Originally posted by: Ash67
Dear Shyamala aunty,
A lot seems to have happened while I was (still am) whittling away at my assignments! Came here to see how you were and found the thread on fire (sorry 😛) You would also have noticed that I am not engaged in any fire-fighting exercise!😉
Keeping in mind your advice, I do not wish to get sucked in the quicksand of forum or historical debates so will make a few quick points and run away
In fun -Not really, kid, they can be taken quite seriously too.
- Aunty, if we are to follow your tenets of keeping to the serial and characters, not bringing in the history, then whatever real Jodha's age and reel look age-wise, we have to accept she is 17+ at her shaadi 😉
- Walking the talk - Maybe the CVs strongly believe in the saying- those who can- do, those who can't - preach!!! Exactly.
Just some thoughts
- Speaking of the character, maybe since we did not enjoy the mahan version later on, we should technically rejoice in Jodha's foibles now. And, probably appreciate that the CVs 2 (Goodness, we had Rukaiya 1 and 2 then Bharmal 1 and 2. Now your Jodha 1 and 2 and my CVs 1 and 2) are quite consistent in showing Jodha, the reel character, as someone inconsistent in her sayings and doings, as someone who never thinks things through before doing something, is never into realities of life and never seems to have been groomed/disciplined/coaxed into royal decorum or into following expected norms. I think the result of a battle of contrary desires and needs (of the CVs) - to create drama, to over showcase her qualities, and to appease/ pander to current religious and political sensibilities.
Exactly (again)! And I would not have minded Jodha's reckless self-centredness if only she had not made all those high sounding statements to her father earlier. Then one could have written her off as an untamed filly, eternally hot at hand and just tailormade for the equally hot at hand Jalal. But the inconsistency in her sayings and doings, when it can have such horrendous consequences, is not something one can tolerate.
- Not speaking of the particular follies of burning the joda or trying to escape the marriage but in general. - Showing Jodha's human frailties now would be great if they show that she too grows up and evolves along with Jalal the human being and the emperor (who we have to keep in mind is not yet Akbar in reel life no matter the potential and the qualities already there. And also that, unlike us, the reel Jodha does not have the advantage of knowing where he will reach eventually. She is probably as conditioned in her hate for Jalal by her readings of the Prithviraj Raso as we are in our love for him by our readings about Akbar (not to add Rajat to that already potent mix), and her long-held image of Jalal and enmity against the Mughals). I wonder how we would look at the above mentioned follies if in committing those she had been shown (not by saying so but through a layered script and/or performance) to succumb to the need to fight the strange pull of attraction felt before knowing he was the hated Jalal, and which is still there. Where is it? They never show it, and strangest of all, not even the normal sensual attraction for a very handsome and desirable man. They never show Jodha fighting either attraction.
Now this para, my dear, is the toughest of all to disentangle! Never fear, I have managed it.
But there are two problems with your appealing theory, or rather proposal.
I do not know what the Prithviraj Raso has to do with Jodha's perceptions of Jalal, unless you assume that she clubbed him with Mohammed Ghori as a bloodthirsty monster who destroyed her hero. I am not going into the far too mahaan follies of Prithviraj in letting Ghori off the first time, for that would derail my comments here. You might even be right in the clubbing together assumption, for that is what the CVs themselves seemed to be doing in the first 3 episodes! But for Jodha to believe that deception and betrayal was a Mughal-Afghan monopoly, she would have to forget Jaichand, would she not?
No, the real problem is that Jodha's frailties are not acknowledged as such by the script.They are simply plonked in and her mahaanta continues unchallenged.
The second is that after the face in the water, and face she sees with her eyes closed fantasies in the palace in Amer, Jodha is never shown being troubled, or pulled two ways, by her unspoken attraction to the face in the water. In fact that dreamy obsession is not even shown later, when they are both admittedly in love with each other. It is as if it was forgotten, and that was one of the loveliest leit motifs in the whole story!
So, for anything like the very attractive option you propose to materialise, you would have to rewrite the whole of Jodha, 1,2 or whatever. And if one was to do that, there is a lot more that I would want changed!
- The shartein - I agree they were much better portrayed and set up in the movie than here where the situation is so perilous and sans escape for the Ameris that they come across as escapist. I know not nor care whether this is history or NR. For me, Jodha, the one who would have and keep this Jalal's heart no matter how many wives before or after (and I do imagine it possible to love one from amongst many if that one is as unique as Jalal and matches Jalal's range of abilities. A rara avis rarer even than Rukaiya 1 in that she does not (need not) compete with the beloved but matches him strength for strength so that together they change - not to become like one another but to evolve together), would have raised the issues in the shartein. Not to escape the marriage but facing it with icy courage and a clarity of vision because that would have shown her understanding of the momentousness and the potential of that marriage and what it meant for the future. In that sense, she would be the catalyst that allowed Jalal to crystallise and express his as yet unrealised inclusive vision.
I agree with this in toto, but again that would need a different Jodha. Not just this self-satisfied sarvakalavalli, who can sing like a nightingale, cook like Nala, fence like Jalal, is praveen in archery, can outwit the Iranians in trading skills, and of course is as skilled in medicine and lep-making as Dhanavantri. And so on and on and on, but who has no commonsense and no logic, and worst of all, no understanding of the human heart and its frailities.
Your Jodha would have to have the breadth of political vision needed to understand what Jalal's vision was in promoting this marriage. This one does not even understand the momentous nature of what he does in Kali Maa mandir, when he places his head at the feet of the goddess.
Questions -
- I know not the history in depth, hence the question- if the marriage was a political decision not post-war but taken to avoid war, then -since this was such a momentous decision of Jalal and his first cross-religion marriage, would these questions not arise? Would that not be part of the shaadi-talks? I mean there can be no prevalent norm about it if this was the first ever such event to take place, can there? And if there was a contrary precedent, more the possibility of the issue being brought up, maybe not directly by Jodha, but the go-betweens?
There were no go-betweens, and Bharmal, both in the film and in the serial, has only one concern, not to upset the apple cart and (re)endanger Amer. He assumes that Jodha would have to change her religion, as part of the wifely subservience that would be demanded of her in any marriage, and all the more in this one. Here, he is startled and dismayed when Jodha sets out her sharts.
- As for real Jodha's conversion - if we accept that the marriage was a politically strategic decision by Akbar to win over Hindus, how would he manage that by allowing Jodha's post-marriage conversion? And if he is (real and reel) the great, rare-for-his-times secular and progressive ruler that we admire so much, if he had that vision from the beginning without any outside influence or need for it, then - would he impose or follow the norm that the wife must convert to the husband's religion? And as a Shehenshah, would he give in to any such demands by conservative subordinates?
No, the Shahenshah would not have given in to complaints from the mullahs, but the real significance of the marriage was political. Jodha's changing her religion as a matter of course would not have reduced its importance, for the roti-beti ka rishta would have been a momentous breakthrough regardless.
The real public impact of Akbar's broad-minded and inclusive policies on the mind of the his Hindu awaam would have come with the lifting of the pilgrimage tax and the jaziya.
However, to revert, if after the marriage, Jodha had made a quiet request to Akbar, I am sure he would have been liberal enough to have accepted it. Which is very likely what happened. Putting it as a shart, a demand which says take it or leave it, challenges Jalal, and also humiliates Bharmal, for it shows him as a king who cannot even control his daughter.
Hold your belan Aunty. I am done! Now running away to my essay in hand before you pull me up and shoo me away (rightly so and with all the rights)!
No belan, child, for you have outlined the kind of Jodha I would have wanted too. Unfortunately, she is a mrigtrishna.
I once wrote of my hope that she would look at her magnificent husband with radiant pride and say, as Cleopatra said to Caesar, "But for you, the world is full of little men!". That was at least more feasible even with these CVs, but that too was a mirage, alas!
Please do not respond to this post till your fingers are well rested. Well, they were when I started this, but they are so no longer, so I shall call a halt to this exercise!
Warmest Regards
Ashwinee🤗
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