Folks,
The title is for the way in which our lead pair behaved during this quartet of episodes.
I am accustomed to this kind of backsliding from Jodha who, just when I get set to start liking her, invariably does something indescribably stupid and off-putting, and sends me back to the starting point, as happens often in snakes and ladders. But this time it was Jalal who gave me a very nasty shock when I least expected it. This was when he expressed his readiness to abandon the throne, thus also abandoning his millions of subjects to all the horrors of an all out war of succession and pervasive anarchy, and all this for the self-indulgent mahaanta of keeping his word to his wife. Others might have exulted over this choice, but I condemned it in 2013, and I condemn it now as a criminally irresponsible negation by Jalal of his rajadharma.
More of this below, but for now, let us begin at the beginning, with Episode 97.
Episode 97: Explosive finish
Here the only part that made me sit up and take notice was the fireworks at the end, when the Rat King found out what had happened to the Ratanpur fort which he thought he had conned the Shahenshah into handing over.
Silly nakhre: There was nothing else worth mention in this episode. Jodha's hesitating for what looks like an age before placing her hand in her husband's, that too in public, was foolish, as was her sulky reaction to Jalal's equally foolish and jejune tactic for holding her hand for as long as possible by asking the delighted pandit to explain the slokas. Now if only Jodha had let him take her hand and hold it without any fuss, she would have spiked Jalal's guns, but of course she lacks the smarts for that! Her even more reluctant, and prefunctory expression of aabhaar was graceless, but I presume we were supposed to laugh at it.
But when she makes her typical barbed comment to a member of the choti fauj: Tumhare jijasa doosron ki vastu cheen ne mein bahut chatur hain!, it is no longer a nakhra, but a sharp jibe. Jalal's face falls visibly as Jodha tosses her head in a pert manner. I have no idea what she meant, unless it was that Jalal ne Suryabhan se use cheen liya, but it was as foolish as the rest, and rude to boot. It was not even as if they had had a quarrel; it was pure snappishness for its own sake.
So much for the beginnings of the epic romance! It was all straight out of a commonplace 1960s Hindi film. Clearly the scriptwriters gauged their target audience accurately, for they must have been sure that this childish stuff would be rapturously received. And it was, bar a few curmudgeons like yours truly who complained that it was inane!.
High octane finish: Nothing became Episode 97 more than the ending of it. As Jalal states with savage emphasis that he had taken the Ratanpur fort back because it was one of kuch cheezein jo maangi nahin jaatin, unhein jeeta jaata hai. Unhein jeetne ke liye baazuon mein dum chahiye, jo aapki baazuon mein nahin hai!, the screen suddenly came alive. As he single-handedly challenged all comers from the Dhawalgarh contingent to fight him - Shaadi ki rasmein ho chuki hain, ab jung ki rasmein nibhayi jayein!- it began to crackle.
It blazed into flame with the ferocity of his Ek ...baat... aur!, and of his warning to the Rat King about the consequences of the slightest ill-treatment of Sukanya in her sasural. And as he exploded with rage at an insult to the Mughals and his shamsheer flashed in the air, it was a paisa vasool moment!!
So now we come to Episode 98.
Episode 98:Pervasive folly
In 2013, this episode had the whole forum frying in the "body heat", so much so that 99% of them had forgotten that there was anything in it before the "body heat" segment! But there was, and quite a bit of it, and now let us dispose of it first.
The opening segment was remarkable for being perhaps the last time in this show that Jalal displayed the siyaasati acumen, the effortless dominance, and the imperial panache that one expects from a Shahenshah.
Squaring the circle: I had worried a lot back then, and written a lot, about the likely fate that awaited the hapless Sukanya, once the Rat King learnt of the Mughals having retaken the Ratanpur fort, in the hostile, icy environment in her sasural, even if Jalal had scared her inlaws into avoiding any overt ill-treatment.
Lo and behold, Jalal squares that circle effortlessly, with true imperial panache.
He grinds the Rat King into the dust, first with the unexpected fury of his reaction to the other's frantic accusations, then with an arrogant reminder of just whom Achal Singh ( a more inappropriate name for this gentleman cannot be imagined!) was dealing with: Humein unhein batana tha ki kis se baat kar rahe hain, and finally with his ostentatious post-wedding gifts to the newlyweds. To Vajendra, of his father's life. To Sukanya, to safeguard her completely, the gift to her of the Ratanpur fort, which is now hers and hers alone, and not something sneakily gained by the Rat King. Plus the Shahenshah's waada ki Ratanpur aur Dhawalgarh mehfooz rahenge.
When Jalal adds: Tohfe maange nahin jaate, unhein cheena nahin jaata, unhein sachche man se diya jaata hai. Isiliye hum aapko sachche man se Ratanpur k qila dete hain!, and hands the title to the fort to her, Sukanya's eyes brim over with tears of gratitude. They were never more deserved.đ
They used to say in the old days that a girl needed strong family backing from her maayka to be respected and valued in her sasural. I do not know about her maayka, but in her jeejasa, Sukanya has a suraksha kavach beyond compare, and she knows it.
Jalal-Jodha at Amer: Now was the time to build on this, and on what was presumably a Jodha overflowing with gratitude to her patidev, to fit in a scene that would be fresh and appealing in its open warmth and friendliness, with some intelligent conversation between them. This was surely not too much to ask for.
Alas for such vain hopes! There is, in the whole of this scene, which was a bad let down as far as Jodha was concerned, not a single understanding or pleasing statement or expression from her side.
She has no word of appreciation for what Jalal had just done.
Her opening question - Humein samajh nahin aa raha hai ki jab aapne Ratanpur ka qila Achal Singhji ko saunp diya tha, to use wapas kyon jeet liya? - demonstrates that she does not have the least understanding of siyaasat and statecraft, which is odd in a supposedly intelligent and well educated princess.
Her second question, which zeroes in on Jalal's affirmation that Hum kisiko wo cheez nahin dete jiske liye usne mehnat na ki ho, apne balbute par haasil na ki ho, to chahe wo zameen ho, qila ho, daulat ho, ya mohabbat!, ,is equally nave: Humein to lagta tha ki aap kewal jeetne mein vishwas rakhte hain, kamaane mein nahin?, for how can there be any victory without striving, without effort? Which is what Jalal says in response to this.
She does not react to the obvious warmth in his saying, in response to her query - Yadi wo durg aapne apni mehnat se hi paaya tha, to use Sukanya ko kyon de diya? - that he did it because of his relationship with her; the addition of her family and Amer is clearly an afterthought. Nor to the light in his eyes as he holds hers in a long gaze that would have thawed an iceberg. Not our Jodha, however.
She does not react when he tells her that what she and hers think about him does matter to him; he does not know why, he adds, but it does. This momentous confession should have instantly reformatted her take on Jalal and made her reevaluate him. It seems, strangely, to barely register with Jodha.
She displays minimal interest in and no empathy for what he tells her about his boyhood at the Ratanpur fort with his father the Emperor, not a single interested comment, or question about how he felt then. Nothing. Only the same stereotypical, repeated question, like a chartered accountant rather than a woman whose sister's wedded life has just been saved by this husband of hers: Yadi wo qila aapko itna priya hai, to aapne Sukanya ko kisliye de diya?
It is not as if she is fishing, trying to get him to confess that he had done it for her, Jodha, and for her alone. If that was it, it would have been very interesting and promising. But there is not the slightest brightening of her eyes when he says precisely that - Wo qila humne Amer ki shehzaadi Sukanya ko nahin, balki Mughal sultanat ki begum ki behen ko diya hai! - and then smiles at her with more gentleness and more candid softness than ever before.
Jodha looks down, then away, and her face is as blank as ever. She then leaves abruptly, without even a word of leave-taking. One would think she had been raised in a mofussil place rather than in a palace!
We are told endlessly by her apologists, who are undoubtedly sincere, that Jodha wants to develop a level of understanding with Jalal before she lets him anywhere near her. But when and how is this level of understanding to be reached if she is not interested in anything concerning him, except for what her family can get out of him? If she is not sensitive to even the most open indications of caring for her that he gives?
And so on to Agra.
Newton's Law of Gravity: This episode should have been a fitting third segment of a superb triptych. A triptych that would have wrapped up the Amer visit, a visit during which the Jalal-Jodha relationship would have advanced to a new level of trust, understanding, and friendship.
But alas, that was not to be. After its initial promise, Jodha Akbar here set out with a vengeance to prove Newton's law of gravity afresh, by demonstrating that what had gone up - the quality of the last 2 episodes - had necessarily to come down. By episode end, it was dismally clear that trust, understanding and friendship were nowhere on the cards for the foreseeable future.
So we watched helplessly as good sense was buried in the snowstorm that halted Jalal's kaaravan (on the way from Amer to Agra?!?. Maybe the CVs confused Rajasthan with Ladakh?đ ).
Body Cold: After the none too promising prelude of the final Jalal-Jodha interaction in Amer , the snowstorm scene was a unmitigated disaster. It not only completely wiped out all the tentative gains that seemed to have been made between them at Amer, but pushed them back beyond even the state of play post the dature ka ark , Meena Bazaar, and Holi episodes.
Jalal, when he enters their khema, seems to have some hope that the Amer ki mirchi would not be as prickly as she usually is, for he looks at her with romantic longing in his eyes, and comes and sits close to her. But she reacts with distinct wariness, so he switches tone, pulls the cord of the curtains, laughingly remarks that she had forgotten to do that, and to her great relief, moves away.
It is after Jodha falls asleep and Jalal sits there dreamily reminiscing about the Gangaur celebrations, that the whole episode goes steadily downhill. It was most artificially and ridiculously constructed: why would a female, even one with so little commonsense as Jodha, run out into the freezing cold in her flimsy clothes and undertake a bout of satyagraha under that tree, instead of going to Hamida's tent with some halfway plausible excuse? Worst come to worst, Hamida would have assumed that she and Jalal had had a fight. How did Jodha think she was going to keep her Ammijaan's maan if a soldier found her freezing there?
And as for Jalal, why the devil did he not drag the idiotic girl back to the tent by main force and barbecue her in front of the fire? Then dump her on the bed, fling all the bedclothes on her and leave her to her own devices? Instead, he walks off in a huff, something fully as idiotic as her stomping out of the tent and camping under the tree in the first place.
Aching tenderness: But for Rajat's star power, and his exceptional mastery of facial nuance, things would have been infinitely worse. The expression in his eyes as he looks at the sleeping Jodha, the delicacy and the hesitant gentleness with which he almost pats back a tendril of her hair, the worry and the kashmakash in his face as he strokes her forehead towards the end , are all like illustrations for aching tenderness.
Not to speak of the long lingering close up shots of his face, hair blown about artistically by the wind, looking for all the world like a Van Dyke portrait or a matinee idol with whom the camera has fallen in love.
Frantic stupidity: Poor Paridhi, she has no chance at all to do anything worthwhile. She ought to go on a hunger strike against such terminally stupid scenarios. When Jodha wakes up and finds her cheek in her husband's palm, she behaves as if she was one of the 1960s film heroines and he was Pran. It was recidivism with a vengeance, and I found her ranting and her wild accusations very boring and tiresome.
And all this rubbish just when I had thought that at last, after the noble generosity that Jalal had displayed, there might have been some move towards friendship and understanding between them! đĄ
If Jalal had actually grabbed her and declared that he had the haq to claim his conjugal rights, it would have been interesting to see how she would have reacted. After all, she is his wedded wife, and she cannot refuse him that even in current law if he is so minded. As I had noted during the Mohini segment, the exercise of conjugal rights by either spouse is automatically implied in any valid marriage. There is thus a legal provision for the restoration or claiming of conjugal rights, with sentences for non-compliance with the court's ruling. A wife can sue for divorce, but while she is married, she cannot say that she will not let her husband touch her. And this is the 16th century!
That Jalal does not, and will not, do any such thing is a matter of his indulgence, not of her right. His problem, as I see it, is that he is too yielding and, now that he is practically in love with her, far too hesitant. In being so, he reinforces the worst in her: her mindless stubbornness, and her insensate conviction that he is out to "take advantage" of her.
This weakness of his apart, the serial itself suffers because of the lack of balance in the character graphs of the two principals.In fact, as loveanime put it with admirable clarity, force and logic in 2013: "Jalal has gone so forward in character development that he is walking alone, and his apparent soul mate is nowhere near him". Which is a great pity!
A strange arrangement: To listen to Jodha in this segment, one would have thought that she was an innocent village maiden who had been abducted by the local satrap, who was now out to ravish her. Does she think that when Bharmal, in effect, struck that bargain with Jalal - the security of Amer for the marriage with Jodha - with her explicit consent and after meeting her sharts, Jalal had also given some sort of written undertaking that he would never touch her?
Does she count on keeping up this touch-me-not charade indefinitely, and how is she sure he will play along? But for the fact that he is an honourable man, which husband would let her carry on like this? She apparently plans to go on taking from him, she and her whole family, with no thought to anything he might want in return. Not necessarily the physical intimacy with which she seems so strangely obsessed, but perhaps some caring, or even a civil word of thanks?
Jalal might do much better for himself. and also for Jodha, if he really set himself to determinedly woo her and seduce her. He is after all not cross-eyed or bucktoothed, but is an exceptionally handsome and attractive young man. Plus he must be well versed in handling women, and can surely fine tune his tactics to fit even such a prickly specimen as Jodha.
I would be willing to bet that if he had done so, it might have ended up like that famous scene in Gone with the Wind when Rhett picks Scarlett up and carries her up the grand staircase, leaving the rest to the imagination of the 1930s readers. Remember Scarlett's reaction the next morning? Jodha might well have felt the same.
But of course Jalal will do no such thing. For his Achilles' heel is this: he wants her to care for him, for what happens to him, even more than to satisfy the undoubted physical attraction he feels for her. And this, judging from this segment, is nowhere in sight. I do not know about the self-righteous, pokered-up Jodha. But Jalal's feet are surely going to bleed on that stony, thorny path to true love that I had written about ealier . In 2013, I advised his deewanis in the forum to keep plenty of lep and bandages ready.
Episode 99: Of the birds and bees and butparasti
Let me, as I do often, start from the end.
Butparasti: I triumphantly patted myself of the back in 2013, for having been practically the only one in the Jodha Akbar forum to highlight the risk Jalal ran, when he fulfilled Jodha's sankalp by placing his head at the foot of Kali Maa, of being accused of butparasti, or idol worship, which is strictly forbidden in Islam. And Ela was among the very few to back me in this take, which was generally brushed aside by most here.
In my Jodha Akbar 87: The Gordian Knot post , I had noted, while describing this scene:
The courage of his convictions: There is a perceptible hesitation, for no one should underestimate what this gesture costs him. What he is about to do would be taken as butparasti (idol worship), specifically forbidden in Islam. If anyone had spread the word across the Mughal sultanate that their Shahenshah had paid obeisance to a Hindu but, there would have been an uproar, and not only among the maulvis. Even decades later , when he had long been the all powerful Emperor Akbar, his initiative to found a syncretist religion merging Islam and Hinduism, the Din-e-Ilahi, had attracted widespread criticism. Now he is, as yet, nowhere near that level of unquestioned domination, so the risks are that much more.
This, of course, is what happens now. There were three aspects to this stormy encounter between Jalal and the maulvis that were remarkable. These are discussed below, with the least significant first.
-Ruqaiya: Siyaasati savvy: Her intelligence network, headed by Hoshiyaar, is clearly better than the regular imperial one, which should have been as active as usual, and in fact more so, when both the Shahenshah and the chief Minster Atgah Khan were out of Agra.
In the event, Ruqaiya, true to her reputation for siyasati savvy, is swift to assess the danger that lies ahead, and to move with lightning speed to alert Jalal to it before he reaches Agra. That her messenger goes astray, and Jalal does not get the heads up on what awaits him at Agra, is besides the point. What matters is that the Begum-e-Khaas is capable of assessing a dangerous situation unerringly and acting to warn the Shahenshah about it as soon as possible.
-Maham: Fierce defence: When Hamida Banu's plaintive appeal (forestalling Jalal's initial attempt at an explanation), to the maulvis falls on deaf ears, it is left to Maham Anga, in her official capacity as the Wazir-e-Aaliya, to leap into the breach with a fiery, coherent and lucid peroration that seeks to put the maulvis on the defensive about their blockade, as also their assertion of their right to excommunicate the Shahenshah and thus dethrone him. She shows her mettle unambiguously: her Haq hai!!, sounds like a clarion call to battle, and her arguments are impeccable in their logic and fiercely delivered. She thus demonstrates afresh why Jalal has not just deep-rooted affection but also unbounded admiration for her.
-Jalal: Silken rebuttal: Equally impressive, if far more soft spoken, is Jalal's own gentle and yet razor sharp rebuttal. His calm demeanour even in the face of such provocation is very unusual in the quick tempered Shahenshah. It shows that he has a cool brain as well, and knows when to keep his temper and appear to be calm and patient (he is really furious underneath that faade, as he says to Sharifuddin and Adham afterwards).
He never apologises for anything he has done - be it the bowing before Kali Maa or whatever he did to save the life of the half-frozen Jodha - and this is as befits a Shahenshah.
Instead, he first clears the decks with a comprehensive statement on his impeccable Islamic credentials. Then, when they continue to harp on his butparasti, he asks a couple of smooth, non-confrontational, but very pertinent questions. Before the maulvi who answers them knows where they are leading, he has been pushed on to the backfoot, as Jalal declares that his adherence to Islam is not dependent on the place (of worship), for his soul is lit by the light of his faith, which the maulvis are unable to see.
Kisi mazhab ka taaluq zameen se nahin hota. Mazhab dil se maani jaati hai. Aur wohi Khuda aaj bhi is dil mein basta hai!Us Khuda ka noor aaj bhi hamari rooh mein hai. Faraq sirf itna hai ki aapki aankhon par parde gir gaye hain aur aap us noor ko dekh nahin pa rahe hain.
The maulvis, left without a leg to stand on, fall back on the only weak link in all this, Jodha Begum, and demand that she convert to Islam, so as to prevent any recurrence of butparasti on Jalal's part.
Again, it is wise on Jalal's part not to force the issue by posturing and declaring that he had given Jodha his word that she could remain a Hindu. This might have sounded heroic, but it would have re-ignited the controversy that he and Maham had just managed to tamp down, and unnecessarily endangered his regime. So he accepts the day's reprieve that Maham gets him, and announces that they will meet the next day in the Diwan-e-Khas.
Jodha: Detached incomprehension: All this while, Jodha is, oddly enough, standing with a expression of detached interest in the tumultuous proceedings. There is no hint of any shock at the threat of dethronement. It is likely that with her usual lack of understanding of the priorities of imperial governance, she would have been mentally castigating Jalal for not having publicly stuck to his vachan to her!
However, the stability of his empire, and the security and well-being of his millions of subjects, whom he cannot abandon to the chaos that would emerge if he was either dethroned or had to confront the clergy head on, should come first for him, and they do, at least for now. That he was ready to welsh on this responsibility the next day for the sake of the selfsame vachan is another matter altogether!
The power of the clergy: Many of you might be wondering how is it that a bunch if maulvis can dethrone such a powerful monarch just because he is accused of having violated a tenet of Islam. It all depends on the nature of the State, which is, in this case, at least in theory, based on the Sharia and the decrees of Islam as the State religion.
But the extent to which the maulvis can enforce the Islamic writ - of course as interpreted by them! - depends, in turn, on their hold on the awaam, the common people. If this is as strong as they believe it to be, both the army and the people at large would turn on the Shahenshah , believing that his continued rule, in defiance of the State religion, would endanger their souls and condemn them, along with him to dozakh, or Hell.
What the Deep Throat (the whistleblower during the Watergate scandal involving President Richard Nixon, who had to abdicate to avoid being impeached by the Senate) in this case, and his supporters , bank on is not a general popular uprising against Jalal, which might or might not have broken out. They hope, by taking advantage of the uncertainty regarding the legitimacy of Jalal's rule created by the maulvis' ban on his ascending the throne, to engineer a successful rebellion against him by discontented nobles and army commanders like Sharifuddin. If Deep Throat is Sharifuddin himself, he would be holding himself in readiness to oust Jalal and try to seize the throne.
Jalal might well have rallied large parts of the army and the nobility to his side and prevailed in the end, but the interim chaos would have led to a resurgence of the anti-Mughal forces across Hindustan, with the Rajvanshis in the forefront. This was also, as you would remember, the threat he faced during Bairam Khan's short lived rebellion, or when he was in a critical condition after being mauled by the tiger. Whence the vital importance of quieting the maulvis and preventing them from becoming a rallying point, under the cry of Islam in danger!, for other malcontents.
NB: Historical examples of the power of the clergy in this particular aspect of the interface between politics and religion vary. In 15th/ 16th century England. Henry VIII, thwarted by the then Pope and refused the annulment of his marriage to his first wife, the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, effectively dismantled the Catholic Church in England, seized their monasteries, expelled the monks and confiscated all the vast wealth of the Catholic Church in his kingdom.
He was duly excommunicated by the Pope, but it did not affect him as there was no rebellion against him by his subjects, who were fed up of the corruption of the Catholic Church in their country and preferred to back their English King against the foreign ecclesiastical establishment in Rome, all the more so as he declared himself to be the Defender of the Faith - of the true Catholic faith that had been corrupted, he asserted, by Rome. He impartially burned both Catholics loyal to the Pope, and Protestants opposed to Catholicism, at the stake with abandon, and ruled as an unopposed autocrat till the end of his days in 1547.
Contrast this with what happened to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, faced with a rebellion by his nobles after he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in early 1076 by Pope Gregory VII, and given a deadline of a year for the excommunication to become permanent. The Emperor had to walk barefoot in the snow, clad in a hairshirt, to meet the Pope at Canossa in northern Italy, kneel before him and beg his pardon before the excommunication was lifted.
Lament about rigid orthodoxy: In 2013, there were many who were dismayed bythe illiberalism shown by the maulvis. Their concerns were enlightened, but they would not apply to most people in that era. The liberal examples, like Jalal and Hamida, we are shown in this serial must belong to a distinct minority. So that makes Jalal's explanation that he is still a good Muslim in the real sense of the term far more realistic than a statement of full on sarva dharma samabhava would have been. The latter would have been distinctly anachronistic, not to speak of being totally ineffective.
Even today, if one reads for example, the fulminations of the preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell against 'idolatrous heathens' , as they call Hindus, not to speak of Protestant-Catholic enmity and the savage conflict between them for centuries in Ireland, or the denominational hatreds even within Buddhism, one realises that true acceptance of all religions as true is quite rare even now. This has to be accepted, whether now or in the 16th century, as a human failing, and attempts made to keep it within reasonable limits, and not allow it to spill over into murderous strife.
The birds and the bees: I have already written at length about the body heat angle in the part on Episode 98, and I do not want to repeat myself here. So just a few factual points.
IT or no IT?: In 2013, my answer to the momentous question that reverberated thru the forum: Did Jalal do or not do IT?, was a resounding NO! As Vicki put it pithily, Jalal is not into necrophilia.
Apart from this, and the fact that Jodha brought the whole body heat imbroglio on herself by going and sitting out in the freezing cold, what I want to know is what Jodha's cheerleader, Hamida Banu, thought about why her precious bahu camped under the tree. I daresay she blamed her son for that as wellđ.
As for Maham, what else does one expect of her but that kind of ugly gloating? In the process, she deepens Jodha's obsessive fear, that once Jalal has possessed her physically, he would discard her. As for why that should bother her when she does not care for him, she undoubtedly feels it would be bitterly humiliating to be so treated.
Coming to Jodha's apparent ignorance about whether IT happened to her, I am old fashioned and so this is awkward, but mothers, in every age, did and do teach daughters about the birds and the bees before they are sent off to their sasural. Plus, they were far more plainspoken and indelicate in those days in royal families, where the love life of the king in his harem was an open book. So there is no way a princess who is, as the old-fashioned term went, untouched, would not know that she had been, well, touched.
NB: As I had mentioned earlier, among European royalty, at least till the late 20th century, the Lord Chamberlain had , by law, to be present in the delivery room of the queen, where the King would never have thought of being! This was so that he could certify that no changeling had been smuggled in to become the heir to the throne. Interestingly enough, this was not done for Princess Elizabeth, later to become Elizabeth II, because when she was born, she was not the heir or even the heir once or twice removed, since her tau, later to become King Edward VIII for a short while before he abdicated, was the Prince of Wales. So they were not bothered about anyone substituting another child for her!
The non-existent "vachan": A propos the so-called vachan of Jalal's, there was no such thing. It is strange that Jodha behaves as though Jalal had given her a notarised affidavit on Rs.100/- stamped paper that he would never touch her (the without her consent angle is something new that she has tacked on now)!
As I remember it, what he said, during that bangle breaking session, was that he had every right, as her husband, to do anything he wanted to, but he would not touch her, because that would be giving her too much importance and she might begin to think that he had mohabbat for her. That was no vachan, only an angry affirmation by a drunken, angry husband. That was a statement of intent, an iraada, meant to insult her, and statements of intent can be changed at any time.
For those who point out that Jalal himself is now shown ruminating about the zubaan he gave Jodha, I can only guess that after he got entangled with this chudail, Jalal ki smaran shakti ksheen ho gayi hai.đđ And no wonder, seeing how much blood he has lost after the nirdosh pashu affair, not to speak of having to tackle snakes, dive into deep water to rescue her, and so on and on ! So he cannot remember what he himself said to her on the night I referred to, and now accepts her claim as a fact!!
NB: The real reason for this blooper must be linked to the mass walkout of CVs and others several weeks before this episode. The new CVs must have had no clear idea of what had been written earlier by their predecessors. So they cooked up this zubaan to ratchet up the body heat! ___________________________________________________________________________
Classic put-down: To revert, it is not that Jalal is going to change his iraada now. He does not clarify anything to Jodha the morning after because he is hurt, humiliated and exasperated by the end of it all, in that order, that she would think so lowly of him.
I was half afraid that Jalal would tie himself into knots explaining what he did to save her life and what he did not do. I was thus relieved that he looks neither awkward nor hesitant when faced with a shrill Jodha, but instead puts her in her place effortlessly with his Hum Shahenshah hain aur hum kuch bhi kar sakte hain mantra. Plus he does not indulge in any unbecoming chichorapan and tease her.
As she practically shrieks: Adhik se adhik hamari mrityu ho jaati, so hone dete! Aapne apna vachan kyon toda, Shahenshah?, his response is curt and comprehensive: BAS, Jodha Begum!! Ek Shahenshah ko kya karna chahiye, aur kisi aur ko kya karna chahiye, yeh humein mat samajhayiye! Aapki jaan bachana hamari zimmedari thi, aur humne bas apni zimmedari poori ki.
When she harps again on the vachan, he retorts: Jodha Begum hum Shahenshah hain, bina kisi ki ijaazat ke kuch bhi kar sakte hain. He is by now glaring at her. Humne wo kiya jo zaroori tha,humne wo kiya jo hamare dil ne kaha,aur agar dobara zaroorat padi to hum tab bhi karenge. Aur koyi humein rok nahin sakta!
This is an aloof, dismissive, cool putdown of her apparently taking it for granted that he is mad with desire for her, for his stressing that he did whatever it was that he did only as a duty, is a classic snub. As for his making it clear that neither this time, nor the next time, if there was one, does he need her permission for doing whatever he thinks fit, I gave him a round of standing applause!
Jodha:Demeaning rants: This said, I find Jodha's continual ranting about her husband seeking to "take advantage of her" pretentious, , demeaning, and worst of all, terminally boring. Apart from her touch-me-not stand being legally untenable, it has a very depressing effect on both the character and the actress..
Poor Paridhi, my heart goes out to her, made to do these idiotic scenes, with that contact face meant to convey anger and desperation. She is totally wasted, the poor sweet!
A queen's first duty: Another point. It was universally acknowledged in those days that any royal wife's first duty was to provide her husband's kingdom with an heir. Not to take strategic forts and other valuable gifts for her maayka while snarling at the provider of all this largesse when he so much as touches her hand.
If Jodha had had a saas who reminded her every now and then of what was expected of her, coupled with the warning that if she was unable to do fulfil these expectations of her, she would be cashiered and replaced, she would have been pulled up short. How long does she think she can, as a begum, avoid this crucial responsibility?
That would have been the same even if she had been married to some creep of a Rajvanshi king, and he would not have waited for her consent the way Jalal does. In fact, I cannot think of any ordinary husband who would put up with this touch me not mantra for any length of time. Even if he was reluctant to indulge in bal prayog, he would have returned her to her maayka labelled "psychologically defective goods"!đ
The fact is that Jodha does not know how lucky she is, and Jalal, alas, does not know what an idiot he is with his endless understanding, indulgence and boundless generosity, none of which gets him what he seeks, viz that she should care for him. In fact quite the opposite.
An imperial poodle: What Jodha deserves for her nautanki under the tree and the drama the morning after is that Jalal should tell her never to come near him again, so that he is at peace. She could then relax for in her hoojra with Moti, and perhaps Hamida Banu for company.
As I noted earlier, I go for the likes of Rhett Butler, who would never stoop for any woman. Not for a poodle, even an imperial poodle! In 2013, I was, by this stage, dismayed by the deep pit of helpless emotional subservience to a woman who is so relentlessly negative towards him, into which the Shahenshah-e-Hindustan seemed to have fallen. So I wrote that if Jalal continued to run after Jodha - trying to con her into massaging miscellaneous body parts, or trying to hold her hand, while she looks at him as if he was something the cat had brought in, remarks in a supercilious tone: Aap yahan? Is samay? and recoils every time he comes within a yard of him - I would wash my hands of him, as it would be intolerably demeaning.
As things turned out, it was even worse than I had feared, and I did wash my hands of him eventually.
But not just yet. So on to Episode 100 and the conversion debate
Episode 100: Curiously unsatisfactory
In 2013, when I posted my take on this episode, I had an uneasy feeling that I was raining the forum's parade, for there was a literal outpouring of joy and relief all over because of the happy endings for both the butparasti-cum-conversion, and the body heat (now the kala kapda/vastra) issues. But I could not share this mood, not then and not now. My overall impression - only slightly improved after a rewatching it now, and that too because of aspects other than these two - is that it was slapdash at best and ludicrous at worst. So, if you are among the 95%+ that rejoiced in 2013, I shall not mind if you decide to switch off at this point!
-The Green Missive: The message from Sheikh Salim Chisti was, in its soaring mysticism, unquestionably the most beautiful part of the episode. And the most beautiful part of his message was the very last line: Khuda mohabbat karne ki cheez hai, khauff khane ki nahin! A God of love, not a God of wrath.
His reference to the Almighty understanding the twittering of the birds that the Sheikh had seen flying around in the morning reminded me of another epiphany. That of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who, as a boy, saw a flock of white swans flying over head in the blue sky. He had a vision, an epiphany, of the Divine, which was so strong that he fell down in a dead faint and did not come to his senses for hours. It is thus that he acquired the suffix Paramahansa, or the Supreme Swan.
It is not clear what the Sheikh means by asking Jalal to creat an place like Ajmer Sharif free of religious and political strife; does he mean a physical place of pilgrimage, or a religious meeting place like the Din-e-Ilahi that Akbar created much later in his reign?
He further says, in an echo of what Hamida Banu once tells Jalal during the Farida fraud on him, that Jalal will have an heir once he understands mohabbat: Jis din tum mohabbat ko samjhoge, us din tumhein Khuda ka tohfa milega: tumhara jaanasheen, tumhara waliahat! One does not spot Hamida clapping, but she must have been hard at it!đ
The question, however is this: does the Sheikh have any idea of the endless frustrations and despair that Akbar would suffer because of the totally unsatisfactory heir that Salim/Jahangir turned out to be? So much so that ther real Akbar would have gladly ditched him if there had been any other heir available? And in fact planned to ditch him for Salim's own son Khusrau?
This was in fact proof positive of the old adage that there is only one thing worse than not getting what you want, and that is getting it!
Jalal: He was all Shahenshah in the Diwan-e-Khas before the ulema arrived, furious about their threat to his throne, raging like a caged lion as he seeks the source of the leak about his mandir visit, and cowing down Sharifuddin with a single scorching glance for daring to repeat/suggest, as the way out, that Jodha should convert or leave Agra.
But then all he does in practice is tell the hapless Atgah Khan to produce the culprit. How does he think this is going to be done, by magic? In fact, in every problem of this kind, both Jalal and his Wazir-e-Ala are all talk and no action. Why, Hoshiyaar was better than the official spies at finding out about the maulvi revolt! God help the Mughal sultanate if these are all the intelligence resources they have!đĄ
Lastly, as far as the court scene is concerned, Jalal hardly looks either relieved or happy after the conversion demand has been dropped and his position as the Shahenshah is secure once more. In fact he looks withdrawn and grumpy.Why? Is it because he realizes what a near run thing it was? But then it was he who made it so!
The demands of rajadharma
Now for the aspect that infuriated me in 2013, and set my take apart from those of almost everyone else in the forum: that of Jalal's approach to the dilemma of his zubaan to Jodha vs his duty, as the Shahenshah , to the throne and, most vital of all , to his awaam.
Whence the title of this section, posted in 2013 as Jodha Akbar 100b, which, though it garnered 70 Likes, was almost drowned in the tidal wave of relief and rejoicing that engulfed the forum.
Facile optimism: Back then, I was left wondering at, and somewhat dismayed by the insouciance with which all but a very few had brushed aside Jalal's statement in the Diwan-e-Khas, during the continued confrontation with the ulema bent on dethroning him unless Jodha converted to Islam, offering to abdicate. It is the same now.
Jalal says that he cannot take back his zubaan to Jodha that she was free to practice her religion, so he cannot force her to convert to Islam - yeh tabhi mumkin hoga jab wo bakhushi Islam qubool karengi. Nor can he go against the ulema. So, in sab ke baad, agar aap humein takht chhodne ko kahenge, to hamare baad, hum yeh takht Rahim ko saunpte hain! And he looks around the hall as if he expected to see little Rahim Khan-e-Khana to be there to receive this momentous tohfa!đ˛
Back then, almost the whole forum applauded Jalal for his nobility (very likely because this zubaan was given to Jodha; if it had been one given to Ruqaiya or to Maham, the voting would have been 99:1 in the opposite direction! đ ).
Hardly any gave even a passing thought to the likely consequences of Jalal's abdication, not only for Jalal, but for the whole awaam across his huge empire. If at all a few thought about it, they saw it as a very astute siyasati chaal by Jalal, to rule by proxy thru his foster son for a decade or more, and then perhaps even take the throne back when the dust had long since settled.
This was facile optimism at its most acute, felt in total disregard of the political ground realities prevailing in the Mughal empire. Far from being a very clever piece of statecraft, this throwaway statement by Jalal (which the historical Akbar would never have contemplated even in his worst nightmares) would have resulted in an unmitigated disaster of huge proportions. Let me try to explain why, and if you read what follows with an open mind, you will have to agree with me.
NB: Nor is this a purely theoretical non-issue, on the all is well that has ended well principle. The butparasti issue, or the linked one of Muslim resentment at what was seen as Akbar's excessive indulgence towards the Rajputs, and the Hindus in general, let to periodic Muslim uprisings against him in various parts of the Mughal empire right till the end of his reign.
To revert, what Jalal does now in the Diwan-e-Khas is irresponsible in the extreme, and an effective abdication of his rajadharma. Here is why.
The abdication offer:As noted above, Jalal seems curiously passive at the hearing. Apart from his insistence on his zubaan to Jodha, he is strangely ready to cave in to the power of the clergy. There is, at the moment of truth, none of the fire with which he had declared to his courtiers, just a little earlier, that if the maulvis had not been the custodians of the faith, he would have decapitated them on the spot.
In fact he throws in the towel straightaway, and not only accepts that they have the right to dethrone him - a very dangerous concession - but is ready to step down at once. He only adds that he would nominate Rahim to assume the throne in his place.
This is simply unbelievable, that an emperor would be prepared to quit this throne, abandon his subjects, and leave them to suffer from all the chaos, instability, civil war and all that would inevitably follow, simply in order to be seen to keep his word to his wife. This is not rajadharma in any form, it is the negation of it. A king should be prepared to suffer hellfire if necessary to protect his subjects, and here we have a Jalal who thinks of nothing but his own self-indulgent virtue.
And how does Jalal imagine that the ulema who would have, thanks to his lack of resistance, acquired the power to dethrone him, were going to accept his choice of a successor? That too a 4 year old, whose father was one of the most hated men in the Mughal sultanate? How long does Jalal think Rahim would stay alive even if the ulema accepted him as the heir? It is such an ill-considered, kneejerk statement that I do not know what to make of it.
Disaster ahead: For those indulging fond hopes of a takhtheen Jalal ruling by proxy thru Rahim, thus continuing pretty much as he was doing till now bar his title, a reality check would be in order. Here it is, folks, and nothing I have said here is speculative. It would all assuredly have come to pass.
First and foremost, it would not be in Jalal's hands to choose his successor once the ulema had got him dethroned for a crime against Islam, that of butparasti. Not Rahim, nor anyone else. It is unimaginable that the clergy, having declared him a sinner unfit to rule, would let him rule by proxy. No way.
The minute he was dethroned, Jalal would become a non-person, deprived of the protection of the Mughal sultanate. Exactly what happened to Bairam Khan once he was no longer the Wazir--e-Ala would happen to Jalal. Adham would have him killed at the very earliest. Killing Jalal would have been essential because his lineage would always have made him a dangerous rallying point for the awaam, whatever the religious charges against him. Rahim would have been killed too, to prevent any of the Jalal loyalists from rallying behind him, as Jalal's designated successor once Jalal had been disposed of.
There would next have been an all out power struggle, between Adham, Sharifuddin, and other claimants as well.
The eventual winner of the power struggle would have tried to marry Ruqaiya - if she had not killed herself already - to get the legitimacy that would go with her true blue nasl-e-Timuri ancestry, as Babur's paternal granddaughter. Jodha and Salima and most of the other begums would have had to commit suicide to escape being recruited into the successor's harem, and Hamida would have been dumped in some corner of the palace, if she was not disposed of as well.
The awaam: A terrible fate: In all of this, the common people, especially in the areas recently conquered by the Mughals, would have been abandoned to the tender mercies of Adham Khan and his ilk. Law and order would have collapsed in the war that would have raged between the contenders for the throne and the armed forces under them. The Mughal army would have been divided and leaderless, and would have degenerated into an armed rabble, split up among the various warlords at each other's throats.
They would have looted, burnt and pillaged their way to power, and those suspected of harboring loyalty to Jalal, whether courtiers and Ministers like Atgah Khan, or at lower levels, would have been killed in short order.
That, folks, is exactly what would have happened. A succession struggle for an imperial throne is not a civilised tea party. It is a bloodbath. Aurangzeb murdered all his brothers and imprisoned his father to get to the throne, and Shahjahan too had his brother and his cousins killed to secure his accession. And in their succession struggles, the common people suffered the most.
Jalal got the throne on a plate thanks to the loyalty of Bairam Khan, and his present empire thanks to his Khan Baba's military and political skills that were passed on to him. So he should have valued his takht all the more. I am sure the historical Jalal did so value it.
Irresponsible self-indulgence: To revert to our Jalal, when he was coronated as the Shahenshah-e-Hind, he undoubtedly swore a sacred oath that he would protect his subjects and to provide them with peace and security. This oath and his commitment to the people, should have, for Jalal, taken precedence over all else. An Indian Army cadet takes an oath that the country will come first for him, always and every time. So should it have been for Jalal.
Which is why it was irresponsible and criminally self-indulgent of Jalal to risk all of the above, especially the terrible consequences for his subjects, just to be able to say that for him, pran jaye par vachan ne jaye, as if he had been a reincarnation of the Raghukul Shromani Lord Rama! Be it also noted that even after King Dasharata passed away while Rama was still in vanvaas, Rama did not lack a capable successor. He had Bharata. Jalal has no one.
Jodha: Single point thanksgiving: Finally, a few hardy and skeptical souls, who had, back then, echoed my above critique of Jalal, had also wondered about Jodha offering thanks to her Kanha only for having saved her faith, without a single thought for either
(a) what Jalal had risked for her, or
(b) the disaster that would have befallen her new family and the whole Mughal empire if Jalal were to step down.
It is not that she is not aware of these matters; Hamida Banu warns her about it on the sole occasion when she scolds her, after the tiger attack from which Jalal nearly dies. But then Jodha is like a frog in a well, a princess from a tiny riyasat whose ideas of imperial power and the dangers of its collapse are very limited. Plus she is terminally self-centred.
Moreover, why blame her alone when not only is Jalal ready to betray his oath to his subjects and risk their lives and security because of his obsession with a woman (I very much doubt if he would have reacted the same if the zubaan had been given to, say, Penaz Begum!đ ), but Hamida Banu too asserts that Shahenshah ki siyasat wo hi jaane.. par Mughal sultanat ne waada kiya tha ki Jodha Begum ko unke mazhab badalne ke liye koyi majboor nahin karega, aur wo waada nahin tootega!
And this time, she seems happily oblivious to the awful consequences for the Mughal sultanat once Jalal was no longer on the throne. Consequences that she had herself had detailed to Jodha after the narnaal disaster. Talk of a selective memory! With such rulers around, only Allah could have saved the Mughal awaam from the consequences of Jalal's zubaan!đĄ
As for Jodha , she looks blank all thru, whether it is while confronting the angry and determined Maham, backed by Ruqaiya and several other begums, or in the Diwan-e-Khas. There is not even a flicker of shock on Jodha's face when Jalal offers to abdicate in order that she should not be forced to convert. Please note that I am not even referring to gratitude to him for being ready to actully forsake his throne in order to keep his word to her. Jodha Begum does not believe in little things like that!
Jalal-Jodha:Same old runaround: As my dear Lashy had put it perceptively in 2013, though in different words, Jalal treats Jodha like a somewhat retarded child, whom he loves to cherish, indulge and tease. So nothing she does really upsets him; one does not get angry at the folly of children. He gives and gives and gives to her and, to please her, to her family, just as he lavishes toys and sweets and dresses on his little saalis. He has the same undemanding affection and caring towards her as he has towards them.
The only difference is that they cherish him in return, whereas Jodha accepts it all with an unparalleled sense of entitlement, but for what puzzles me.
She does not care what happens to him, for if she had, she would have jumped up the moment he announced that he would yield the throne to Rahim, and declared that she was ready to convert of her own free will, if only out of the gratitude to him that she never voices but which she, hopefully, feels somewhere inside! But she does not, and looks instead to Hamida Banu to bail her out, and save her from blame for not having done anything to save her husband's throne. She never imagines that Hamida will announce that she should convert.
I am tired of tearing strips off Jodha, so I shall refrain from comment about her opening lines to Jalal as soon as he turns up in her rooms after the momentous Diwan-e-khas session, asserting that if he expected her to thank him for standing by her wrt the conversion issue, she was not going to do any such thing as he had broken his other vachan.
Besides how can one blame her when he is determined, like Darcy, to be pleased with her no matter what she does? It is pointless to look for a stormy, dominating Rhett in this Jalal, who reserves his imperiousness for Adham and Sharifuddin.
Hamari Jodha Mahaan: It is a fundamentally unbalanced equation between Jalal and Jodha, with him doing all the running, and I do not think this is likely to change any time soon. In fact, and I repeat myself, Jodha Akbar has, by now, becomea jazzed up version of Pavitra Rishta, with a heroine who can never do anything wrong and is perennially up there on a pedestal, complete with a dazzling halo. Not because she is intelligent or resourceful or capable of logical thought, but simply because the script decrees that it be so.
Why, before the Diwan-e-Khas session, Jodha was so much like a deflated balloon, helpless and adrift, that it was depressing to watch her. Even after it, our Amer ki Mirchi is unable to infer that a man who can give up a throne to keep one promise he made her would never have broken another such promise (by now, Jalal's non-existent zubaan has of course taken on a life of its own). She actually attacks him afresh on that score. How an intelligent man can love such a featherbrained creature is a mystery! đ
Till now, there has not been a single instance where Jodha has influenced Jalal for the better - unless you count her stopping him for kalamofying the Rat King's sar!đ - and whatever is good and noble in him was always there. Still, you will now see this haivaan ko banaya insaan mantra being force fed to us once more; it has already started anew.
So, the only constant in Jodha Akbar is Hamari Jodha Mahaan.
Ruqaiya:Unfair criticism: As for those who feel that in pressurizing Jodha to convert or in rushing a messenger to warn Jalal about the maulvi revolt, Ruqaiya was simply defending her own interests that are tied to Jalal, I for one see this as too facile an explanation.
Ruqaiya is a complex character. She attaches top priority to Jalal's takht and to his remaining the Shahenshah because she is a Mughal princess. She has seen all the terrors and upheavals he has been thru, and thus sees the paramount need for him to retain the throne. Plus , she is his childhood friend and she loves him in her own fashion. That cannot be denied.
Hamida Banu's reactions and what she says to Jodha after the tiger attack, when Jalal is at death's door, are very similar to Ruqaiya's. She never seems to be mourning the likely death of her son then, does she? She only voices fear for what will happen to the sultanate if the Shahenshah dies. So how, using the same logic, should we interpret those statements by Hamida? Obviously that she cares nothing for Jalal as her son, but only for the Emperor.
Jodha has seen nothing of any kind of hardship in her life, except when Amer is threatened by Sharifuddin. So, by the same token, if and when Jodha tries to protect Jalal in the future, one could argue similarly that it would be because his continuance in power is vital for Amer's survival.
That would not be true, and neither is it true that Ruqaiya's fears for Jalal are motivated solely by her self interest. Or Hamida's for that matter.
Hamida Banu:Halo No.2: The other candidate for a halo after Jodha Begum. And for a gold medal for that 11:59:59 reprieve for Jodha. Of course she knew that the man from Ajmer Sharif would land up just before Jodha read the kalma, like a bomb being defused always with 1 second to go. Probably she knew he could, like Harry Potter, apparate in with that green missiveđ.
The Kala Vastra (caps intentional!): A laugh riot:Nothing did more to cheer me up at episode end than this brainwave of the CVs. I was falling off my chair for laughing!
It was LUDICROUS. A black cloth, or even a black blanket, cannot generate heat, which was what was needed. Jodha's half frozen body had no heat to conserve. What was needed was an external source of heat. That is why the Khwaja recommended her husband hugging her tight to transfer his body warmth to her. And if not body heat, there could have been the Mughal equivalent of brandy, plus a blazing fire. Neither of which needed Jalal's personal contribution .
But how on earth can a black cloth wrapping thaw out a frozen body? This kind of nonsense is an insult to the intelligence of the viewers. And obviously none of the CVs has done even an elementary course in physics!
What riles me is that this is beginning to resemble the endless fake DNA reports and fake duration of pregnancy reports in the standard serials, plus the total farce that was periodically shown there in terms of court procedures. If the CVs take the viewers so much for granted, and are condoned, how then can one complain any longer? In this case, they undoubtedly took heart from the rapturous reception accorded to this episode, and dished out even worse things as the tale proceeded.đĄ
The Mystery of the Missing Mole: To my mind, the most interesting point in this episode was Adham's revelation that it was not he who had leaked the butparasti details to the maulvis. It was clearly not Maham either. So who could it have been?
My bet is on Sharifuddin, who had as much opportunity as Adham to squeal to the maulvis, and who is later shown accusing them of having fallen down on the job and caved in when confronted with Sheikh Salim Chisti's missive. And planning a future follow up, unfazed by the failure of this attempt! Saraswathi Akka, are you there? This one is for you, for you had asked me about this point.
Earlier, I was wondering about who could have known about Jalal's maatha-tekhna in front of the Kaali Maa, for only Jodha and her daasis were with Jalal then, and all the Mughal courtiers had been left outside. Clearly, one of them must have babbled about what the Shahenshah had done - there was one daasi exclaiming to Jodha about how the Shahenshah's temple visit was a bahut badi ghatna! -- to one of the Mughal baandis, who would then have retailed it to the whole of Jalal's entourage.
In 2013, there was even some speculation elsewhere that it could have been Ruqaiya! And this despite her having rushed a messenger to warn Jalal about what lay in store for him at the gates of Agra. That was as incredible as the black cloth explanation. It just goes to show that some people - and not just the CVs! - have no use for logic!
Well, folks, let us call a halt here. I am sure you are feeling limp by now, for this one is long even by my standards! But there is a plus point; I shall not be back for at least a week, so you can have a well-deserved break.
Do enjoy yourselves with the paayal fastening bit, the saanjha dastarkhana, the night spent in the angoori bagh with Jalal drinking in Jodha Begum's words of wisdom with rapt attention, and the Sri Jodha tulabhaaram on her janamdin, a la the Sri Krishna tulabhaaram, with Jalal doing a Rukmini! And of course the breaking and raging of the false pregnancy storm from Episode 105 onwards. This last irritated me beyond bearing, and I see from my 2013 records that between episodes 100 and 111, I had done only 3 posts, for Nos. 104, 105 and 106.
Once I am back, we can take a call on when to call a halt to this series, which is fast becoming a chore for you and me alike, and besides, my hands are beginning to hurt once more.
Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di
PS: A little bonus for those of my patient readers who are perennially exasperated by my sardonic comments about Jodha Begum! I do feel for them, believe me, for all that I cannot alter the way in which this Jodha forces me to look at her. But Vicki (Morons ki Mallika), whose flowing romantic takes on Jodha and Jalal I used to love, had this to say about Jalal's Jodha. You will love it too, guaranteed!
"Rehna tu, hai jaisa tu
Thoda sa dard tu, thoda sukoon
Rehna tu, Hai jaisa tu
Dheema Dheema jhonka, Ya phir junoon
Thoda sa resham, tu hamdam
Thoda sa khurdara
Kabhi tu ad jaaye, Ya lad jaaye
Ya khushboo se bhara
Tujhe badalna na chahoon
Ratti bhar bhi sanam
Bina sajawat, milawat
Na zyaada na hi kam
Tuhje chaahon, jaisa hai tu...
This song , I feel , has always aptly described a man's feelings for a volatile woman with a candyfloss heart. That is how a man accepts his ladylove as a complete package - with her vices and virtues - smiling and shaking his head at her naaz-nakhraas, airs and graces , arrogance , aggression, vanity. Then, getting amused and touched by the softening of her countenance , her sudden, startling displays of heart, and her mysterious and twisted expression of the feelings of a 'beloved'.
A man who doesn't really believe in taming the shrew - but loving the shrew as she is - Volatile. Unreasonable. Unpredictable. Flaming. Beautiful. Intense. Passionate. Surrendered in love.
This is how Jalaal sees Jodha AT THE MOMENT. This is how Jodha is AT THE MOMENT.
Ego, arrogance , aggression are not always vices or makings of a villain or a vamp. Sometimes, they are defence lines, fortress walls guarding an extremely vulnerable heart. Attitude trying to envelope and safeguard an innocence , a compassionate heart that is not fit to be exposed to the world. "
I must add that I do not buy this highflown version - if one is to believe my dear Vicki, this Jalal must be shaking his head in bewildered acceptance of this Jodha so often that he must by now have become a Noddyđ,and I am yet to see any "sudden, startling displays of heart" from Jodha towards Jalal - but it is beautifully written, and should be a salve for all those feeling bruised by my takes on Jodha Begum!đ
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