Jodha Akbar - The premise of a Love story

Hi all,

👍🏼 . Dunno abt the fear thingy, but yes, a person cannot be changed by another person unless he/ she would themselves want to change. The Jalal we ve seen has shown himself to be self aware & accept his mistakes & change his stance on certain of his past misdeeds, meaning he was prepared to change where he went wrong. Jodha, on the other hand, well she s hardly shown to introspect much less think that she might ever be wrong in a particular instance. A true paragon indeed 😛 ...so where to expect change in a perfection personified character 😉 . Dunno how epic love is gonna strike her 😲

The answer to that, my dear, is very simple. It is not going to strike her at all.

She will eventually come to love Jalal in her own fashion, probably rating him after all her Ameri Sas: bapusa, maasa, dadisa, bhaisas, bhabhisas, and possibly the family dogsa, though that was not shown.😉

But she is never going to count the world well lost for him. No such deewaangee for our Amer ki shehzaadi.

So anything epic about this love story has to come from Jalal. At the rate at which he is going when he does not understand that he loves her, I shudder to think of what is to come when he does so realise it!

As for the rest of your comments, I agree with you.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: ngayou

👍🏼 . Dunno abt the fear thingy, but yes, a person cannot be changed by another person unless he/ she would themselves want to change. The Jalal we ve seen has shown himself to be self aware & accept his mistakes & change his stance on certain of his past misdeeds, meaning he was prepared to change where he went wrong. Jodha, on the other hand, well she s hardly shown to introspect much less think that she might ever be wrong in a particular instance. A true paragon indeed 😛 ...so where to expect change in a perfection personified character 😉 . Dunno how epic love is gonna strike her 😲

My dear Adiana,

A very persuasive analysis.

To my mind, when you love someone - a husband, a boyfriend, a child - you should love them as is, and not try to change them to suit you. Any change should come at the initiative of that person, because he/she wants to change. Whether it is to please you or because that person feels a need to change, the end result will be a happy one. But if one loves another with the one point agenda of 'reforming' him/her, the experiment will fail, and the love as well.

I take it that the fear you are referring to is the fear of losing, whether losing the love or the beloved. Jalal is, as you correctly point out, not afraid of rejection and a lack of reciprocity; he had in fact come to terms with the latter, and it was only what he saw as Jodha leading him on and then humiliating him that drove him to fury. Jodha, as you again see correctly, is mortally afraid that Jalal will get her to fall in love with him and then ditch her. Now, there being no way to prove a negative, her fear can only be overcome thru a leap of faith.

Jalal has the seeds of nobility and greatness in him to begin with, and he will bring them out and strengthen these traits on his own. I only hope Jodha gains the wisdom to do the same on her own as well.

But even if she does so, I feel that she is constitutionally incapable of loving Jalal with the kind of all consuming love that he is capable of, the deewaangee that would count the world well lost for the beloved. Do see my response to ngayou above; it will amuse you!

Shyamala

Originally posted by: adianasr

Hi all,

I have been reading up posts on the forum since a couple of months. I have read the analysis that have been posted and the points and counter points. All of them seem to have one of the following 2 premises -

1. Jalal needs to become a better person and Jodha will change him for the better and

2.Jodha needs to change and improve and she can only do so by understanding Jalal.

In short, most here seem to be of the opinion one or the other or both will change due to the other's influence.

Is it possible for one human to change another human - or does each human change himself / herself and the influence of another is just not needed.

Lets talk Jalal and Jodha - They cannot change each other - Jodha cannot change Jalal and Jalal cannot change Jodha - Both have to do it on their own - Jalal has to evolve on his own and Jodha has to evolve on her own - I have now used the term 'Evolve' in place of 'Change' becoz that would be a better term.

Only Love has the power to change a person and make him or her evolve. And both Jodha and Jalal need to evolve and they can only do this when Love touches them - For those who believe that Jodha is perfect I would like to say that she has myopic vision who cannot see beyond her own nose. The day she understands Love is to accept the dark with the light (of self) - to accept the ego and the soul (of self) she will evolve.

As for Jalal - all his supporters do believe he has the makings of greatness and yes all do believe he does need to evolve - And he will since he has already been touched by love (he just needs to adjust to it) - Jodha is not the one who will or can change him. Jalal is on the path to understanding that his ego and his soul are two sides of the same coin and once he accepts both he will evolve.

And from what I have seen in the serial so far - The character of Jalal is far better placed to be touched by Love than Jodha - The reason being - Love can only exist where there is no fear - And the Jalal that the writers have created does not have any fear but the Jodha we are seeing on television is riddled with fear.

One of the major problems with hindi serials, when it comes to Love stories, is that they do not get their premise correct. The premise is that one person can change another which unfortunately is not true and is a very hollow premise. Only Love has the power to change and Love can only happen when there is no fear. If our writers can just understand this basic fact we may get better stories which make more impact and be more watchable.

This is a fantastic post. You have explained it really well. Its also why I've lost interest in this story. Its about a man who fails to see the failings in his beloved and a woman who is believes her love is only worthy after the man has been reformed. Neither accepts the other as they are. There is no depth, darkness, fear filled excitement or complexity, or an excited anticipation of the unknown. There is no courage in either leads to tread the path less travelled. Jalal is in love with a Jodha who doesnt exist (he fails to see her as she is and puts a her on a pedestal) and he loves to overlook everything. Why can a man not face the woman he loves and tell her what is wrong and what is right? What is acceptable and what is not? Where they stand currently and where they are headed? Does that diminish him as a man or his love in any way? It only adds to the excitement in my opinion when you can see every facet of the one you love and take them as they are. Similarly Jodha. I do not think she fears love. She fears accepting changing principles. That her ideas may have been wrong, that there are two sides to a coin, She fears accepting that she may have been wrong. She does not have to love Jalal to accept that there are all sorts of people in this world and that everyone has a story to tell. That is common sense. It doesnt help that everyone sings her praises for no rhyme or reason. How come Moti sees everything exactly as it stands? She is desperately trying to fit everything neatly into a box that is the wrong size. In my opinion because of this, she will never be able to give herself away completely. She doubts everything, but herself. Why not doubt yourself for once? She is in love with all kinds of illusions and ideas and cannot see the reality she is surrounded by.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

My dear Adiana,

A very persuasive analysis.

To my mind, when you love someone - a husband, a boyfriend, a child - you should love them as is, and not try to change them to suit you. Any change should come at the initiative of that person, because he/she wants to change. Whether it is to please you or because that person feels a need to change, the end result will be a happy one. But if one loves another with the one point agenda of 'reforming' him/her, the experiment will fail, and the love as well.

I take it that the fear you are referring to is the fear of losing, whether losing the love or the beloved. Jalal is, as you correctly point out, not afraid of rejection and a lack of reciprocity; he had in fact come to terms with the latter, and it was only what he saw as Jodha leading him on and then humiliating him that drove him to fury. Jodha, as you again see correctly, is mortally afraid that Jalal will get her to fall in love with him and then ditch her. Now, there being no way to prove a negative, her fear can only be overcome thru a leap of faith.

Jalal has the seeds of nobility and greatness in him to begin with, and he will bring them out and strengthen these traits on his own. I only hope Jodha gains the wisdom to do the same on her own as well.

But even if she does so, I feel that she is constitutionally incapable of loving Jalal with the kind of all consuming love that he is capable of, the deewaangee that would count the world well lost for the beloved. Do see my response to ngayou above; it will amuse you!

Shyamala

Adiana my dear, you are not only a 115th generation descendant of Chanakya, but also of Rumi and Kahlil Gibran and the Sufi poets. What an exquisite verse to illustrate your point. I was quite blown away.

But then, to love like that, one has to be either very young - for it is only the very young who are ready to die for love - or a deewaana in the grand tradition of Majnun. I do not see even Jalal in that mould, and most emphatically not Jodha. She is too flatfooted and on the ground to soar to these heights, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I see your point about her fear being of the loss of her astitva. It is absolutely correct. But then, Adiana, she cannot be a true bhakt of her Kanha either, for the essence of bhakti is to lose your identity in that of the Lord, like Meerabai. Jodha's bhakti is confined to singing to Kanha and deafening him periodically with complaints and demands. Meerbai aimed much higher, she wanted, and got,Kanha himself. That was because she was not afraid of losing her astitva, and in fact, sought precisely that.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: adianasr

Hi Shyamala,

Have been reading posts on forum and giving my little piece and so am late with my response here.

The fear of Jodha that I am refering to is losing - not the beloved or love - but herself - and this is the only fear that holds a person back from taking that final leap - and this has been used even in the show where Jodha says that she does not understand a love that makes one loose his/her 'Astitva'. This is the fear that is holding her back and that is making her myopic. And this is the fear that I do not see in Jalal's characterization. In fact I actually see a Jalal who wants this, which is what has me intrigued despite the silliness of the past couple of weeks. I still cannot get the words of Jalal when he went to Jodha out of my head - beautifully said it was!!!

As for what I desire - I heard the 'Laal Ishq' song of SLB's Ram Leela and I was totally stunned by the lyrics - ek toh the lyrics are just not SLB - that man does not understand Ishq the way these lyrics portray and the film definitely is not the Ishq that is the essence of these lyrics. But this is what I would like to see as a love story, what the lyrics of this song convey - am presenting those parts of the lyrics which have taken the wind out of my sails -

Tujh sang bair lagaya aisa, Raha na main phir apne jaisa

Apna naam badal dun, Ya tera naam chhupa lun

Ya chhod ke saari aag, Main vairaag utha lun
Mera naam ishq, Tera naam ishq

Mera naam, Tera naam, Mera naam ISHQ!
Ye laal ishq, ye malaal ishq, Ye aib ishq, ye bair ishq

The essence of the lyrics of this song is what I would like some writer to pen down as screenplay and dialogues and someone create it into a beautiful story on the canvas of television or cinema celluloid - And the fact that the poetry has happened gives me hope that soon the visual drama will follow. Someone will have the courage to present it!!!

Originally posted by: sashashyam

My dear Adiana,

A very persuasive analysis.

To my mind, when you love someone - a husband, a boyfriend, a child - you should love them as is, and not try to change them to suit you. Any change should come at the initiative of that person, because he/she wants to change. Whether it is to please you or because that person feels a need to change, the end result will be a happy one. But if one loves another with the one point agenda of 'reforming' him/her, the experiment will fail, and the love as well.

I take it that the fear you are referring to is the fear of losing, whether losing the love or the beloved. Jalal is, as you correctly point out, not afraid of rejection and a lack of reciprocity; he had in fact come to terms with the latter, and it was only what he saw as Jodha leading him on and then humiliating him that drove him to fury. Jodha, as you again see correctly, is mortally afraid that Jalal will get her to fall in love with him and then ditch her. Now, there being no way to prove a negative, her fear can only be overcome thru a leap of faith.

Jalal has the seeds of nobility and greatness in him to begin with, and he will bring them out and strengthen these traits on his own. I only hope Jodha gains the wisdom to do the same on her own as well.

But even if she does so, I feel that she is constitutionally incapable of loving Jalal with the kind of all consuming love that he is capable of, the deewaangee that would count the world well lost for the beloved. Do see my response to ngayou above; it will amuse you!

Shyamala

Adiana, I would like you to bring up this change issue on my latest thread of yesterday, about which I had PMed you. It would make for a very interesting discussion there. Will you do that please!

Shyamala

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Adiana my dear, you are not only a 115th generation descendant of Chanakya, but also of Rumi and Kahlil Gibran and the Sufi poets. What an exquisite verse to illustrate your point. I was quite blown away. Shyamala, Thank you for the compliment!!!

But then, to love like that, one has to be either very young - for it is only the very young who are ready to die for love - or a deewaana in the grand tradition of Majnun. I do not see even Jalal in that mould, and most emphatically not Jodha. She is too flatfooted and on the ground to soar to these heights, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I agree and for this I would put the onus squarely on the writers!!! We do need brilliant writers that is a fact!!! Btw I dont think very highly of Majnun and Ranjha. I prefer Mirza of Mirza Sahibaan fame!!! And anyways I think Rumi - Tabrezi and Khusrau - Nizzamuddin Auliya make better love sstories since they understood ISHQ better. Wonder what the real Jodha-Akbar story was but there definitely was something there. Abhay and gang have given a lot of fodder for thought!!!

I see your point about her fear being of the loss of her astitva. It is absolutely correct. But then, Adiana, she cannot be a true bhakt of her Kanha either, for the essence of bhakti is to lose your identity in that of the Lord, like Meerabai. Jodha's bhakti is confined to singing to Kanha and deafening him periodically with complaints and demands. Meerbai aimed much higher, she wanted, and got,Kanha himself. That was because she was not afraid of losing her astitva, and in fact, sought precisely that. Precisely my point!!!

Shyamala

I had made this post some time back and I am reiterating what I had presented -