Jodha Akbar 11-12: Siyaasat ki jung

When one sits down to a meal, the temptation is always to start with the best dish. This is exactly what we shall do now.

Episode 11 was good, and it contained much useful material that moved the story forward,  but it was sandwiched between  two spectacular ones. It was like  when  you see one episode of a TV serial, conclude that this  is the best yet and difficult to top, and 2 days later, along  comes another episode that makes you say exactly the same thing all over again.  With Episodes 10 & 12, Jodha Akbar passed this test, and did it in style.

So the first was the  crackerjack No.10, which dazzled  with Jalal's derring do and his  ice cold nerve. The other was the  very powerful No. 12, which had what I can only describe as a Power Point presentation of spectacular set piece scenes that took your breath away. So No.11 suffered by comparison, besides not having too much to analyse. So we shall take it up at the end, and skip to No.12.

There were  3 very important and striking scenes  in this episode: Jalal-Maham Anga 1, Jalal-Bairam Khan, and Jalal-Maham Anga 2,  that not only  set out the (changing) relationships between the  vital troika of  Maham Anga-Jalal-Bairam Khan,  but were exceptionally well written and enacted.  Rajat's Jalal is always a sure shot, but here he was ably seconded by Bairam Khan, and even more so by Maham Anga. 

The three played off each other to quite spectacular effect,  and their lines were superb. No wonder then that  they were splendid, and that the  two scenes between Jalal and Maham Anga were pure gems, polished, scintillating gems.

Then there was the far less impressive scene between Hamida  Bano and Sheik Salim Chisti, which gave us a reassuring glimpse of Jalal's  future. Let us take these scenes one by one.

Jalal-Maham Anga 1: If  the narrative  here crackled  and seethed, it was  with subterranean  intrigues ,  as two fierce opponents -  Mahaam Anga and Bairam Khan - feinted and circled each other as each   strove for supremacy in her/his hold on Jalal. He is  their be all and end all, for both exist only thru him and his status as the Shahenshah, and without him, they would be nothing. By episode end, I, being a bit  of a female chauvinist, was greatly  pleased when Mahaam Anga proved, beyond  a shadow of a doubt, that in political intrigue as in its domestic equivalent, the female of the species is deadlier than the male. 😉 

She begins perfectly, by getting in on the first base, ready to greet Jalal on his arrival at the camp, whereas Bairam Khan goofs  up be being out riding at this vital moment.  The smile that lights up Jalal's face when he spots her, the first time I have seen him smile with genuine pleasure, and the gentle, affectionate homage he pays her, kissing her hands and then carrying them to his eyes, must have  strongly boosted Mahaam Anga's standing  in the minds of the onlookers, that is to say the whole camp.

From  her side, she makes a public display of  tenderness and concern, fondling his face and exclaiming over the wound in his hand. Her eyes brim over with maternal affection, but she  draws him away  into his khema, and she does not seat herself until he rises and makes her sit down.

Aap yahan? : Jalal's opening line is his standard one, whether 456 years later to Jodha's rooh,  to his mother, or now to his Badiammi. Aap yahan?   But the gentleness  that he  now infuses into these same two words, the affection and the  sense of belonging that are reflected in his eyes,   are nothing short of amazing. Rajat can make his voice, and his eyes,  do whatever he wants them to do, and this one is a minor  masterpiece in the genre.

Maham voices  a half protest when he removes his  taj,   but  her eyes are calculating. She knows what will come next, and when it does, and Jalal asserts that his Badiammi is more important to him than all this, there is a lurking triumph in her eyes, swiftly veiled.

It appears that Maham too is a lep  specialist (she does not know that she will soon have competition of  the kind that will drive her out of this particular business!😉😉) . As she  produces the lep,  she indulges in  loving nostalgia about how she used to have takleef  at every such wound that Jalal had suffered since he was 14.  Jalal's  eyes  are awash with empathy, and he smiles affectionately as she says she wants him to become is jahan ke sabse bade Shahenshah.

I loved those  lines of Jalal's when she tells him that the lep  might hurt him:  Zakhm taariq hai is baat ki ki humne apni jeet ko tarasha hai..Takleef? Takleef  humein choone se darti hai, Badiammi!

Thought control:  Maham then drives her advantage home  by complaining, with  gentle but unmistakable reproof,   that he has neglected her of late. As she  presses all the right buttons with him -  sirf ek dayimaa, doodh pilaya, pal pos kar bada kiya, maa ka pyaar dene ki koshish ki - Jalal responds  exactly as she would have wanted him to. His eyes are a study in regret,  and  that he, the Shahenshah,  apologises unreservedly (which she is clever enough to negate at once!)  is, to her,  welcome proof of her hold on him.

By the end of the lep session, with Jalal's head in her lap -  displaying a profile  comparable to that of  the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius -  Mahaam  Anga is poised for battle against her bete noire, Bairam Khan.

Fortune, it is said, favours the brave, and perhaps Lady Luck has some female solidarity as well😉,  for with the arrival  of the hakim, Mahaam Anga sees the opening she was seeking fall unexpectedly into her lap. She strikes like a rattlesnake, swift and sure. It is proof of her tactical skills that she brings out the whole Zaheer  atrocity without showing her hand  at all- she does not even mention Bairam Khan's name.

As Jalal explodes in rage and anguish at Zaheer's condition, Maham Anga, as she wipes her hands like Lady Macbeth,  smiles to herself, a smile as slight and ambiguous as that of the Mona Lisa (with apologies to Leonardo da Vinci!). The impenetrable barrier  that Bairam Khan had built around the Shahenshah, allowing access to no one but himself, suffers its first ever breach.

The horror on Jalal's face as he looks at Zaheer hits us like a wave, and his profile, taut and grim, shows controlled but mounting rage. His eyes are  wide with shock, and the lips  are drawn back from the teeth as he roars: Kiske?  What a contrast to the pop-eyed versions of similar rage he was made to do later by incompetent directors!😡 Here, he impeccable, and as he stands next to Maham and repeats his question, his voice, his eyes and his whole face seem to be posing that one question,  with suppressed rage and  grief.

There is a desperate rearguard action by a shell-shocked  Bairam Khan, ending in a last ditch attempt to to  salvage the situation as he kneels at Jalal's feet and offers an eye for an eye as retribution.  Jalal refuses to punish him, but is unyielding in his condemnation of  what was done to Zaheer, and as he turns away  from his mentor of many years, one can practically hear the door closing in Bairam Khan's face.

He pays the price for imagining that his pupil could be forever controlled and  manipulated, like  a puppet on  a string, even after he had grown in years, stature and  wisdom. It was brought home to him, suddenly and without warning, that power by proxy is fundamentally  unstable. And that it never pays to take an emperor, even one  so young, for granted.

It was striking that it was only today, confronted by a stony-faced, ice cold Jalal, that it occurred to Bairam Khan  that  the Shahenshah should be addressed as Aap. It was, unfortunately for him, too little too late. The downward slide has begun, and the bell is tolling for Bairam Khan.  Mahaam Anga, against whom he rages impotently, is only an instrument  in his fall;  he has dug his grave with his own hands.

Contrasting personae: In this episode, we saw the two extremes of Jalal's persona,  and both came across equally convincingly.

He was  at his gentlest yet with his Badi Ammi, and when he stretches out, with his head in her lap, one can glimpse the emotional deprivation he suffers from, and his need for simple, tactile affection. It  was, in a way, an extension of the very touching  scene  of the previous day, when he cradles Abdul's head in his lap and wipes his face with cool water. Jalal has  affection, deep and in abundance, but only  for the very few who have the key to his heart: his conviction that they care for him, really, truly, deeply.

That he is often  hoodwinked by designing  persons does not take away anything from this  quality, just as it does not diminish the other quality of his, a rare one in an emperor, of gratitude for anything good done  for or to him.

Immediately afterwards. the raging, impotent  anguish with which he watches  Zaheer writhe  in agony is  matched, if not exceeded,  by the icy, rigid  aloofness with which he treats Bairam Khan. Both segments have been beautifully visualized and impeccably performed. 

Equally well done, and extremely plausible,  are Jalal's restlessness and his discomfort at having had to snub his lifelong mentor. It is not possible to sever the ties of a lifetime in an instant, no matter how deep the  revulsion and anger that he feels against the father figure who has dominated his life for as long as he can remember. And so he turns to his other support system, Mahaam Anga.

Jalal-Maham Anga  2: It was fascinating to watch her, a master at the game and in the art of dissimulation, play Jalal like a violin. As he watches her, his eyes narrowed in confusion and emotional strain, she lays out for him the principles of statecraft for him with a succinctness and  confidence that would have pleased Chanakya.

Ek salah dena chahenge, yaad rakhiyega. Mohabbat insaan ko kamzor kar deti hai ( she is herself a standing example of this, wrt her son Adham) aur rishtey dam ghot dete hain.. Hands grasping his shoulders, she goes on Yeh Mughaliya sultanat sirf  aur sirf  aapse aur aapki ragon mein daudti shahi khoon ki wajah se kayam hai..

When he protests that Bairam Khan has been his  ustad all his life and is like his walid,  she instantly presses on a raw wound when she tells him  to then forget the atrocity done to his sabse bharosemand  Zaheer. As Jalal , racked by indecision, looks away, Maham assesses the situation, her eyes wary and calculating.  Then, her mind  made up, she moves.

Kaum aap par bharosa karti  hai Jalal! Chahti hai aapko. Apne Zill-e-Ilahi ke faisle par unhein yakeen hai..  Kisi din, kisi ki ki huyi gustakhi ki wajah se yeh yakeen toota, to wo din Mughaliya sultanat ke liye sab se bura din hoga.

She withdraws a bit to assess the impact of what she has said so far. Then she delivers her parting coup, clearly aimed at Bairam Khan, though it is innocuous enough on the surface. Itihaas gawah hai Jalal, zulm ki hukumat kabhi aabaad nahin rahi hai. Aage aap khud samajhdaar hain..

Thru this  silken  monologue that ranges from Panchatantra-style parables  to the need for the Emperor to retain the trust of the awaam, Maham Anga  smoothly  undermines, indeed almost cripples  Bairam Khan's standing with the Shahenshah. Her parting shot, that  regimes based on oppression do not last, tolls like a warning bell, all the louder, metaphorically,  against the sounds of Zaheer's agony.

It is a bravura performance, all the more effective for being so low key.

Gravitas: Rajat as Jalal  was consistently superb  in this episode . He can absorb the emotions and deliver flawlessly, plus he has the vazan, the gravitas, needed for such a dominating role. It showed most clearly in his encounter with Bairam Khan, in the way he unsettles him completely by, first, turning his back on him and walking away with his horse, and then maintaining such a grim silence as Bairam Khan talks himself out. The troubled look as he listens to Mahaam Anga the second time was also very well done.

The burdens of kingship: Jalal now realizes, for the first time, the true burdens of kingship, torn as he is between a father figure, now  sadly  defiled,   and the only mother he has ever known.

It is  telling that in this quandary, Jalal turns first to the Almighty ,  and then, thru Him, to his childhood friend and present wife - jo uske zehen ko padh sakti thi, Jodha se pehle uske dimaag par raaj karti thi -  Ruqaiya Begum. This bids fair to be  a very interesting track, as it will show up a hitherto unseen aspect of Jalal,  his ability to relate to a woman  as  one friend to another, without any reservations or any masculine arrogance.  

At  this stage, I had hoped that the Jalal-Ruqaiya relationship it might  provide a counterpoint, in Jalal's life, to the stormy relationship that he is bound to have, for quite a while, with Jodha.  Perhaps even a buffer.  And as I am doing all the early posts as is, without importing into them the foreknowledge of what is to come, I shall leave it at that.

Blood on the water: In Jodha Akbar,  we have a set of complex characters even among the  minor ones. Just look at Sharifuddin - he is inching closer to the Shahenshah, feeling his way very carefully remembering his past experiences with Jalal, but using every opening he gets.

It is significant that Jalal decides on the trip to Agra without consulting Bairam Khan. The equations are indeed shifting, and Sharifuddin understands this . He senses that Bairam  Khan's star is waning, and he is quick to try and capitalise on it.

This what happens in any autocratic set up - once one player is weakened, the rest close in, and try to dispose of him at the earliest. It is like sharks circling as soon as they scent blood on  the water. Not that Sharifuddin is a shark, but the principle is the same.

Bairam Khan vs Maham Anga: The real problem for Bairam Khan is not just that he has overreached himself, nor even that he has no real affection for Jalal of the kind that could compensate for this mistake - he has loyalty, but not love, and even his loyalty is not to Jalal, but to the Emperor thru whom he hopes to rule the whole of Hindustan.

His real problem is that his pupil is getting to be even better than he is at game of siyaasat, and very soon he will be self-sufficient  at it. When he realises that, Bairam Khan will have nowhere to turn, and no cushion of affection to shield him. But still Akbar is kind to him to the end ; he knows how to maintain and value rishtey.

Mahaam Anga too wants to use Jalal, right now to undercut Bairam Khan. See how quickly she raises the Zaheer angle with the hakim, unmindful  of the fact that Jalal, who is relaxing after a long time, his head in her lap, needs that rest and should not be disturbed so soon.

This  reminded me of the story of Karna and Parasurama, in the Mahabharata. Karna was a pupil of the great sage and warrior Parasurama, who hated kshatriyas, as one had killed his parents. He is sleeping at one time with his head in Karna's lap, when an insect starts biting Karna  and boring into his thigh, drawing blood. Karna did  not want to disturb his sleeping guru, and so he let it bite on and on till Parasurama awakens and saw the blood. (It is another matter that he immediately realised that his shishya was a kshatriya who could stand so much pain without flinching, and then he curses him for having hidden that from him and deceived him. So, at the crucial moment of his final battle against Arjuna, he  forgets the mantras needed for using the brahmastra, the ultimate weapon, and so he is killed  by Arjuna).

Not that this is a real parallel to our story, but the contrast in behaviour is striking. And it shows that though Mahaam Anga loves Jalal - there is no doubt about that - her love is neither selfless nor  undemanding. Plus,  there is extreme possessiveness  wrt Jalal  that will not tolerate any competition.

As I noted above, both Bairam Khan and Maham Anga exist only through Jalal and they will be nothing without him.. Maham   seems to understand it well, that's why she doesn't want to let go of her claim over Akbar at any cost. But it is Bairam Khan who has long forgotten the fact and has made the mistake of thinking that anything he does will be taken for granted.. And he is going to pay the price pretty soon..

Leonine traits: For Jalal has the characteristics of a lion, he is territorial.. He may not be fully awakened now, but once he becomes fully aware of the power and pride he inherits from his ancestors,  he is going to want to claim his territory and he will no longer submit to   being manipulated by anyone.

Hamida Bano-Sheik Salim Chisti:  In this  scene, Hamida Bano's constant refrain that Jalal is cruel and grasping, going so far as to say that he defames Islam, was ridiculous. What does she think father in law Babur did in his time? And when Humayun was gentle with his adversaries, what happened to him and to her and to Jalal? Every ruler has to be harsh at times to maintain control, for the greater benefit of all his subjects. The Mughal empire, just recently recovered thanks to Bairam Khan and Jalal, is not a nursery school!😡

What salvaged this segment for me was Sheikh Salim Chisti's ringing pronouncement about what Jalal would become: Na sirf Jalal badalega, wo aur logon ki soch badalega, Hindustan ki taariq badalega. .. Hamare Hindustan ko, mazhab ko, har insaan ko Jalaluddin ke naam   par faqr hoga, .. Ek din aayega ki wo girkar uthega.. Itna uthega ki jab tak suraj chand rahega, Jalal ka naam rahega..

 I repeated with the Sheikh, Aameen!

Episode 11: All I  want to remember of this episode is , firstly, that splendid display of khanjar  & shamsheer-manship by Jalal as he disposes of  over  twenty  fully armed  Ameri soldiers.

He would had to draw on all his reserves of  sheer strength (it is said that among the Mughal emperors, it was only Babur and Akbar who had tremendous physical strength, though Babur was  a short man and Akbar only of medium height) , skill and lightning reflexes to put paid to the whole lot, and then ride off, leaving a neatly stacked pile of bodies for Suryabhan Singh and Jodha to find.

Jalal is wonderful in this scene,  his eyes sharp and calculating as he scans the circle of antagonists, his lowering brows shielding his eyes and masking his thoughts.  He fights will ill-suppressed glee, his borrowed shamsheer  scything thru the Ameris like the Grim Reaper himself. 

He wants, above all,  to prove Jodha wrong when she tells the imprisoned Abdul Tumhare Shahenshah ki talwar mein itni himmat nahi ki qile ke pattharon ko tod sake! And so he roars: Shahenshan peeth par nahin, seene par waar karte hain.. Samrat ki soorat dekhi hai, ab seerat bhi dekho!

A sadist?  No!: Why is it said that Jalal  is ruthless when he kills over 20  Ameri  soldiers singlehandedly? What else does a warrior do in this situation, pray to them? Of course he will try and kill all of them, as that is the only way for him to get away. In a real war, he would have been given the Param Vir Chakra.

As for his ferocity during the actual battle, that is how all warriors fight. They psyche themselves up to hate the enemy. If  not, they would never be able to kill those who have, individually, done them no harm, even though the entity controlling them would have done the warrior and his family/country a great deal of harm. Have you ever seen, in the movies, an army drill sergeant conducting bayonet practice for young recruits? Think back to that and you will see why Jalal roars in exultation at the end of the fight.

He does not really enjoy killing others, that would make him a sadist;  he is exultant at having finished the job cleanly so that he can save Abdul and himself too. Remember when Bairam Khan wants him to execute that foolish soldier who is so besotted with Jodha's beauty, for chickening out in that fight? Jalal refuses, saying mare hue ko kya maarna. A sadist would have cut  the poor chap's head off in an instant.

NB: The only instance of wanton cruelty on the part of Jalal shown so far  is when he has that shoe thief's feet cut off. It was awful for our current sensibilities. But those times were much more overtly brutal. In fact, even in 19th century England, teenagers caught stealing  a loaf of bread were legally sentenced to transportation to the penal colonies in Australia for life. That, to my mind was just as bad as the feet cutting, in fact worse, for most of those deportees died in the very harsh conditions in the penal colonies.

Jalal-Abdul: The second segment I want to remember is the closing one , of Jalal by a riverside, with Abdul's head in his lap, washing his forehead with cool river water. The gentleness with which he does this would have shocked the Jalal=Jallad brigade! 😉

As far as Abdul's complaint to Jalal goes, the Jodha alternative would have involved Abdul being left back to face torture and lifelong imprisonment. So, when he suggests that, besides the trademark  cheekiness of a court jester, he is being unselfish. He feels that (a) his beloved Shahenshah would have gained something very rare and valuable and (b) that Jodha should feel honoured at having been carried off by no one other than such a great man.

I loved Jalal's characteristically cocky  response to Abdul,  that if he had carried off Jodha instead of him, he would have made her naayaab (incomparable) and  boosted her ehmiyat (value or importance).  He obviously believes that she should not be paid so great a compliment, as it might go to her head!  😉

I then visualized the likely scenario if he had carried her off. Careening all over the Rajasthan countryside in the dark, trying to control a woman who  would all the time have been trying to scratch his eyes out, if not decapitate him with  his own khanjar. Nice going!😉😉

But our hero has other ideas, as he tells Abdul Tumhein to hum le aaye, lekin ab tum dekhna..Wo khud ba khud chalkar hamare paas aayegi..  His eyes gleam in  confident anticipation as he adds, rolling the words on his tongue like a delicious sweet, Hamare aagosh mein!  Famous last words!😉

At this point, he sees the train of armed men reflected in the water - a beautiful shot!  He is instantly on high alert, his khanjar  held tight in his hand, while his eyes narrow in concentration. Jalal,  who would not have hesitated to take on that whole troop single-handedly, looks for all the world like one of Vandyke's splendid cavaliers, but one waiting for  the battle.

Jodha: She conveys very well the helpless rage that consumes her at having been thus tricked by Amer's worst enemy. She is breathing hard, bosom heaving,  and her face looks almost demented at one point: Jal hi to rahe hain, Maasa! But she seems to attach very little significance to her having seen Jalal's face in the water at Gangaur, instead of Suryabhan's, whereas this info, understandably,  paralyses Mainavati.

In sharp contrast to this mood of hers is Jodha's  behaviour during her tete a tete with Suryabhan.  At the end, she holds him back,  and  voices her pride at the prospect of her becoming the Rani of such a  noble man,  who cares first for the welfare of Amer and the whole of Hindustan (the girl is bananas! The whole of Hindustan???).

She then proceeds to look  at him with the lovelight in her eyes,  something that she never, ever managed to produce even in her most lovey-dovey scenes with Jalal!😉

The backlash of war: A little segment that was intensly touching was the  way in which  the palace ladies, half fearful, half resigned,  face up to the prospect of war being imminent.  The thought of  having to commit  jauhar to save their honour seems to be paramount in their minds,  leading to an all-pervading pessimism about  victory against the Mughals,  and this before a single sword has been drawn in battle.  War is always hardest on those left behind to wait and hope.

Questions over the last two days, in no particular order.

 1)       One was relieved to learn that this Jalal too is illiterate, and it was Abdul who had undertaken that calligraphic exercise in the prison. But why do they keep referring to the deewaar, when it is clearly on the floor? Any writing on the wall here  is clearly metaphorical,  not literal!

2)      Why do they keep calling Abdul a gaddaar, or traitor? A foreigner cannot  be a traitor to Amer, only a citizen of Amer can be that.

3)      Why did Suryabhan not ride in the posse against  Jalal? Why leave such a quarry  to simple soldiers who had  neither the skills nor the guts to face a man of such a fearful reputation?

4)      One knows that Jalal is extremely concerned about Abdul's condition, and wants to keep him close to himself on the journey back to the Mughal camp. But how does it help to sling him on Jalal's mount, in front of the saddle , face down, hanging on both sides like a badly tied sack of potatoes? The blood would have rushed to his head from its being so low all the time, and if he did not pass out before the end of the journey, it must have been pure luck!       

Funny moment:  The tubby halwai fainting when he learns the identity of his customer of the last 3 days,  and the  assistant sticking an old shoe under his nose in the time-honoured tradition. The shoe looked smelly enough to activate even a corpse after just a whiff!😉

That is it for now, folks! See you again on Thursday, provided of course that you have survived this is good shape😉.

Shyamala / Aunty/Akka/Di

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Originally posted by: harrybird

Episode 12  You tube Video ! 

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFTpfmGmGEU[/YOUTUBE]