Friends, I am opening this weekend analysis thread as Jyoti will join in later.
It has been quite a week last week - and because of the excellent TRPs that happened in that saptah after the maha shaadi, there was jubilation all around. Those of us who were agitated after the serial name change promises given by Ekta to the Rajput Karni Seva wondered if Ekta would be able to convince Zee to go along with her name change promises to the Karni Seva (or she had even promised them she would withdraw from the serial). The fact that the TRPs have been so healthy for two weeks in a row seem to suggest now that Ekta will have the upper hand over Zee and should be able to convince Zee much more easily on going ahead with the promises she has made to the Rajput clans.
Let's get the name change issue out of the way first:
Here a lot of rumours and newsbits are floating around from Midday and SBS etc on exactly what the name change will entail. People wrote that the serial name would change, the tagline may change, the character names may change and the storyline itself may change. All this naturally has led to a lot of confusion. Let me now add to this plethora of voices with an idea that strikes me as the easiest way forward for Ekta. Here goes my two bits:
I have one idea coming to mind after these spoilers by SBS and Midday. I have a feeling that Ekta will remove both these tags "Mughals" and "Rajputs" and she may keep the names still same as Jodha/Jalal. But she may say he is the Shahenshah of a muslim-ruled kingdom called XYZ (eg. some arbitrary name like Azamshahis) and she is the Hindu princess of an arbitrary kingdom called "Rajvanshis" etc etc.
By changing the complete connection with history from both sides, the whole issue will be put to rest fully and finally, as neither can any community nor caste complain against imaginary kingdoms, plus if its not based on any history Ekta also has freedom to take the story in any direction she wishes to without historical comparisons.
She may change their names of Jodha and Jalal just marginally or not at all also ... or even if she changes the names, if there is chemistry people are willing to take any name change. So the right way forward now would be to pack the romantic scenes in full measure so that people are thirsting for the romance whatever the names of the characters.
Newspapers say Ekta has taken time from the Karni Seva to implement her name changes, and so the discussions are now on at full speed to arrive at a conclusion. It is my suspicison that the sudden tendency in the serial to now go down the romantic path (with so many changes seen in Jalal in the romantic direction) is all now to create enough romance-related TRPs in the serial so that the high TRP overrides any negative fallout of the impending name change.
Now let's come to the big changes in Jalal:
This week has seen at least eight different signs of a big change in Jalal. We have started seeing his heart. He himself has started seeing his heart. The creatives are wanting us now to see his heart.
1. First was that splendid scene with the Hindu boy whose parents he punishes. The child then simply asks "Shanhenshah, aap ka mere liye kya aadesh hai?" and to that an emperor is left with no reasonable answer. He see in that child a throwback to his own past separated from his parents, tears well up in his eyes, and he chokes on his words, as he says to himself: "No child, however well cared for by servants and others, will ever be able to fill that void that not having his parents create in his childhood. It stays with him forever". He returns the child to his parents, but alas, Jodha does not see this softness gesture and still thinks of Jalal as the villain, thus giving room for the next important scene of Jalal changing ...
2. Jalal is visibly agitated that Jodha has spurned his wish-granting farman after the chess match and she has actually returned the farman through a servant back to him. He, as usual, finds an excuse to go to her room, and instead of trying to ask why, he starts by telling her what an insult it is to the emeperor to decry his wish! Jodha comes out with a sentence that is still ringing in my ears. She says: "You who are in the habit of grabbing things from people, what would people like you have to give others?". All he can think of replying, as he listenes stunned to these words, is that "The emperor must be respected". But that night in a classic telltale sign of his heart beginning to work overtime, he is unable to sleep. He tosses annd turns in agony and needs to get out for a breath of fresh air. Her words keep taunting him. The strange thing is that he was not so affronted by her saying he grabbed the Hindu boy's parents from him. That part did not hurt Jalal as much as the fact that she was thinking so ill of him. He had never imagined, I suppose, that Jodha's opinion of him was so low, and that he was so unredeemable in her eyes. Or perhaps she woke him up to his own wrong self-perception. This sleepless night led to that makabra scene ...
3. That lovely Akbbar ka makarbra scene
, that first started telling the story of Jodha and Akbar, came into play again, when the shadowy figures of Akbar and Jodha discuss how that night was the first time Jodha has pierced into the armoury of Jalal and reached his heart. He says "You talked of my grabbing things, and grabbed away my sleep." She replies "There's a very fine line between hatred and love that we both saw that day". The makabra talks were so much with Jalal that even as he paced the flooor of the bedroom, sleepless, he was completing the dialogues that the shadowy Akbar in the makabra was saying. I thought it was a grand moment when Jalal was not only waking up to the softer side of himself, thanks to Jodha's barbs, but he had the grace to acknowledge that she had a point, however much her point was based on an untrue accusation she had made without knowing Jalal has united the Hindu parents with their child. I am quite sure that night, Jalal the grabber wanted to desperately become Jalal the giver. Maybe that is why he readily took sword in hand to rush to the harem himself to oust the intruder. Many of us were asking why he did that, but could it have been because he felt the need to show himself (to his own self) as a different giving person? Who knows, your guess is as good as mine.4. That harem tamasha of trying to find the illegal male interloper was all about the Adam-Moti saga. So also the later punishment of Moti. And the subsequent release of Moti using the shahi farman by Jodha. But there are aspects of Jalal's behaviour in all that which I want to highlight as part of his change that I saw. First was the way he changed when Jodha suddenly held him by the arm as he tried leaving the Diwan E Khas after reading that farman and seeing that he would have to keep his word to Jodha. He was about to go away in the full knowledge that he was doing the politically correct thing by saving Moti as per the farman, but that momentary pull on his arm by Jodha changed the nature of his intent. After he looked slightly amused and then mesmerised by what she had done, and he too caught her hand as she lost balance, the Moti saving saga seemed to be all about " ... I can't refuse you anything, Jodha, especially when you start tugging at my heart strings". That seemed to be the unspoken dialogue for me. But in typical fashion Jalal just put his face as close to Jodha as he could and reiterated his always keeping his word. I have by now realised that whenever Jalal gets his face within inches of Jodha's and speaks a bit roughly and agitatedly, he is surely not meaning what he says and is in fact betraying that he is being pulled by her attraction.
5. When Moti was getting built into the wall
, and earlier while she was waiting in the prison, the fact that the emperor himself thought it fit to go and talk to her about last chances to save herself and to ask after her last wishes, even calling her "Gustakh Ladki" (which almost sounded like an enderament in those circumstances), made me feel he was actually imagining talking to Jodha herself there and not just to Moti. He was almost willing Jodha-Moti to win this case, and their firm stance as well as the fact that Moti swore on Jodha about her innocence, and Jodha looked aghast at the turn of events at the Diwan E Khas were clearly working on Jalal very strongly. As his mother said to Jodha, "Woh usool ke bahut pakke hain", but it looked like the usool-bent Jalal was desperate enough to try to find a loophole for his usool's himself.6. The farman filfilment
was of course the crowning moment of the week, especially since every one of us was speculating wildly on theories of how Moti would be saved. We examined even the Mugha-e-Azam exit route for Moti, the possibility of Jodha doing some hero-giri, the possibility of Jalal himself doing jasoosi on Adam, of Adam's wife maybe bluurting out the truth, or the dead corpse in the harem kitchen suddenly being found to be too illiterate to write a love letter. But as they say in robust Hindi every theory became a "tain tain fiss" and by a simple act of fulfilling Jodha's farman the matter was over in seconds. I thought Jalal actually looked relieved when Jodha produced that farman. He himself was groping for ways to possibly not have to continue with Moti's punishment. The way he tore that farman may have looked like he was cursing it, but to me it looked like sheer relief on his face as he thought "There, that's now over and done with. All's well that ends well."7. And now to that swordfight!
Let me first say it was one of the most authentic looking swordfights I have seen picturised in Hindii serials. I always thought Paridi may never match up to Rajat's skills in this department, but boy had she done a lot of practice. She was terrific. They both were, and their expressions as they talked to each other through the sequence... both were shikar to fleeting emotions like bewilderment, admiration, incredulity, adjustment of their ideas of each other - and dare I say, the beginnings of a fatal attraction known as love. There were three moments of the fight that had me enthralled. One, was when he unmasked her face gently to show her whole face to his gaze and not just her eyes. The music that was harsh changed to a soft tune, their tune, and he was dumbbstruck for a moment with her beauty. Then came that moment when he had her flat on her back but she fought back and threw him off-balance with sheer strength. He was in awe at that moment of the steel in her. He looked thrown in more ways than one. And finally when he has her swordless, pinned to the wall, and is giving her lectures on how she could have asked for his head or her own freedom instead of Moti's freedom, she stands as if she has lost the match, but in an absolutely unguarded moment, she grabs his sword and stands over him the victor. Did you all just see his priceless expression? My God, the great Shahenshah looked like he had lost everything, and yet had also gained something precious! His expression I can't quite describe. Was he proud of his wife, and what she had done? It looked like it, as he stood there without his sword but with a new understanding of who she really was, and what she meant to him.8. Accha, now to the precap scene.
Jyoti and I discussed it over SMS last night and arrived at the conclusion that Jalal was full of bravado and nothing more to Ruqaiya. He is deeply smitten by Jodha and now wants to use the "dil ka route" for her and not the "dimaag ka route". But his ego makes it necessary at least in front of Ruqaiya to act like all this is a new strategy to conquer Jodha's ghamand. As he was still saying he should now reconsider his strategy as he has been so far unsucccessful, I thought I saw a glaze in his eyes for Jodha that I have not seen there before. He was saying one thing to Ruqaiya, about conquering Jodha's hard-headedness, but his eyes were softly looking forward to the new way that he planned to do it. Friends, I think next week is going to be all about Jalal's new tactics of wooing Jodha into submission, so let's wear the seatbelts and get ready for the ride!Here are four that either cracked me up or pissed me off:
a. Adam saying " M o t i B a i", " M o t i B a i", " M o t i B a i",
and apparently lusting for her chasing her around the corridors. Is that the way a villain lusts? " M o t i B a i", " M o t i B a i", sounded like a dying man's voice coming from his belly as he gasps for air. And as for the dupatta on his head later in the harem ... god that looked like a cross-dressing Kumbhakarna! Pathetic acting, pathetic direction and hilarious! It would have been great if Jalal had just unmasked him in the harem and given all the girls there the license to lynch him!b. Ruqaiaya-Maham face off
... what a seesaw. First one unleashes dhamkis at the other, and then the other one turns the tables on the first one. Wow, in the end both went under! Actually in the solving of the Moti saga, more than the punishment of Adam, I wanted to see the punishmment of Ruqaiya for not telling Jalal about seeing Adam in the harem. But alas ...c. Maham-Jodha dialogue:
The posion bottle, and the way Maham described the rising discomfitures of Moti inside the growing wall were meant to be scary but they sounded way OTT and I was surprised they even shook Jodha. It was not a very good scene for me, although it was meant to be a typical Maham brush-off of things that happened around her son.d. Hamida-Jodha dialogue:
The absolute impotency of the mother of the emperor was seen in that scene. What she said to Jodha was true, that she could not interfere in a legal issue, and Jalal should be trusted to be fair ..." but it's the way she said it all, as if she was whining with impotency and throwing her figurative hands in the air, that got me pissed off. C'mon Hamida, no matter how your son treats you, how the hell are you treating yourself like mud before anyone else? You are giving off these "I am useless" vibes!Okay, I've written more than I intended. I haven't done a day by day analysis or even a scene by scene analysis, I've just put down thoughts as they occurred to me. Lots of contra-opinions are welcome, so do please contribute and have a ball tearing my analysis to shreds! Have a good weekend, all!
Udne Ki Aasha
Cricket
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