Jodha Akbar 82-84: The pall of darkness lifts - Page 13

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Posted: 9 years ago
My dear Khalessi,

Welcome back! I hope the semester you have finished was productive even if exhausting,

The coral you have chosen this time is delightful! My second round of comments is in blue.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: khalessi75

Hello again.

Once again being extremely late. As I recently finished another semester, I was so exhausted that I need some time to rest and to recover energies. My takes are on coral.
[
QUOTE=sashashyam]

Folks,

I was not able to watch the Mahaepisode No. 1 - there will surely be many more of them - last night. In any case, I feel that it is cruel and unusual punishment on the viewers for Zee Anmol to not only not give them the Saturdays off, but inflict a whole hour of this benighted show on them on their one free day, or rather free evening! 😉

Anyhow, I shall have to look at my recordings of the good bits of these two episodes to make up for having missed the mahaepisode, and since it ends, as is often the case, midway thru a so-called "crisis" - with Jodha and Jalal in the middle of a lake being shot at with arrows - it makes more sense to club it with the Monday one. As the Kali Maa mandir episode, which is very crucial one, will also be split 2/3 and 1/3 between Episodes 87 & 88, and will need a separate post, you are, this week, very likely going to end up feeling exactly as I do about Zee Anmol!😉

This time, I am taking Nos. 82 & 83 together, as they form a seamless whole. Let us proceed.

Episodes 82 & 83: Dil mil gaya!!!

Statutory warning: Undiluted satire ahead! Proceed at your own risk, and if allergic to having your tongue stuck in your cheek for a while, please jump straightaway to the Dil ki kashmakash section below. No subsequent complaints about bruised sensitivities will be entertained!

Shahenshah ka gumshuda dil: I am proud and pleased to make an official Shahi announcement on behalf of His Imperial Majesty Jalaluddin Mohammed. His long lost dil, which had been the object of a treasure hunt for the past several years, and the very existence of which had been denied by many, including its presumed owner, has now finally been located.

Not only that, the aforesaid Shahenshah ka dil has been duly certified to be in perfect working condition by none other than the ex-Amer ki Mirchi, his Jodha Begum of nirdosh praani/pashu fame.

This momentous discovery is actually some days old, as it was made by Jodha Begum in Ajmer, when the Shahenshah , inspired by the trancelike absorption of the sufi dervishes, himself joined them to pay obeisance to the Almighty in like fashion. I do not propose to compare this scene with the similar one in the film, or Rajat with Hrithik, but Rajat's Jalal did look at one with the Divine Spirit when he finally lifted a serene face to the heavens (or rather the room ceiling!).

More to the point, Jodha Begum, who had never seen Hrithik in action, was quite satisfied with the Shahenshah in action, and even more so with this unimpeachable evidence of the existence of a dil in the imperial chest cavity.

She was prevented from issuing an immediate press release about this earth shaking revelation by certain unforeseen consequences of her Save nirdosh pashu/praani campaign. She had forgotten to provide for the possibility of there being hinsak pashus around, and as things turned out, one of them - Mohan the Magnificent - leaped off a tree branch at them. He nearly put paid to both the Shahenshah's jism and jaan, which would naturally have included the precious, rediscovered dil.

The non-petitioners: However, all is well that ends well. We had to endure a couple of nerve-wracking episodes, in which every deity within hearing range of the Agra palace, and well beyond, was bombarded with heartfelt petitions, for the Shahenshah's life to be saved, from an assortment of petitioners. To list them all would take up another episode, so I will content myself with listing those who were NOT sending up the aforesaid petitions. These were, in no particular order:

1) Adham Khan, who forgot to instruct his soldiers not to speculate loudly, as soon as they sighted Sharifuddin's lot, as to whether the latter were aware of Adham Khan sahib's saazish. No wonder one of Adham's subsequent brainwaves led to his being defenestrated on Jalal's orders!

2) Sharifuddin, who, having gained Agra on (very thin) paper from Adham😉, also sent his soldiers to block the Gwalior hakim, with no follow up instructions about cooperating with the Adhamites. End result: a disaster, with the hakim, unnoticed in the melee, sneaking off to the palace.

3) Adham's 2 Keystone Kops sidekicks, who did what they usually do: precisely nothing.

4) A clutch of most unroyal looking Rajvanshi types, who had so little faith in their credibility with the Almighty that they did not want to venture a direct approach. Instead, they were planning to endorse the prayers of Jalal's enemies for his early demise. 😉

The Shahenshah does a Lazarus: With such a bunch of jokers plotting against him, and the likes of Jodha Begum and Hamida Banu, both with hotlines to the Almighty😉, batting in the imperial team, no wonder the Shahenshah came around in a dramatic fashion. But let us not anticipate this welcome event.

Ab kahan the hum? Right. The Gwalior hakim, hustled into the Shahenshah's chamber by Atgah Khan, took one sniff at the bowl of Jodha Begum' s lep (which had been preserved by Maham and Ruqaiya as future forensic evidence against her!😉) and declared that he knew of just one other person in the whole wide world who could have made this life-saving lep, because he had taught that person.

The gentleman would have put a pedigreed wine taster from the Burgundy region to shame, seeing that he could recognize the marham after just that one little sniff. Also, he obviously did not believe in the guru-shishya, or rather ustad-shagird pratha, and thus had no other pupils to whom he might have passed on this unique expertise.

The shagird par excellence: At this point, as the person in question, with a perfect sense of timing, swam into his view behind the gauze curtain, whereupon he exclaimed gladly Jodha Begum! , and proceeded to praise her in fulsome terms for having been a perfect shagird, and having preserved the maan of her ustad by correctly remembering what he had taught her even after all these years.

Hakim Sahib obviously also had a secret memory enhancement dawa, as he could remember not only the name of his beauteous pupil even after all these years, which was entirely understandable even at his venerable age😉😉, but also those of her portly Bapusa, with no such inbuilt memory stimulator, and of Sujamal!

His ex-shagird, her pallu demurely in place as soon as she had sighted her ex-ustad, blushed becomingly and, not yet having assimilated the adaab of her sasural, folded her hands in a pranam to her former guru. The rest of the assemblage around the Shahenshah's sickbed reacted according to their respective pravruttis. Hamida Begum and Salima Begum beamed. Ruqaiya looked dazed and Maham's brow was beginning to furrow.

In response to an agitated query from the Shahi Hakim (who had, at the end of Episode 82, thrown up his hands and declared: Ab sab kuch Khuda ke haath mein hai, and now felt distinctly let down seeing the miraculous effect of a 100% insaani dawa) as to why, if that was so, the Shaheshah had such a high fever, Jodha Begum's ustad, aka the Gwalior hakim, asserted that his attentions were in fact redundant, as the fever was only a symptom of the body healing under the influence of Jodha Begum's lep, and the Shahenshah would be as right as a trivet in no time.

Hosh aa gaya!!: At this point, the Shahenshah, not to be outdone by his Jodha Begum in the matter of timing, opened his eyes, and spotted her unerringly thru the gauze curtain. He then feebly gestured, in excruciating slow mo, towards something that only she could decipher as a desire for water, thus demonstrating the new level of wordless communication between them .

The words, my poor Jalal, will soon follow, and in abundance, never fear!😉😉

Yes, and it will be limitless😊 Poor chap, my heart goes out to him!

To revert, Jodha Begum, in her present capacity as the Shahenshah's hakim in residence, promptly shot the imperial maang for water down as forbidden at this point .She thus delivered a neat, metaphorical black eye to the outraged Ruqaiya who, when she tried to contradict Jodha and put her in her place, was shushed by the Gwalior hakim, who backed his shagird forthrightly.

The shagird then departed, fixing her new 24 caratgold- plated halo, conferred on her jointly by the Hakim Sahib and Hamida Banu Begum, firmly in place around her pretty head.

She needed to change at last out of her days old joda, which had seen so much of adventure : the kissa Mohan ka and its aftermath in rain and shine, its wearer being slapped and shoved to the ground by Ruqaiya Begum, and then being seeped in the miasma of her own helpless misery.

All things considered, it had borne up amazingly well, but a fresh joda was clearly long overdue, if only to cheer up the viewers, who were by now feeling almost as bedraggled as the old joda!😉

Hare rang mein rangi:We next see Jodha Begum lighting lamps in front of her Kanha, who is now relaxed after an overdose of reproach a little earlier. This was for, inter alia, having got his wires crossed, and responded to his mahaantam bhakt's plea to save the nirdosh praani from the prahaar of the heartless Shahenshah (Jodha had then temporarily forgotten about having unearthed his dil just the day before!) by kayoing her patidev instead😉.

She is looking gorgeous, having changed into a rich lehenga and an even richer odhni in, ahem, ahem... green (the yellow stripes in the lehenga don't count). For those of you suffering from temporary amnesia, I will offer a clue, and if that still does not work, I wash my hands of you! Humein hara rang khas pasand hai. Use pehene rahiye.

Along comes her Ammijaan, with the gift of a copy of the Quran-e-pak, and is mesmerized by the grace with which her paragon of a bahu receives it and, what is more, prays in front of it, hands raised in devotion as she was taught to do by, wonder of wonders, the Shahenshah himself. Hamida Banu is undoubtedly pinching herself real hard, and her face is a study in delighted wonderment at this karishma of the Divine.

She now voices my own deeply held belief that contrary to her earlier assumption, it is now Jodha who is learning things from Jalal.

The Agra palace soapbox: At this point, Motibai, who has suddenly reappeared after having been AWOL thru the worst crisis her mistress had ever faced, is ready with a brand new soapbox. The last one was lost in the jungle, when a wickedly teasing Jalal, who was circling his Jodha Begum, had stepped on it by mistake, and then Mohan had completed the demolition job.

Jodha promptly clambers on to it, and launches into one of her trademark pravachans. This one is not about the Khwaja's holiness or the wanton wickedness of those hunting down nirdosh pashus akaaran (those were for Ajmer). It is a neat distillation of the sarva dharma samabhava of Sant Kabir and Surdas and Rahim (the later version, not this 4 year old😉).

As the beautiful words roll off her tongue with practiced fluency, and she looks as lovely as a fervent angel, her Ammijaan looks, it at all that were possible, even more dazedly beatific than before.

But there is more to come. Her bahu rounds off her peroration by describing, with succinct but profound and touching eloquence, the epiphany that the Shahenshah had undergone at Ajmer.

Aur sabse badi baat batayein, humne Shahenshah ka ek aisa roop dekha jiski humne kabhi kalpana nahin ki thi! Jaise Meerabai, apna sab kuch bhoolkar, Krishna mein magna ho jaati thin, waise hi Shahenshah apna shahi rutba, shaan, sab kuch bhoolkar Ishwar ke bahut sameep ho gaye the!

Motibai is busy keeping her jaw from dropping in shock and astonishment. Then comes the momentous status report about the Shahenshah's dil, sorry, hriday.

Jo log yeh dum bharte the ki Shahenshah mein hriday nahin hai, un logon ka dum bhi jhoota siddh ho gaya!

So it is official and irrefutable: the Shahenshah does have, what else, a dil. Naysayers, Jodha Begum warns, had better back off and vamoose.

But they didn't, and we know how they ended(you know whom I'm talking about) Of course!

So there we are, folks, dil mil gaya!! Hallelujah!!!

Dil ki kashmakash: It is then that the single most arresting shot sequence of the whole two episodes comes up. As Hamida Banu, who is over the moon with joy at this unexpected manna from Heaven, gushes : Humein yakeen hai, Jodha, ki tumhari wajah se Jalal ki zindagi mein bahut jald ek naya daur shuru honewala hai!, there is a very curious, and revealing, progression of expressions on Jodha's face, especially in her mrignayan ( doe-like eyes).

First, they freeze over in a kind of shock, for this is an interpretation she had not foreseen. She has been, ever since the terrors of the jungle, so caught up in the shifting present and the frightening future that she has not thought of anything beyond that. Or felt anything beyond that and, now, the tremendous relief that courses through her whole being.

Next, there is a filming over, as she withdraws, in an initial shying away, from the prospect her Ammijaan is confidently predicting. It is perhaps not so much that she rejects it, as that she is confused about what she feels, and unsure about how to react to it.

Finally, there is a mute longing as the beautiful eyes look, not at her ecstatic Ammjaan, but inwards, into the depths of what Jalal would have called her zehen. What is it that she sees that makes her eyes cloud over in doubt? Is it about what she feels now, or is it about what she fears he might not feel in return? This is unknown territory, and she is afraid. Afraid of losing her footing and falling into she knows not what.

Not just her, even Jalal is in the same situation.😉

As I watched her in 2013, I was over the moon, for it did seem as if Kanha might have, for a change, have listened to me, and that at least one of my special wishes might, just might, be coming true. As I had written once before:

It would do her (Jodha) a lot of good to fall helplessly in love, and have to try and win over the object of her affections. I hope this happens, in the sense that she discovers she is in love with Jalal before he discovers that he is in love with her. It is not impossible, for he will, for quite a while, interpret his soft corner for her as due to the kinship of ek hi kashti mein sawaar hone ki.

Now, I suppose, I should say It would have done her a lot of good!. Still, I want to share with you all some lovely lines for our Jodha that I, not an aficionada of matters lyrical like some others here, had nevertheless found:

Le jaayegi kahan ye raah, kahan wo manzilein apni
Anjaane, andekhe raaston se guzar rahi hai zindagi

Ye kashmakash ka silsila, ye ummeedon ke jalte diye
Andheron ko hata kar roshni ki de sehar ae zindagi

Jalal: Preventive measures!: It is interesting that the first thing Jalal sees when he opens his eyes is the vision of Mohan charging down on him. Not Jodha trying to keep him alive.

This is clearly an attempt to blank out her pravachans in the jungle. But she will be back, my poor Jalal, now and for the rest of your life, and even beyond!😉 In fact, she will become even more preachy, as you will now come under the category of "reformed sinners" needing extra pravachans. 😉😉You had better take some preventive measures: borrow Kanha's now redundant earplugs, perhaps?

The Mughal jauhar: I would not say that the begums planning a mass suicide is depressing . It might not have the ceremonial splendor of the jauhar pratha among the Rajputs, but it is just as sensible. As women, would any of us choose a life of slavery and horrible, endless degradation over an instant release from such a terrible prospect? This is not cowardice, for what you would be escaping serves no purpose whatsoever for anyone except your captor, who gloats over your helpless misery. It is a commonsense choice.

That the majority of his begums opt for it is proof that they are loyal to Jalal, the man, even if many of them barely know him, and not just to the Shahenshah. I wonder where the ones who were jumping ship went in the end. Probably sneaked back into the harem and joined quietly in the namaz-e-shukrana.

Nor would I mock Ruqaiya for asserting her precedence even in death. She has seen her identity always in that framework, and it is to her credit that she has the pride of her position to buttress her unquestionable love for the Shahenshah.

And even more so that she does not spare even a passing thought to some siyasati chaal that could help salvage something for her out of the wreckage of the Shahenshah's passing. For anyone aspiring to the throne of Agra would have been to glad to buttress his claim by marrying her, given that she is a paternal granddaughter of Babur-e-Azam, and of the pure nasl-e-Timuri.

Completely agree with you. At those times these womenfolk were ready to die if needed, specially the ones who belong to the Timur Dynasty(Ruks and Salima respectively). Yes, and Ruqaiya really loves Jalal, though after her own fashion, and she would not be able to live without him.

So on to Episode 84.

Episode 84: ??????,

No, I have not switched to some esoteric language based on punctuation marks. The title is because after watching this episode, all I had in my head was questions and more questions, about where Jodha Akbar is going and how. Some were more disturbing than the others.

Let me cite just one as an opener. I don't know about you, but I signed on for this "epic love story" expecting a Pride and Prejudice grafted on to Gone with the Wind, not a soapy concoction with a leading lady straight out of the Ekta Kapoor stable, a she-who-can-do-no-wrong with a 24 carat gold halo who, moreover, knows that.

If this is to be so, it follows, as surely as the night follows the day, that the leading man will have to be distorted and painted some sort of deep grey verging on black, so that the aforesaid pristine leading lady can, firstly, shine by contrast and secondly, get all the credit for "reforming" him by cutting him and fitting him into her own Procrustean bed.

This was there in Jodha Akbar right from the opening haivaan se insaan leit motif, but then it was toned down, and as Jalal became more credible and complex and thus fascinating, I had hoped that it was (pun intended!) history. But now, I am not at all sure of this, in fact the opposite!

The Questions:

1) Jodha: Made of indiarubber: Why is Jodha never shown as feeling any deep sense of guilt for having nearly killed Jalal? Or any sense of guilt at all, bar that one spasm in the forest when she felt that Jalal was dying?

If you had run someone down with your car by accident, would you feel so free of guilt just because you had got him to the hospital in time, and had even supplied a special medicine that saved his life? Far from agonizing over your carelessness in hitting him, would you have started patting yourself on the back for having helped save his life, forgetting that it was you who had brought him to the gates of death in the first place ? But that is exactly what Jodha is doing here.

As Ela had noted on my 2013 thread, if she had done anything similar, she would not be able to face herself, not to speak of Jalal or his family. Jodha, on the contrary, has bounced back like indiarubber, and shows no traces of any trauma or self-condemnation as she is busy playing the saas ki dulari with Hamida.

In fact, not only does Jodha never bewail her self-righteous do-gooding idiocy, even to herself, (barring a halfhearted confession to Rahim that she would not have taken the barood out of the narnaal had she known the tiger would come) but she now claims, with no sense of irony, that it was the prayers at Ajmer that had saved the Shahenshah's life! ?!If those prayers were so effective, why did they not nip her mindless folly in the bud, and spare so many, beginning with Jalal, so much needless suffering?

Nor does Jodha, as I had been sure she would when I watched this sequence for the first time, agonize that it was her mannat at the dargah - Aap humein unhein paat padhane ka ek avsaar pradhan karein - that had been fulfilled in such a deadly fashion, and curse herself of having ever made it. For she is made of sterner stuff!

There is not a trace, as she and Hamida Bano are watching alms being distributed to the poor, of the bitter regret and self-condemnation that one would expect Jodha to feel for having brought Jalal to death's door (Jodha, incidentally, here does what Jalal had explicitly forbidden her to do, donate her jewellery to the poor. But then when has she ever cared for his wishes? ).

Even as she was singing that anachronistic bhajan (Om Jai Jagadeesh Hare was composed only around 1870, fully 200 years after Jodha is shown singing it!) when Jalal was thought to be dying, there was no real desperate anxiety or panicky fear on Jodha's face. Ruqaiya, with all her plastic looks, seemed far more agonized.

Now that he is convalescing, Jodha is not shown making any attempt to indirectly find out how he is, even if she feels awkward trying to go and see him herself. When she sends the fruit, seeing the air with which it is done, it might, for all the eagerness or warmth she displays, have as well been for the woodcutter(see below!).

How cold and cruel she is. She has proven to be heartless and shameful but as the leading lady she gets free. It's quite impressive to see how Jodha is becoming herself the one she claims to hate.😡 She gets over her sense of guilt so easily!

2) Hamida Bano: Saas of the Century: Why does Hamida praise Jodha to the skies for having "saved Jalal's life", while dismissing her responsibility for his having nearly lost it with just one anodyne word, "naadani' ?

No saas anywhere in any age would react like this. So obsessed is Hamida with this paragon of a bahu that even as her son is declared to be dying, all she can think of is how to save Jodha in case he should kick the bucket!

🤢🤢🤢

Now that Jalal is convalescing, it is Ruqaiya and Mahaam Anga who are with him; Hamida is busy assuring her bahu that she is a piece of perfection. As if Jodha's having saved Jalal from death with her lep was enough to whitewash her role in putting him there in the first place!

😡😡😡

Strange omission: In fact, so lattoo is Hamida about her bahu that she neither notices nor, if she does, seems to mind the key missing element in Jodha Begum's response to her fulsome comment: Tumhari dua Shahenshah ke kaam aayi, Jodha!, and to her follow up question, after Jodha's statement that it was the praja's prarthana that had helped the Shahenshah: To kya tumne Shahenshah ke liye dua nahin ki?

Jodha responds with a resounding: Nahin! Humne unki jaan bachane ka prayaas kiya jo ek maa ka beta hai, ek behen ka bhai hai. Humne unke liye prarthana ki hai jinhon ne hum par ho rahe bagh ke aakraman ko apni chathi par jhel liya! And then, to round it off, a breath-taking affirmation: Humne keval ek manushya ko bachaya hai, jise praja Shahenshah maanti hai!

I was dumbfounded at this smug self-satisfaction, indeed arrogance. Humne keval ek manushya ko bachaya? I would, if I could, have shaken Jodha till her teeth rattled in her head, and yelled at her: Bachaya? Par uski jaan bachane ki aavashyakta hi kyon padi, sarphiri ladki? Keval tumhari moorkhata ke kaaran. Use itni sheegra bhool gayi tum? 😡

My supplementary thought at this point: Jab poori zindagi ke liye tumhein jhelne ke liye tatpar hai Jalal, to bagh ka aakraman kya cheez hai?

To revert, Jodha does not say, as far as she is personally concerned , that she prayed for the life of her husband to be spared, only that of the man who faced the tiger to save her life. The natural inference from this is that she would have prayed as hard for the life of a passing woodcutter if he had taken on the tiger to save her!

This is very curious, given Jodha's presumed lifelong training in attaching paramount importance to preserving her suhaag.And what was it with that intensely moving snippet of the khoon bhari maang? Are we to assume that it meant nothing at all?

We have also to remember that here Jodha is speaking to Hamida Bano alone, and Jalal is not there, so it is not that she feels a need to downplay his significance in her life in front of him because of her ego. This is clearly what she feels in truth.

My teeth were set on edge as Hamida, herself supplying the element that Jodha had deliberately omitted, gushes, if that were possible, even more: Bahut khoob, Jodha! Samajh nahin aata, tumhari samajhdari par fakr karoon ya tumhari oonchi soch par! Tumhein ek insaan, ek beta, ek shauhar (?!?) ka auda ek Shahenshah se oopar hai! And her Jodha beta looks, if that were at all possible, even more smug and self-satisfied.

The Saas of the Century Award (it could even be of the Millennium) hereby goes to Hamida Bano Begum, for loving and caring for her Rajput bahu far more than she ever cared for her only son.

Hamida does not think of sending the convalescent Jalal some special delicacy to tempt his palate, which even the normally heedless Ruqaiya is shown doing. But then it is of a piece, for his Ammijaan was never there for him when he needed support, when his Khan Baba was murdered, or when he lost his unborn child. No wonder Jalal was not close to his mother for so long.

3) A whole bunch of dubious looking Rajvanshi rajas was shown rejoicing at the prospect of Jalal's imminent demise. If they had already found out about it elsewhere in Rajputana, why does Bharmal in Amer know nothing about it?

4)Bharmal: Stunningly self-centred: Even granted that Bharmal knew nothing of Jalal having nearly died a few days before, why does he now, after seeing Jalal, not display more than prefunctory interest in what happened to his javaisa and how?

He has eyes, and he can surely see how badly Jalal has been injured. Any normal father in law would have been frantic with worry and would have bombarded Mahaam with questions, even if he did not want to tire out the visibly exhausted and worn out Jalal.

Instead, all he can talk about is Sukanya's marriage, and his gratitude to Jalal for having arranged it. Even while inviting Jalal to come to Amer with Jodha for the wedding, he does not voice any concern about whether Jalal would be able to travel so far given his present condition. Nor does it even occur to him to wish his javaisa a speedy recovery and say that they would all pray for it.

All in all, a ridiculous and totally self-centred display by Jodha's Bapusa. But then, what is new here?

Incidentally, where is Mansingh? Has he gone AWOL?

Stars of the day:

1) Jalal: Compelling and unfathomable: The complex and compelling Jalal is the only consistently interesting character in Jodha Akbar, beside Maham, despite all her hamming.

Here Jalal is still sorting out how he feels towards Jodha Begum, and he probably does not want to meet her till he has that clear in his head. When Rahim turns up with the bowl of fruit that he clarifies is from his Chhoti Ammijaan, Jalal, who can barely summon up the energy to call Rahim to him - he only beckons with his forefinger - nonetheless responds with Jodha Begum!, and then lets the child feed him an apple from the bowl.

And once Rahim is gone, he is up to his old mischievous ways (well, a toned down version, seeing how exhausted he is), asking Ruqaiya: Aapko Jodha Begum ka yeh andaaz kaise laga, Ruqaiya? As if he did not know what her reaction would be! For her face falls visibly as her praise of Salima Begum, for caring for Jalal and sending him the fruit is, unfortunately for her, nixed at once by Rahim.

Jalal, unfazed by her caustic response, is not done yet. He stirs Ruqaiya up some more by noting: Dard diya hai par dard di dawa bhi. Humne suna hai ki Gwalior ke Hakim Saheb ke aane se pehle unhon ne hamari zakhmon ke liye marham tayyar kiya tha (wonder who told him that, now that Abdul is no longer around!).

As Ruqaiya, for once logical, snaps: Dard diya hi kyon?, Jalal smiles mysteriously and continues to munch on the apple, neglecting Ruqaiya's sevaiyyan. She, predictably, wonders at this yeh sab hone ke baad, and recounts how she, in her anger, had slapped Jodha repeatedly. Jalal's response to this is even more mysterious.

Humein aapka yeh andaaz theek nahin laga, Ruqaiya. Her face falls and she looks dismayed. He continues: Itni badi gustakhi aur itni chhoti sazaa? Which he repeats after her protest: Hum aapko yahi kahenge- itni badi gustakhi ki itni chhoti sazaa?

And Ruqaiya, who is anything but perceptive, smiles in (unfounded ) relief. If only she knew what was passing thru Jalal's mind, she would not have smiled!

When with Bharmal, I loved the way Rajat brought out Jalal's extreme weariness due to the blood loss,with the extra huskiness in the already deep voice, the impression that he has to use up scarce energy to articulate every word.

Jalal does manage to bring out the main point he wanted to make: that the groom was a good one aur aapke hi kaum ka hai, and that is rishte se dushmani dosti mein tabdeel ho jaayegi, aur donon or ke rishte aur sambandh (Jalal is fast learning to use Hindustani words!) behatar ho jaayenge.

That he does not react at all to Bharmal's invitation to Sukanya's wedding is not only due to his evident exhaustion. He face is smooth and unreadable beneath the wounds, for he does not know himself what he wants to do, not as yet. And he is not going to show his hand till he does know.

Least of all to Jodha, who is hanging around near the door, and who, after hearing her Bapusa's effusive praise of Jalal for having achieved the seemingly impossible, a really good rishta for Sukanya, wonders to herself: Shahenshah ne Sukanya ke vivah ke liye baat chhedi? Yeh kaise sambhav hai? Her eyes are clouded with a vague suspicion; there is not the least hint of a pleasing thought that maybe, just maybe, he has done this for her, Jodha.

It is not that I have anything against the high romantic, it is just that I prefer Jane Austen to Mills & Boon. So, I was greatly relieved by this indication in the precap at the end of Episode 84 that Jalal is not about to be transformed by his near death experience into a lovelorn Majnu, and will be back to his disputatious ways with his Jodha Begum as soon as he is rubaru with her (or as she would put it, sakshatkaar). Now that will be something to look forward to!!

2) Maham Anga: Clear-eyed vision: She was magisterial here. Her eyes straining, like those of a prophet, to see the future - Aur yeh aankhen (those of her mind) wo bhi dekh sakti hain jo ab takh hua nahin hai - a future she fears and resents but knows she cannot prevent.

Her lucid pessimism about Ruqaiya's inability, even had she not been so purblind and foolish, to halt and reverse the oncoming rush of what Maham sees developing between Jalal and Jodha. Her candid acceptance of what now seems to her a real possibility, that Jodha will bear the heir to the Mughal sultanate and become the Mariam-uz-Zamani.

Maham Anga, the intrigante sans pareille, a matchless tactician and coldblooded strategist of the likes of Catherine de Medicis, is so fascinating precisely because she does not let what she wants cloud her assessment of what is likely to happen despite her best efforts. But that will not prevent her from trying, to her last breath, to prevent it from happening.

Truly a terrible woman, but with elements of greatness in her that, even if twisted and corrupted, cannot be denied.

OK, folks, that is it for now and, as you must have noticed, shorter than usual at a little over 8 pages (only Ela, I presume, would be complaining about this!😉).

The nirdosh pashu competition: What was I about? If I were to forget this, Shagun for one would never forgive me!

Well, I sat up last night and watched the whole shikar segment again, and the tally of the number of times Jodha Begum says nirdosh pashu (not, be it n0ted, nirdosh praani ) is just 2. Even if one scans episode 81 right up to the end, there are only 3 times in all, the last being addressed to Hamida Banu. The other times, twice to be precise, she says nirdosh praani, and these do not count.

There were only 3 entries: Shagun with 4, Donjas with 5 and Sandhya with 6. So there are, unfortunately, no winners. It was a trick question, and the confusion between pashu and praani is understandable, but rules are rules!

However, as decided by the Shahenshah himself, Shagun, as the youngest and most enthusiastic competitor, and the one whose entry was the closest to the correct number, gets the alternative prize, with the his personal compliments. She will be informed soon of when she can accompany His Imperial Majesty on a shikar, with the special privilege of carrying his shamsheer for all eventualities.

Congratulations, Shagun beta! 👏 Be careful not to let the shamsheer get entangled in the narnaal by mistake, and end up shooting the Shahenshah in the leg this time!😉

Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di

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