is interesting to note that when alerted by the ever faithful Resham to the impending danger that threatens his Ammijaan's life, all that the son for whom she has betrayed her very soul can think of is that his own mustaqbil (future) will be destroyed if she is caught and punished. So much for filial love! Poor Maham, though this might see m a strange thing to say of a murderess and a traitor.
NB: While rewatching this scene, I now begin to feel that it was the fake Maham, Lakhi, who was here with Adham. The mannerisms, the mad light in the eyes, the mouth working, are more like her than like the real Maham. I wonder how many of you would agree with me on this.
Jodha: Lack of understanding: I have already noted her lack of imagination. As Jodha and Moti give each other high fives and rejoice, understandably, that Shahenshah ki aankhon ki patti khul gayi!, I would have been pleased if she could have added just one little sentence that marked her understanding of what this crushing blow would mean for Jalal. After what she has learnt of the horrors of his childhood, and the roots of his unshakeable faith in and love for his Badiammi, Iwould have expected a woman as intelligent as Jodha to have been able to grasp the depth of his grief at this betrayal.
The contrast with Salima's face, that mirrors the gathering clouds of grief and despair on Jalal's face as Rahim proceeds with his tale, is striking.
To forestall a torrent of legitimate complaints about the atrocious way in which Jodha was treated by Jalal during the affair of the dature ka ark, and why then should she feel the least bit sorry for his present plight, let me add the following.
I do not say that Jodha should sympathise or empathise with Jalal over this brutal shock he has suffered. But she should be able to understand it as an analyst would understand it. That would show her intelligence and her ability to set her personal emotions aside when analysing a situation. This is precisely the need to set aside sambandh and moh when seeking the truth, as she herself advises Jalal. The sambandh can be good or bad, and the maxim applies to her as much as it does to Jalal.
But Jodha gives no inkling of any such understanding.
Secondly, it is not as though she does not care what happens to her vivekheen patidev. In fact, as I had noted 2 earlier in my Changing Equations ?? post, about her sudden declaration of her being Jalal's shubchintak, and her railing about how Maham did not love him as he loved her, that those close to the Shahenshah were there only to exploit his power, the facts seem to point in the opposite direction!
To revert, Jodha also seems quite incapable of understanding what Bharmal explains so clearly to his family today, that Ratan Singh, who sponsored dacoits who preyed on the common people, was a totally undesirable husband for Sukanya. She never even thinks on those logical lines.
But there was one curious and revealing glimpse of Jodha here. While exulting in her deduction that the Shahenshah had gone to the bazaar in disguise to seek sakshya about the case, she also wonders : Ab jab Rahim ne unhein sach bata diya hai, kya tab unhein hamari baat par vishwas hoga? Ya phir Maham Anga ko kshama kar denge? Her desire that he should believe in her is clearly not in accord with her professed ghrina for him. But then, this is hardly news for us, right, folks?
Jalal-Maham: Crossing the Rubicon: In 2013, contrary to those who felt that Jalal would hesitate about punishing Maham, I was convinced of the contrary. Let us take the ehsaan angle first. Jalal owed even more to Bairam Khan than to Maham, but when the crunch came, and he was seen as to usurp the Shahenshah's authority, Jalal was finally ready to do battle against him.
What Maham Anga has done is infinitely worse. It is a vile crime against the emperor and the empire, for personal gain.Bairam Khan never had any personal agenda, he simply believed that he knew better than the young and inexperienced Jalal, and was becoming too dictatorial. I am sure you see the difference.
The nature of Maham's crime, I felt, would, if it was proved against her irrefutably, completely negate everything she has ever done for Jalal and more. Jalal's love for her would be curdled in that instant and would turn into hate.The Maham Anga in the film had not done anything remotely as evil as this, and yet she was swept aside in an instant.
I was thus pleased to see that for once, my take on a plot development turned out to be correct! That Maham eventually weasels her way out of this crunch by using a doppelganger (German for lookalike) does not affect this point, that Jalal is no longer so enmeshed in gratitude for past caring that he will condone present betrayal. He is slowly changing, is Jalal, and the outlines of the future Akbar are dimly visible already.
Bharmal: Remarkable good sense: I never thought I would ever do this, but I was mentally cheering the portly Bharmal when he was exposing his lamenting womenfolk, with gentle but compelling logic, to a series of home truths: about the villainy of Ratan Singh, that would have ruled him out as a husband for Sukanya had it been known in advance, about the Shahenshah's compulsions as a ruler dispensing justice and about the corrective actions he had taken as soon as he could, about the tough choice he himself had had to make between Jodha's future and Sukanya's.
It was an admirable display of balanced judgement and calm wisdom. He did let Jalal down more lightly than the facts of the case really warranted, but then that too was necessary to preserve the peace of mind of his household.
So, on to Episode 71 !
Episode 71: Of things said and left unsaid
In the virtuoso opening sequence of this episode , what I could not forget for long afterwards was the drawn, stunned, nearly unbelieving look on Jodha's face as Jalal was explaining the mechanics of the talaq-e-khula. Her dark eyes looked unnaturally large in a pale face, and they seemed to be burning with a lambent fire. Exactly like that other time when it finally dawned on her, at the muh dikhayi scene in Sambhar, whom she was marrying. There seemed to be the same sudden, crushing despair, the sense of being trapped without any way out. But why?
It is from the answer to this question, and that to the identical question we could pose to Jalal, that the title to this post is derived.
Jalal-Jodha 1: a tour de force: The opening scene, when Jalal arrives, unexpectedly and unannounced, in Jodha's hoojra, is a remarkable one at many levels. It is superbly conceived, crisply written, and enacted in a way that goes well beyond even the splendid script. Plus it sets the tone, and decides the content, of the Jalal-Jodha relationship for the immediate future.
Jalal: the opening gambit: This is entirely unplanned, arising as it does from Jodha's evident shock at his arriving while she is undressing. But Jalal's remarks are unexpectedly telling, for they illuminate the corners of his heart that he keeps out of bounds.
There is a veiled bitterness when he speaks of all that he finds ajeeb between him and Jodha.
Shauhar apni begum se milta hai par use lagta hai jaise wo kisi ajnabee se mil raha ho, aur ek begum apne shauhar ko dekh kar sihar jaati hai, to kya yeh ajeeb nahin hai? Jodha looks puzzled, and a tad worried.
Hamare harem mein tamaam baandiyaan, tamaam begum hamari ek nazar to tarasti hain, aur aap humse nazar bhi nahin milana chahtin, kya yeh ajeeb nahin hai? Jodha wraps her dupatta tightly around herself, and looks if anything more worried, for she does not grasp where all this is leading.
He moves around her. Ek shauhar hone ke naate yeh hamara haq hai ki hum aapko jee bhar ke niharein (what a lovely, delicate term, with so many hidden meanings!) , lekin hamara dil nahin karta. Kya yeh ajeeb nahin hai? If he is economical with the truth here , who shall blame him? He has already decided to bend more than ever before in his life, and to demand that he be truthful now would be asking too much of him.
Aur aaj bhi, aap kapde badalte waqt aise chaunk gayin jaise kisi ajnabee ne aapko dekh liya hai, to kya yeh ajeeb nahin hai?
Jodha is by now looking very tense. Jalal must have noticed this, whence his next sentences. Beherhal, aapko khauff khane ki zaroorat nahin hai, kyonki hum aapko choone ya paane ke liye nahin aaye hain. Jodha's expression is inscrutable; is she relieved or a wee bit disappointed? Pata nahin. But on to
The Shahi maafinama: What surprised me was not Jalal's apology itself - I had predicted it in 2013, one of the rare occasions when I got it right! - but its candour and straightforwardness. Jalal is nothing if not honest with himself about himself, and he knows full well when and how he has gone wrong. Very rarely, he acknowledges this to others as well, as with Bharmal the other day and, even more unequivocally, with Jodha now. But when he does so, it is straight from the shoulder, there are no ifs and buts and maybes. As it is here.
Ek Shahenshah hone ke naate hum kisise maafi maangna zaroori nahin samajhte, na hi humne aaj tak kabhi kisi se maafi maangi hai. Lekin aaj hum aapke saamne ek afsos zaahir karna chahte hain. Hum jaante hain ki humne aap par bewajah shaque kiya ( not quite correct, given the evidence of the ark in the kesar), aapko qasoorwaar tehraya. Humne galti ki, aur hum ab us galti ko sudharna chahte hain, asal qasoorwar ko sazaa dekar.
This is not just more than he has ever done before, but more than what he said, in an identical situation as far as his unjustified accusation went, to Bharmal, when he explained it as a harsh compulsion a ruler faces at times. And he does not say even so much to Jodha's brothers, nor do they, beginning with Mansingh, expect it. So why this explicit apology to Jodha now?
The reason why: Methinks it is because he is not apologizing for the false accusation or the nazarband. He is really, without saying so, apologizing for all the unwarranted and extra harshness, the emotional cruelty bordering on sadism, with which he treated her during those days, the constant threats at close quarters, the sneering announcements of special pain to be visited on her by hurting her loved ones.
Jodha does not know that this relentless hatred and sadism were rooted in his perception of a loss almost as bitter that of his unborn child. The loss of his budding trust in her, the caring, the special regard and respect, that he had begun to feel for her despite believing that she still detested him. It was the conviction that she had killed his child out of her hatred for him , to hurt him in the worst possible way - Tum mujhse nafrat karti ho na? To mujh par vaar karti. Mere bachche ko kyon mara? - that fuelled the blind rage that shut out Jalal's sense of justice, his sense of his responsibilities as the final court of appeal, leaving only a burning thirst for revenge. A thirst that was all the more implacable because he knew that lurking in some corner of his being, there was Jalal II, who still refused to believe in Jodha's guilt.
This, then, is one of the things unsaid, but alas, not understood.
Jalal: The final gamble: When Jodha asks, at the end of his apology, Bas yahi batane aaye the aap? ( a curious reaction. What had she expected? ), Jalal's face is still and inscrutable. His eyes look not outwards, but inwards into his own zehen. He is preparing for the final throw of the dice, for his final gamble. Like all good gamblers, he hopes to win, but he can take it on the chin without flinching if fate decrees otherwise.
He wants her, not so much to merely stay back in Agra, as to stay back of her own free will. To be offered a way out which she would then refuse, again of her own free will. He wants her, in short, to accept him, to care for him, to feel a sense of belonging with him. This unspoken longing, that he has not managed to articulate even to himself, is another of the things unsaid, and again not understood, at least not as yet.
So he responds: Nahin. Shahenshah hain hum. Kisise kuch maangein aur uske badle mein use kuch na den to yeh hamare aude ki tauheen hogi. There is no reaction from Jodha. Humne aapse maafi maangi. Iske badle mein hum aapko do raaste denge. Nothing moves in Jodha's face.
Aap kayi martaba yeh izhaar kar chuki hain ki aap humse beintehaa nafrat karti hain. Jodha's eyes narrow. He continues: Aapka dum ghut tha hai yahan. Aap hamara shakal bhi nahin dekhna chahti. Aapka ilzaam hum par hai ki humne aapko yahan qaid kar liya hai, aapke Amer se door, aapke ghar se door. Isliye hum aapke liye ek raaste kholenge. Aur hamara faisla sun ne je baad aapko in sab se chutkara mil jayenga, aap apne Amer jaa sakengi. Aap ko humse, hamare chehre se nishat mil jayegi.
It is only after he has explained the working of the talaq-e-khula, ending with Aur hum aapko wo razamandi dete hain, that Jodha raises her eyes, wide with shock, and he looks full into them. He talks of her being sent to Amer after the talaq-e-khula, , baizzat, and with the eilaan that she was returning as she had come, untouched by him. He turns, and speaks now with his back to her.
Hum jaante hain ki iske baad, shayad taa umr aapko apni zindagi akeli bitani pade. Lekin yeh us insaan ke saath bitane se behatar hoga jis se aap beinteha nafrat karti hain.
The same bitterness with which he speaks of what he finds ajeeb, colours his repeated references to the beinteha nafrat that he believes she feels for him. His words are as harsh and unsparing as the hidden sense of hurt that drives them.
But every time he uses that phrase, I think he hopes that she would, though not deny it, at least qualify it. But she is shell-shocked, and unable to take it all in, so he gets no such reaction, in fact no reaction at all, and he goes on till the end.
The talaq-e-khula: It has been said here in 2013 that Jalal does not understand the meaning of a marriage, of the special bond between a man and a woman, as Jodha does. This is not true. The theoretical longevity of a Rajput marriage might have been for this life and beyond, but that hardly meant that it was, inevitably, an idyllic saat janam ka rishta.
The norm for a marriage, Rajput or Mughal, in those days was an alliance of convenience, of familial obligations and compulsions, of suitability. Not one based on affection, not to speak of love. Queens, Rajput or Mughal, claimed no exclusive rights to their husband, whom they shared with many other queens, and one or more of them were his favourites. There was jealousy, scheming, plotting, and often helpless detestation of the husband. No ideal, janam janam ka rishta, this!
The Mughal nikaah was more contractual; it gave a woman a way out of an insufferable marriage, and was thus, in theory at least, more woman-friendly. There was no such way out for a Rajput queen. But did that always make her more compliant, more accepting, more desirous of adjusting to the situation in which she found herself ? Insofar as Jodha was concerned, no, it did not.
Jodha rages endlessly at her fate, even yesterday. She openly affirms that she hates her husband, and tells him and her brothers so. The reasons for this are not relevant here, for a janma janmantar ka rishta to har haal mein nibhana padta hai. Jodha, thank God, does not subscribe to the pati parameshwar concept, whatever the wedding vows she might have taken, and she is quite ready to visit badduas on her patidev till stopped by Bhagwan Das. So how can she be said to be more committed to the marriage, and to understand its value and its rules better than Jalal does?
As for her stout defence of Jalal in the bazaar, it is, as discussed above, of the institution of the Shahenshah, not of the man. She forbids any criticism of him in his capacity as the Shahenshah. in a blanket fashion, on the grounds that his critics are his praja and it is no more for them to criticise him that it would be for a son to criticise his father. It is an entirely authoritarian a pronouncement, rooted in the attitude peculiar to royalty. Jodha has the same pride in her being royal as her husband has in his being the Shahenshah.
As for her wifely duties, apni Jodha has a very selective approach to the subject!😉 And why not, if she can get away with it?
A sense of caring: To revert, Jalal might not value a nikaah per se, but he values this intransigent, wild filly of a wife he has saddled (pun intended!) himself with. He now regrets the pain he has inflicted on her, and he wants to make amends in the only way he can think of, by offering her freedom from all that she say she hates here in Agra, beginning with the sight of him.
In doing this, he is being kinder to her than he is to himself (apologies to Jane Austen for this riff on Mr. Darcy's identical pronouncement to Elizabeth), for she will, he believes, be gaining something precious, her liberty and peace of mind, but he will lose something as yet unassessed: Jodha, and all that he had hoped to get from her.
The shart: Jalal still hopes, deep down, that she will not leave. But he also makes it clear that if she does stay, it has to be on a different basis. One of acceptance and some caring for him, if not of affection. No more of the beinteha nafrat, of the shrinking at the very sight of him.
So he ends, still with his back to her: Ab aapke pas do raaste hain. Ya to azaad ho jayein, ya phir yahin rahein, hamari begum bankar.
Whence also the almost throwaway, but in reality deeply significant line, spoken over his shoulder as he leaves: Hamein hara rang khaas pasand hai. Use pehne rahiye. A thing said, and also understood.
Jodha: Flawed comprehension: She, of course, does not see his offer on the above lines, and her incredulous look mirrors the sense of shock that she feels. Shock, and the sense of having been outwitted once again by her detestable patidev, of being forced to choose between the Charybdis of still more disgrace for her and her family if she returns to Amer, and the Scylla of living in Agra with the man for whom she has more ghrina (latest count: used 2986 times so far😉 ) than for anyone else.
(NB: Scylla and Charybdis were a monster and a deadly whirlpool respectively, between which Homer's hero Ulysses had to navigate at the peril of his life).
Jodha knows that for her, the choice is really no choice, for both the options are extremely unpleasant. But she is now hoist with her own petard. The hateful man has boxed her in comprehensively. Ek baar phir Shahenshah khel khel gaye hamare saath!
She can no longer rail at him for having forced her into this marriage (a manifest falsehood, for it is Bharmal who proposes it to save Amer, but never mind!) and then compelling her to stay here jahan uska dum ghut tha hai. She can no longer lament that she cannot even curse him because of her marriage vows and Rajput maryada.
Nor can she do what she would have liked to, continue to be a Shahi Begum, with all the privileges attached to that rank - the way in which she receives Maham Anga in her rooms in the next episode, no longer bothering to rise to greet her, and looking at her superciliously with raised eyebrows, is a classic example of this ! - while still periodically voicing itni ghrina for the man from whom all these privileges flow, and keeping him at a safe distance, like a pariah.
This is one thing that was both said by Jalal and understood by Jodha. Whence the hysterical laughter that dissolves into equally hysterical tears, as a helpless Moti looks on.
But what Jodha does not yet realise is what Jalal has really done for her. By offering her freedom from him, he has opened the door of the cage in which she had locked herself. She might now rail against him more than ever before, but underlying that is the realization, still barely perceived and even less understood, that she does not want to leave after all.
With Jalal having restored her sense of self-respect and dignity with his apology, she might also, just possibly, begin to breathe more easily even in his presence ,without starting like an unwilling filly, and looking and sounding as if she had been running the 400 meter heats .
Where is our Jodha?: We are being indulged with a daily Jalal-Jodha scene these days, and top quality ones from the performance point of view. The only hitch is that they seem to be dancing the old fashioned minuet: one step forward, two backwards, one again forward, the next two sideways.
Where does that leave them? And us? Why right in the middle of the most standard issue Mills and Boon pulp romantic fiction. Any hopes we had of a subtle, intelligent build up to a trusting friendship between these two headstrong, feisty individuals, if not to love, with that too on the horizon, is being dashed on the rocks of pedestrian melodrama.
The worst sufferer in this process in the Amer ki mirchi, who now resembles nothing so much as a wet blanket, the wet coming from all the salty tears in which she drenches it. Where is our gutsy gal, who could beat her warrior husband at shamsheerbaazi and her hostile souten at the game of kings? Or even the one who dressed down those bazaar types the other day and then pulled the Shahenshah's leg with a straight face?
We have to immediately file a Lost and Missing report about her with the Agra police😉. This watering pot cannot be our Jodha, even after allowing for the obvious fact (obvious to everyone except her) that she is falling for her exasperating husband and is at her wits end how to proceed while keeping her pride intact!
A major letdown: My Jodha would have stood up to Jalal and informed him, when he was giving her what Tripti had, in 2013, so cleverly labelled The Illusion of Choice:
Thanks but no thanks. I am not going to add to my parents' woes by landing up at their gates like a bad penny. I am a Rajput woman, and I would have you know that when you married me of your own free will, you landed yourself with me as a wife not only for this janam, but for all the next six as well.
I do hope that I will get an improved model in our next birth, but for now, I will make do with what I have.
And so should you. As far as I am concerned, what you see is what you get. I will obey all your reasonable aadesh, to keep my marriage vows, "reasonable" to be decided by me.
Don't you try to act magnanimous with all this talk of khula and bandh! There is no "khula" for either of us as far as this marriage is concerned. It is all firmly "bandh", and the sooner you realise this the better!
So thank you for your unprecedented condescension in actually saying you are sorry for your atrocious behaviour of the past two weeks; I can understand how close your stiff spine must have come to breaking in the process.
But now I need my beauty sleep, and so I would be obliged if you could spare me the continued honour of your presence.
End of scene.
Now that would have been my Jodha! But what did we get? A girl who stares white faced and speechless at her would-be-magnanimous husband, who is secretly hoping that she will send him to the devil and proclaim that she is not going anywhere, thank you. But of course she completely lacks the instinctive feminine savvy to make that out, and adjust her reaction accordingly.
Instead, once he has left after producing that lovely throwaway line Humein hara rang khaas pasand hai. Use pehene rahiye, which should have made her dimaag ki batti come to life at once,😉 she proceeds to, what else, both laugh and cry hysterically, and bewail her bhagya to the hapless Motibai. And this from the daughter of a mother who told her, as parting advice, Bhagya apne yoddha swayam chunta hai. Kya pata, ki wo yoddha tum hi ho! Some yoddha this!
A superb jugalbandi: Rajat and Paridhi played this scene to perfection, both individually and by playing superbly off each other.
Jalal's rigid profile, the half-self-mocking pronouncements that said one thing and meant something different, the offhand manner meant to hide the difficulty he faced in taking this high fence without stumbling, the parting, over the shoulder remark that defined what their new relationship would be if she stayed, every word, every stance , every look and tone of voice, went beyond the script and added colours and meanings that were never there to begin with.
So too did Jodha's silences which spoke, changed mood and expression, conveyed nuances that the writer would have never thought of.
After this tour de force, we have, alas, to descend from the sublime to the ridiculous.
The humshakal farce: As Jalal held forth about his tafteesh in loving detail ( for all the world like Poirot showing off in the last chapter; Holmes never revealed his techniques, any more than a magician would explain a trick), with one Maham on the floor, sneering and spitting hatred with her eyes, the other Maham swanning in and regarding her alter ego with assumed bewilderment, and Adham Khan leading the rest in looking pole-axed, I was on the verge of breaking into giggles. It was all so comical, as full of holes as Swiss cheese.
But the one clever trick of Maham's was to let Jalal discover the duplicate by himself (the mystery door seems to be common knowledge, alas!). Exactly like a magician making you pick a particular card "by yourself".
Back then in 2013, I only hoped that Jalal would not follow thru on his imitation of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, who was always shouting Off with his head! I could never either understand or appreciate his obsession with depriving the imperial executioner of his daal-roti-biryani by doing the head chopping business himself😉. And in the Diwan-e-Khas at that. Only think of the bloody mess on the Persian carpet! Thankfully, we were spared this!
A great disappointment was that there was no follow thru to the tantalizing mention of Abu Hamza's technique for manufacturing humshakals. If this had been shared with us, just think how very useful it would be for anyone of us in a sticky situation !😉
This day's special: A petition to the Shahenshah, which read as follows:
"Shahenshah ka iqbal buland ho (who said Ameris are not quick on the uptake?) !
I hope Your Imperial Majesty will pardon my forwardness in addressing you directly, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Please do not rest content with telling Jodha Begum Hamein hara rang khaas pasand hai. Use pehene rahiye, but get your shahi darzi to make her new jodas in half a dozen different shades of green. I need a rest pronto (that means at once) if I am not to come apart at the seams, seeing that she has taken to wearing me like a school uniform!
With profound respect,
Jodha Begum's yellow joda"
Now let us move on.
Episode 72: Crossed wires (Part 1)
Not just crossed, the wires between our Odd Couple, like those of star-crossed lovers. Rather tangled, like a ball of wool that a kitten has been playing with, but that is in Part 2. For now, we have
The Shahi maafinama Part 2: Jalal does the unthinkable. After disposing of the fake Mahaam, Jalal tells his Ammijaan, who is praising him, Insaaf abhi hona baaki hai, and he proceeds to apologise to Jodha and her brothers in the open court. Not obliquely, but upfront, and as openly and candidly as could be, even from a common man, not to speak of a Shahenshah-e-Hind.
Humne begunah Begum Jodha aur unke bhaiyon ko us galti ke liye sazaa di, is baat ka hum afsos zaahir karte hain. Jo aaj tak kisi sultanat mein nahin hua, hum wo karne jaa rahe hain. Hum apni galit ki maafi Jodah Begum aur unke bhaiyon se maangte hain. Aur ummeed karte hain ki wo ek Shahenshah ki zimmedaari aur waqt kat takaza samajhkar - and here, for the first time, he lowers his eyes - humein hamari galti le liye maaf kar denge. He casts a fleeting sideways look at Jodha, perhaps hoping for a small smile. None is forthcoming.
Bhagwan Das falls all over himself to negate the Shahenshah-cum-javaisa's stooping so far, and leads the acclamation to Mughal insaaf with a Shahenshah ki Jai! , and the assemblage echoes it. Jalal looks neither gratified nor happy; his face is still and withdrawn.
What does Jodha do? Smile? Look gratified, or at least relieved that the aan, baan aur shaan of her beloved Amer has been not only restored but freshly burnished with a 24 carat overlay? No. She looks blank, almost angry. In fact the only time she reacts, and that too slightly, is when the fake Maham lunges at Jalal with a khanjar when his back is turned.Why this lack of any reaction? Clearly it is the do raaste of the night before that have so clouded her mind that she can think of nothing else, and nothing else registers with her.
Well, folks, here is wishing you all a wonderful Deepavali once again. Stay safe when setting off the fireworks! See you on Thursday next.
Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di
Anupamaa
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