Folks,
No, I have not switched to some esoteric language based on punctuation marks. The title is because after watching this episode, all I had in my head was questions and more questions, about where Jodha Akbar is going and how. Some were more disturbing than the others.
Let me cite just one as an opener. I don't know about you, but I signed on for a Pride and Prejudice grafted on to Gone with the Wind, not for a soapy concoction with a leading lady straight out of the Ekta Kapoor stable, a she-who-can-do-no-wrong with a 24 carat gold halo who, moreover, knows that.
If this is to be so, it follows, as surely as the night follows the day, that the leading man will have to be distorted and painted some sort of grey, so that the aforesaid pristine leading lady can, firstly, shine by contrast and secondly, get all the credit for reforming' him by cutting him and fitting him into her own Procrustean bed.
This was there in Jodha Akbar right from the opening haivaan se insaan leit motif, but then it was toned down,and as Jalal became more credible and complex and thus fascinating, I had hoped that it was (pun intended) history.
A revenge track? Good grief!!: Now it seems to be resurfacing in unexpected ways. We are apparently being told, by inside sources', that Jalal is really proceeding on a revenge track, and will work to make Jodha fall in love with him and then rebuff her and make a fool of her, to get back at her for hating him, and also for the narnaal disaster. Only to realise the error of his ways when she is broken-hearted, and then work to regain Jodha's trust and,eventually, her love.
This idea is sought to be buttressed by inferences drawn from yesterday's precap, and the Jalal-Ruqaiya conversation earlier in the episode, when he says twice: Itni badi gustakhi, aur itni choti sazaa!
First of all, this would be a most unwelcome prospect, for it sounds like the worst of Mills and Boon. Morever, once she is fooled like this, how on earth can Jodha ever trust Jalal the second time around? It is in fact exactly like the story of the old Amitabh Bachchan-Raakhee starrer Jurmana (1979), That was quite nice, but it would hardly do for Jodha Akbar!
I do not buy this theory at all, and I do not need any complicated reasoning for reaching this conclusion.
Let us take such facts as we have, beginning with Jalal's reaction post the mauling by Mohan. He does not make the slightest reproach to Jodha, and this when he thinks he is dying.
Then there is what he tells Mahaam earlier about his feeling that he is ek kashti mein sawaar with Jodha. That was a deeply emotional, straight from the heart statement, which would not at all jell with any such subsequent petty revenge idea
No, folks, this petty revenge track does not at all fit Jalal as we know him. He is no devious Lothario, but an emperor to the purple born, and he has always been direct and bull-headed. He has never used any woman.
Besides, I would not trust the alleged source at all. Some time back, I saw a thread here which said, based on this same 'inside info', that Adham Khan would have Jalal's party attacked on the way back to Agra, that the attack would be foiled, Jalal and Jodha would be separated from the main convoy, and in the process of finding their way back, would come closer. No need to comment on that!
In short, the revenge track is as unconvincing as it is unappealing. I devoutly hope it is merely one of those spoilers' that die a natural death.
The pre-cap:Coming to the precap, which is very convincing in terms of Jalal's body language, especially the initial hesitation, and then the way he barely lifts his eyes to Ruqaiya's , it looks like a googly by the CVs. Perhaps Mahaam's nightmare, for Ruqaiya, secure in her cast iron conviction that Jalal has no dil, would never dream of something like this. I say this might be a googly because, if it was true, it would be decidedly premature.
But if it is true, then obviously it is genuine, and Jalal tells Ruqaiya because he has no one else to confide in who will not blurt it out to Jodha, which he would not want at all, as it would hurt his pride. He tells her because she is his best friend, and she has always pitched their relationship outside the framework of love, so he would assume that she would not mind so long she still had a hold on his dimaag. He could not be more wrong, but then when has an alpha male ever understood women?
If the precap is true, the consequences will then be dismal, at least for me. Jalal would then end up as a man in love chasing a woman who is either unresponsive, or who responds very slowly and reluctantly. If it is the former, he will look weak in his lovelorn state, continuously conciliatory and obliging, without getting anything in return. Hardly suitable for the shaan of a Shahenshah. Even one in love without knowing how he got there.
If it is the latter, it will again be the standard issue Romance (capital intentional), and such response as materializes on her side could be due as much to gratitude as to her independent feelings for him. He will face the classic dilemma of every very rich and powerful man, who can never be sure that the woman he loves cares for him for himself, or for his power and his wealth.
Just as now, even if he remembers most of what Jodha did after the tiger attack to try and save his life (after first endangering it), he cannot be sure if it was because she felt guilty or because she cared for him and could not bear the idea of losing him.
For us, gone would be any hope of intelligent sparring between them, as between two fiercely competitive individuals, but now devoid of the harsh edges that marred their interactions till the Ajmer pilgrimage. Any hope of seeing mutual caring and affection develop, slowly but surely.
Of an edgy friendship morphing, insensibly, into love, with all its yearnings, its restlessness in the absence of the loved one, the misunderstandings, the jealousies, the protectiveness and the possessiveness, and beneath it all, the undercurrent of a hidden sensuality.
Of a Jodha whose pride in her magnificent husband would make her say, as Cleopatra once said to Julius Caesar : "But for you, the world is full of little men".
To want all that and then end up with what seems to be in the works would be like wanting a delicate sohan papdi or a millefeuille, and getting a soggy sohan halwa dripping with ghee. That is why I wrote, and please bear with me as I repeat it for the last time:
It would do her(Jodha) a lot of good to fall helplessly in love, and have to try and win over the object of her affections. I hope this happens, in the sense that she discovers she is in love with Jalal before he discovers that he is in love with her. It is not impossible, for he will, for quite a while, interpret his soft corner for her as due to the kinship of ek hi kashti mein sawaar hone ki. Let us see!
If the precap is true, all this is gone with the wind, and with it, any hope for a fresh, unusual Jodha-Jalal romantic track.
The Questions:
1) Why is Jodha never shown as feeling any deep sense of guilt for having nearly killed Jalal? As Ela has noted, if she had done anything similar, she would not be able to face herself, not to speak of Jalal or his family. Jodha, on the contrary, has bounced back like indiarubber, and shows no traces of any trauma or self-condemnation as she is busy playing the saas ki dulari with Hamida yesternight.
In fact, not only does Jodha never bewail her self-rightous do-gooding idiocy, even to herself, (barring a halfhearted confession to Rahim that she would not have done it had she known the tiger would come) but she now claims, with no sense of irony, that it was the prayers at Ajmer that had saved the Shahenshah's life. Not a trace of the bitter regret one would expect for having brought Jalal to death's door, either then, or last night, as alms are being distributed to the poor.
Even as she was singing that anachronistic bhajan when Jalal was thought to be dying, there was no real desperate anxiety or panicky fear on Jodha's face. Ruqaiya, with all her plastic looks, seemed far more agonized.
Now that he is convalescing, Jodha is not shown making the slightest attempt to indirectly find out how he is, even if she feels awkward trying to go and see him herself. When she sends the fruit, the air with which it is done, it might, for all the eagerness or warmth she displays, have as well been for the woodcutter(see below!)😉.
2) Why does Hamida praise Jodha to the skies for having' saved Jalal's life', while dismissing her responsibility for his having nearly died with just one anodyne word, naadani' ? No saas anywhere in any age would react like this. So obsessed is she with this paragon of a bahu that even as her son is declared to be dying, all she can think of is how to save Jodha.
Now that Jalal is convalescing, it is Ruqaiya and Mahaam Anga who are with him; Hamida is busy assuring her bahu that she is a piece of perfection. As if Jodha's having saved Jalal from death with her lep was enough to whitewash her role in putting him there in the first place!
In fact, so lattoo is Hamida about her bahu that she neither notices nor, if she does, seems to mind the fact that Jodha does not say she prayed for the life of her husband to be spared, only that of the man who faced the tiger to save her life. The natural inference from this is that she would have prayed as hard for a passing woodcutter if he had taken on the tiger to save her! This is very curious, given Jodha's presumed lifelong training in attaching paramount importance to preserving her suhaag.
To revert, Hamida does not even think of sending Jalal some special delicacy to tempt his palate, which even the normally heedless Ruqaiya is shown doing. But then it is of a piece, for his Ammijaan was never there for him when he needed support, when his Khan Baba was murdered, or when he lost his unborn child. No wonder Jalal is not close to his mother.
3) A whole bunch of dubious looking Rajvanshi rajas was shown rejoicing at the prospect of Jalal's imminent demise. If they had already found out about it elsewhere in Rajputana, why does Bharmal in Amer know nothing about it?
4) Even granted that Bharmal knew nothing of Jalal having nearly died a few days before, why does he not now display more than prefunctory interest in what happened to his javaisa and how? He has eyes, and he can surely see how badly Jalal has been injured. Any normal father in law would have been frantic with worry and would have bombarded Mahaam with questions, even if he did not want to tire out the visibly exhausted and worn out Jalal.
Instead, all he can talk about is Sukanya's marriage. Even while inviting Jalal to come to Amer with Jodha for the wedding, he does not voice any concern about whether Jalal would be able to travel so far given his present condition. Nor does it even occur to him to wish his javaisa a speedy recovery and say that they would all pray for it. All in all, a ridiculous and totally self-centred display by Jodha's Babasa.
Incidentally, where is Mansingh? Has he joined Abdul in going AWOL?
Stars of the day:
1) Jalal: The complex and compelling Jalal is the only consistently interesting character in Jodha Akbar, beside Mahaam, despite all her hamming. Yesterday, Jalal is still sorting out how he feels towards Jodha Begum, and he probably does not want to meet her till he has that clear in his head.
I liked the way Rajat brought out the extreme weariness due to the blood loss,with the extra huskiness in the already deep voice, the impression that he has to use up scarce energy to articulate every word.
That he does not react at all to Bharmal's invitation to Sukanya's wedding is not only due to his evident exhaustion. He face is smooth and unreadable beneath the wounds, for he does not know himself what he wants to do, not as yet. And he is not going to show his hand till he does know.
Does the precap show, perhaps, that he does know, at long last? The way which that line is delivered is superb: first, the reluctance to turn around and face Ruqaiya. Then, the hesitation, eyes lowered, and then slowly raising them, clouded with uncertainty and doubt, to hers as if by sheer force of will. Hum Jodha Begum se mohabbat karte hain.
2) Mahaam Anga: She was magisterial yesterday. Her eyes straining, like those of a prophet, to see the future she fears and resents, but knows she cannot prevent. Her lucid pessimism about Ruqaiya's inability, even had she not been so purblind and foolish, to halt and reverse the oncoming rush of what Mahaam sees developing between Jalal and Jodha. Her candid acceptance of what now seems to her a real possibility, that Jodha will bear the heir to the Mughal sultanate and become the Mariam-uz-Zamani.
Mahaam Anga, the intrigante sans pareille, a matchless tactician and coldblooded strategist of the likes of Catherine de Medicis or Lucrezia Borgia, is so fascinating precisely because she does not let what she wants cloud her assessment of what is likely to happen despite her best efforts. But that will not prevent her from trying, to her last breath, to prevent it from happening. Truly a terrible woman, but with elements of greatness, even if twisted and corrupted, in her that cannot be denied.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Health and Fitness
Financial markets and global economy
Indian Mythology
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
377