Bachao! Bachao! Hamari Jodha Begum ko bachao! Unke priyatam Kanha ke naam par, unhein aise moorkhta aur ashleelta ke daldal mein doobne se bachayie koyi!
Koyi hai? Wo doob rahi hai, kya use koyi nahin bachayega?
CVs, maanyavar, krupa karke kuch kijiye! Bachao! Bachao!!
Well, folks, I hope that helps, but I am not very sure. Anyway, yesternight's episode brought home to me, with remarkable clarity, the need for Protect Jodha Group to become active at the very earliest.
Those of us who were, the day before, lamenting Jodha's lack of basic manners in not greeting her husband when he came up to her in the garden, were shellshocked yesternight as she left all that in the dust. If something is not done to arrest this vertiginous slide downwards, we will soon have a Jodha who not only plumbs new depths of folly every other day, but of indelicacy, indeed coarseness as well.
We cannot, repeat cannot have our lovely, feisty, intelligent, and withal cultured Amer ki Mirchi thus reduced to a terminally stupid, vain, self-centred, delusional nitwit of a woman, whose mind seems to be fast resembling that of what Mahatma Gandhi once called Katharine Mayo, a drains inspector.
Bizarre obsession: Consider this. Jodha is a Rajput princess by birth, very young, and presumably raised in the strict code of behaviour that applied to 16th century Rajput aristocracy, especially to the women. Such women were an epitome of discretion and delicacy and regal restraint, no matter what the provocation.
Yet, last night, we saw Jodha Begum discussing her distaste for marital relations with her husband, and her determination not share a khema with him, with a daasi of hers. And a strange daasi, not even her near-sister Motibai. Is this how a Rajput queen behaves? Plus, even this daasi objects to her mistress's folly, pointing out that such fears are premature. If I had been Jodha, I would have felt deeply ashamed at being thus called to order by a maid.
Instead, she reprimands the daasi for siding with her husband, makes an utterly illogical remark about the Shahenshah not having a drop of daya or karuna (what that had to do with his sleeping in her tent is a mystery!) and that he could do anything. After painting this obliging picture of the man she had sworn to love, honour and obey, as a cross between Attila the Hum and and a putative marital rapist, she marches off to confront him. She states, bluntly, that she will under no circumstances share a tent with him, and will give him no chance to force himself on her.
Note that after her first night in Agra, when he told her that as her lawfully wedded husband, he had full rights to her and could do anything he liked with her, but would not even touch her, Jalal had never displayed the slightest amorous inclination towards her, or ever approached her with any such intention in mind. He could have landed up in her rooms in the harem any night or day if he had so chosen, by right, and no one would or could have stopped him. Why then does such an idea even occur to Jodha Begum, that her husband could suddenly decide to behave like 1960s Bollywood villain?
Jalal, listening to her with condescending patience, points out that she has her own khema, that he knows that she would not want to share his tent, and for her kind information, he had no desire at all to look at her face. She stomps off.
Next, when there is the assassination attempt against them by her fellow Rajput, and Jalal decides to share Jodha's tent to ensure her safety, she mutters under her breath about his supposedly dubious intentions towards her, and lowers a sheer curtain between them before clambering on her bed while he disposes himself on a nearby divan.
She is surprised that he actually falls asleep, and is not about to pounce on her the minute she nods off. She must be having a very strange idea of the modus operandi of a (marital) rapist if she imagines that he would wait till midnight and for his victim to fall asleep before attacking her.
Finally, when he is awakened by the slithering of the snake, and captures it, in one swift and sudden movement by ripping off her dupatta, on which it was presumably crawling, one can understand her screaming in shock.
What one cannot understand is her long spiel about her fears about his intentions in insinuating himself into her tent being justified, and about the shame of the Shahenshah of such a huge empire , whose duty it was to protect all women, indulging in such ashobaniya aacharan. Nor her proclaiming that though she was married to him, she had never given him those (marital) rights and never would, and he had better understand that and leave. That he should stop indulging in such nefarious and sleazy practices humein paane ke liye.
At which point, as a smiling Jalal throws her ripped dupatta back at her, she catches sight of the snake (which looks as if its body is made out of used cycle tyres, but never mind). End of story.
Firstly, I do not think her mother briefed her about the little thing called conjugal rights. If he had actually chosen to claim them then and there in one of his earlier blind rages, when she goes on about Aapko wo adhikar nahin diya hai, aur na hi kabhi denge, samjhe aap? , she would have been well served.
Secondly, what does one make of Jodha's near obsession with the physical side of marriage? And for no reason that one can think of? A psychologist would have an unpleasant explanation for such a young girl's fixation on, as Kamal puts it. her patidev's supposed carnal desires. So great is this fixation that she can apparently think of nothing else all the time after they left Agra. It was unbelievable, and the way she carried on, not only with Jalal but with the daasis, made me feel downright queasy.
Jalal would have been fully justified had he roared at her, in a repeat of what he yelled after dragging her out of that forest pool : Tum apne aap ko kya samajhti ho? But it seems that by now, he hardly cares what she says or does, and takes such insane rants from her as a matter of course.
Supplementary folly: It is not just that Jodha Begum is thus obsessional. She also reveals herself as and incapable, strange in a princess, of formulating a single coherent political thought.
When the would be assassin is captured, and Jalal is about to decapitate him - which would have - been the instant punishment in those days the world over for such a crime of lese majeste - I do not blame Jodha for intervening and offering the pilgrimage argument for sparing his life.
But then, she starts arguing with him in public about the matter, unthinkable in a queen. Next, when he gives her a hearing after dismissing the courtiers, she actually exculpated the assassin, and blames Jalal for his behaviour, which she apparently sees as fully justified given that the other Rajputs were deeply upset about their marriage. This, though she knows full well that it was her father who, being incapable of saving his kingdom from Sharifuddin, proposed the marriage to the Shahenshah, and not the other way around. I was left speechless.
Call to action: So, folks, those who of you who feel as I do, and are interested in salvaging Jodha Begum's original persona from such a hatchet job by the CVs, had better rally round and bombard them, using any and all means at your disposal, beginning with this thread, with demands that they immediately stop ruining her character, and move to rectify and restore it at least in the following episodes.
Jalal: He is fast becoming a candidate for sainthood.
At this rate, after so much practice in "understanding" Jodha Begum for feeling lost and unwanted (of course in the lap of the imperial luxury that he provides her, but never mind!) and thus needing to let off steam in so many varied but uniformly unpleasant ways (one would have thought she was the only unhappy woman in the whole wide world), we will soon have him embracing even Adham Khan and "understanding" his desire to send him to rejoin his Maker in short order.
After all, Adham Khan has also been feeling lost and unwanted, and for much, much longer than apni Jodha. He believes that his Ammijaan has always loved Jalal more than she loves him, and he is bitter that he is treated like an underling (which he is) by Jalal. Worst of all, he is suffering cruel and unusual punishment in being saddled with Javeda, who would drive the mildest of husbands batty. 😉
Would all this not suffice for the reformed, "understanding" Jalal to forgive Adham after his (next) attempt to assassinate him fails? If Jodha has a right to vent her frustrations, so too should Adham Khan. As she is so understanding of the frustrations of the Rajput assassin, why not of his Mughal counterpart as well?
Infectious folly: Terminal folly seems to be an infectious disease. It reaches even Agra, from half way to Ajmer Sharif. Thus we have, ad seriatim, the following startling examples of the spread of this fell disease.
- Adham Khan, plotting to have the Shahenshah assassinated in the jungle on the way to Ajmer. He does this just outside the inner perimeter of the fort at Agra, and by conferring loudly with two Keystone Kops style associates. No wonder Mahaam Anga, chancing upon them, smells a rat.
- Ruqaiya Sultan Begum, descending to loudly proclaiming her sole and exclusive ownership of the Shahenshah's dimaag, and presumably the rest of him as well, to a bemused audience, with the ever placid and unruffled Salima Begum, whom she has just defeated at chess, in the front row.
Having only recently stopped lamenting the obviously irreversible hatchet job done on the original Ruqaiya - intelligent and astute, and yet vulnerable, loving but forced to hide her love for her childhood playmate, deeply saddened by her inability to have a child - and her being reduced to this plastic, light-eyed Harem Superintendent, I am now fearing worse.
Thought of the day: If I had been Jalal, I would have handed the snake back to Jodha along with the dupatta and told her, Agar aapko hamare zariya saanp se bachne se itna hi aitraaz hai, to lijiye, sambhaliye aap hi, dupatta bhi aur saanp bhi!😉
Question for tomorrow: Will Jodha have at least a modicum of shame and some residual grace, and apologise to Jalal for all the ugly accusations she had hurled at him, not to forget thanking him for saving her life once again?
Unless of course she blames him for that as well, and would have preferred to be bitten by that cycle tyre construct, thus putting herself out of her misery, and us out of the misery of watching her slide even further downwards.
We demand that our original Jodha Rani be restored to us forthwith. We cannot and will not put up with this changeling!😉
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
Anupamaa
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
60