Folks,
Before getting down to the business at hand, with apologies for impinging on your Sunday afternoon siesta, I want to put out something pressing and important. Please see the notice below, to which I hope that you will respond positively and in large numbers.
ESTABLISHMENT OF A PROTECT JODHA GROUP IN THE JODHA AKBAR FORUM
It having been decided, in view of the havoc that the CVs have of late been playing with the character of our much loved Amer ki Mirchi, who is fast beginning to resemble nothing so much as a(n anachronistic) yo yo, to set up a Protect Jodha Group within this forum, with the stated objectives of
1) Preventing any further erosion of her originally fiery, intelligent, independent , occasionally OTT but withal era-appropriate persona.
2) Reversing the damage done already, so that she no longer comes across as randomly and irrationally stubborn and weepy by turns
Members of this forum will be called upon to lobby for the above-stated objectives, as and when required, with the CVs, using every means of communication available to us,such as special threads here, and for those well versed in the usage of the social media, on Facebook and Twitter as well.
Please indicate your willingness to join whole-heartedly in this initiative by saying so on this thread.
Shyamala B.Cowsik (Convener of the Protect Jodha Group in the IF Jodha Akbar Forum)
Ok, that is done!
Now, let me begin by apologizing to the talented director Saeed Mirza for my riff on his cult film Albert Pinto ko gussa kyon aata hai? But believe me, I have been asking myself this question about Jodha since Friday night, and am still at a loss for a credible answer.
The Holi fiasco: Here is our Jodha Begum, who has been given specific permission, by the Shahenshah, to celebrate Holi. It is another matter, as I had noted earlier, that when he gives her this permission, as a parting gift, he adds that it should not inconvenience anyone else, sounding exactly like a hostel warden giving permission for a late night to a disobedient and unreliable student, whom he fully expects to violate the curfew deadline! 😉
To the objection that she needs no permission at all, as Jalal had given her the freedom to practice her religion, it needs to be noted that this did not mean automatic permission to celebrate all her festivals in public in the Agra palace. It meant doing puja in the privacy of her rooms. We have to remember that this was a major concession by the emperor, and the mullahs must have criticised it vocally.So yes, she needed his permission for that, and Hamida Banu too does not say, contrary to what she said about Jodha's temple visits, that his permission is not required.
Once Jodha, in a fit of understandable joie de vivre after the emotional storms she had been subjected to in recent weeks, brought her Holi celebrations out into the palace gardens, clashes and complaints were bound to surface, and of course it all blew up with her colliding, inadvertently, with Mahaam Anga. Given Mahaam's vinctiveness, the fat was well and truly in the fire.
Despite all this, I was surprised to see Jodha immediately fold up like a pack of cards. I would have expected , and wanted her, our dauntless Amer ki Mirchi, who, moreover, had no further stake in the Mughal system as she was sure she was returning to Amer for good, to stand up for herself somewhat more.
I did not at all like the way Jodha behaved at the Meena bazaar, trying to talk down to the Shahenshah as if he was a stupid village yokel and humiliate him, and I did not at all like the way she behaved the next day , like a bheegi billi, apologising to all and sundry and scared stiff. I expected her to be calm and collected, and to state her position that she was very, very sorry, but it was not intentional on her part, it was just an unforeseen and unfortunate accident. But even before anyone said anything to her, she looked terrified, in the garden when she was speaking to her daasis after Mahaam Anga swept off, her face literally red.
It is not what one expects from our Rajputani sherni, who had unflinchingly faced the announcement of a death sentence by being burnt alive. And it was not as though her sole weak point, her parivaar, was involved in any way - none of them was even in Agra . So now was the time for her to show her mettle. What is the worst that could have happened to her? Being sent back home pronto. But that was on the cards already. Anyone can strut about when times are easy, but it is the brave who stand up to tough circumstances.
When Mahaam came to her to twist the knife in a bit more, I saw no reason for all these abject apologies from Jodha, the folding of hands and begging pardon from "Mahaam Angaji" , that old witch, who she knows hates her, and whom she dislikes acutely . What does she imagine, that Mahaam would be amenable to reason? If so, and this after so much of hands on experience of the Wazir-e-Aaliya, Jodha needs to have her head examined. She had done nothing intentionally, and she should have said so, calmy but firmly, and left it at that.
What paap?:What is more, I did not at all understand her statement, again to Mahaam, that her parents would not have forgiven her and that she had committed a big paap.
She was saying the same to her daasis, and looking very scared, long before Jalal turns up to go thru his Pamplona bull routine, and I could not comprehend that either.What paap? It was only an unfortunate accident. How does that become a gunaah, not to speak of a gunaah-e-azeem, and why should she be dissolving into a puddle of regret for it?
There is, so far as I am aware, no custom among Muslims of widows wearing only white, which was the prescribed colour for Hindu widows. Hamida Banu does not wear white at all, nor even pale colours, nor does Bakshi Banu before she remarries. So the accusation of a widow's weeds being soiled by Jodha, and this being a gunaah-e-azeem, as that chamcha of a mullah helpfully proclaims, is hardly applicable here.
I was 🤣 listening to Mahaam shedding crocodile tears to her Energiser Bunny of a foster son, and asserting that Jodha Begum had, deliberately or otherwise, ruined her paakeeziyat. Why, by rights, the black inside Mahaam's soul should have long since seeped into her outfits and coloured them to a shade fit for a burqa!
As for the explanation that Jodha was so upset because it concerned her husband's Badiammi, that is hardly credible, as Jodha has never bothered about her husband's feelings. If she had, she would not have failed to greet him with a pranam at the Meena Bazaar, at the very least, nor would she have been so ostentatiously off putting to him in public.
In short, I cannot think of an reasonable explanation at all for the Jodha we saw on Friday. When, Jalal, wound up by his Badiammi, and reverting to his Energiser Bunny-cum-Pamplona bull routine, charged into Jodha's rooms and began all that tod phod, I knew , having seen her in the garden immediately after the fiasco, that she would not be putting out her favourite line whenever he is yelling at her: Hamein aapse koyi bhay nahin hai.
But I did expect her to be not only appropriately regretful, but also to state, calmly and very politely but clearly, that she had not done anything intentionally. Instead, she seems to be bent on self-flagellation, and on proving the prosecution's case for them.
I felt like shaking her, but this time for a very different reason. And I felt like kicking Jalal with a stout pair of hobnailed boots all the way from Agra to Amer.
For all that Jodha gets on my nerves all too often, I felt desperately sorry for the poor, unhappy child, especially when she was sitting all by herself before Mahaam arrives. It is the concern one feels for the underdog. And when she lifted scared eyes to Jalal's and quavered that she had not meant to do it and it was just an accident, she looked so woebegone that my heart went out to her. Paridhi did wonderfully well in that scene.
Jodha plays her cards all wrong. The only person who counts in Agra is Jalal, but even after he has become more civilised with her, and even apologetic, she does not take advantage of it by behaving at least politely with him, if not cordially, and building some sort of tentative bridge to him.
Take what he says at the height to his rage on Friday, something he has said before to Jodha. Aapne hamesha hamein apne hi nazaroon mein girane ki koshish ki hai. That belief, beginning from the day when he heard her demand his head from Suryabhan, and abuse him in the worst possible terms,at a time when he had not done anything against Amer, also lingers in his zehen, and colours all his reactions towards things she is accused of doing.
He is convinced that she hates him and will miss no opportunity to hit at him and humiliate him. That too humiliate him in front of his own people, by apparently demonstrating, time and again, that the concessions he made to her were misplaced and he had been unduly weak with her.
That was another reason why her misbehaviour with him at the Meena Bazaar was a mistake. For all that he displayed unwavering patience and unshakeable calm there in the face of her unrelenting rudeness, her attitude then would have definitely coloured his attitude towards her during the Holi fiasco. As Napoleon said of a mistake made by one of his generals: It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder.
Lastly, in all this, why is Jodha behaving, even before this latest crisis, as though Jalal is shunting her back to Amer against her will? He gave her a choice, and after seeing the way she behaved when he came to her with the khushkhabari, he assumes that she has decided to leave. If she does not want to go, all she has to do is to wear that rich green joda in which she sang that ode to Rajput valour!! 😉
And if she does, why, he has gone out of his way to make sure, as he tells Ruqaiya with more than a tinge of sadness in his face and eyes, that Jodha's last few days in Agra are happy: Hum chahte hain ki wo khush ho kar jaaye.As Alakh has noted perceptively,it has always bothered Jalal that Jodha doesn't want him.. But now it bothers him even more that he cannot make her happy.So he was trying his best.
Of course until the latest storm burst over his head, and he reverted, as discussed above, to his old template.
The Protect Jodha Group idea: To come back to my starting point in this post. Jodha is being shown to be like a yoyo, unnecessarily hoity toity one moment, and unnecessarily humble the other. Whence the need for a Protect Jodha Group of like-minded members who feel, as I do, that her character's potential is being ruined and reduced to the standard soap female lead, and this needs to be set right on priority basis by lobbying the CVs about it.
Tiger, tiger, burning bright: As we wait breathlessly for the dunk in a forest pool, thus putting additional strain on the JA wardrobe department, and then the belated arrival of Mohan the Magnificent, we were treated to the tiger promo. It was so unintentionally funny that I could barely see the laptop monitor for tears!
There is apni Jodha, who goes for shikar in that yellow joda with all her jewellery, Next, being an accredited member of the 16th century Save the Tiger Project, she informs her patidev, till then strutting about brandishing his trusty matchlock confidently, about her karnama with the barood , and this when the tiger is barely 10 yards away. Finally, she is wringing her hands and hovering over Jalal and the tiger exactly like a 1960s vintage heroine! 😉
I simply could not stop laughing. Is paagal ladki ko apne sar laadne ke liye Jalal ka yeh to hona hi tha! The look on his face when she kindly informs him about the barood was to die for.😉
But Mohan looks magnificent. I am sure he is real, not CGI.
Finally, as for Mansi's thoughtful suggestion to Mohan that he snack on Mahaam, the mullah of gunah-e-azeem infamy, or Adham Khan on the way to his tryst with our Odd Couple, there are several problems with this otherwise clever idea.
Mahaam and the mullah would be as tough as old shoe leather, and Mohan would have his work cut out to chew them to anything approaching a digestible pap . Adham Khan would be softer, juicier and more filling as there would be far more of him, but he would be absolutely pickled in alcohol, and Mohan, assuredly a teetotaller, would get tipsy and pass out after the first bite😉.
So Mohan will have to fall back on our Odd Couple, and if he has the misfortune to try and eat Jodha, he would expire on the spot from metal poisoning, given that she is, even on shikar, doing her best to look like a Christmas tree on December 25. 😉
That leaves only Jalal, who had thus better rehearse the excellent lines I had suggested for him weeks ago.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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