Jodha Akbar discussion corner! - Page 17

My darling poppets,

You know that I would do anything for you, but you have to look at things as they are.

Each of the current, relatively short (about 3 pages) Jodha Akbar posts takes me not less than 3 hours from start to finish, including the editing and the PMs. This does not include the time taken to rewatch the episode and take notes for the quotations. Nor the time for responses like this one ( with daily posts, I am always sadly behindhand with them, which makes me fell guilty) which takes one or even 2 hours a day. After one hour at the laptop, my knee is stiff and painful. How on earth can I do anything more? I have a mother who is a cardiac patient and her health needs constant monitoring, plus she needs my company.

The other problem is Asoka itself. It is so dull and repetitive- with endless sequences of that Dharma being chased by Mir Khorasan - that it puts me to sleep at times. Now they are busy churning makkan!

The worst is what they have reduced Siddharth to. His brooding silences lit up Mahakumbh, but look at him now! Always goody-goody, nobleness personified, preaching away and forgiving the likes of Ahankara with treacly sympathy, who has to do everything of any significance that gets done, and who goes about lugging that tinpot sword around. It is an object lesson in how an actor with great potential can be reduced to a ham in 6 months.

Then there is his mother, with the worst features of Jodha Begum bhaashan and mahaanta-wise, but lacking her splendid looks. This one looks like a daasi, and she pontificates about ahimsa at the drop of a hat, so much so that I wish she had been burnt in that lakshagrih, like Agnishikha. I do not know how she thinks an empire is to be run with her ahimsavaad.

Then there Rajamata Helena, looking like a dessicated stick of celery, and twisting her tongue around the most thet Hindustani with admirable tenacity. There are the endless scenes of Charumitra slapping or otherwise berating her arrogant, unpleasant son. Not to mention the dismal looking Mir Khorasan and his daughter, asserting every now and then that Siamak would be the next samrat.

There is not a single character I like, not even Asoka. Or Chanakya, who seems to be such a flabby mess and so lacking in any ability to control events that he sets my teeth on edge. As I am sure he is doing to the real Chanakya, up there somewhere in the stratosphere. As for Bindusar, who fits Sandhya's buddhuram epithet to a T, the less said the better! At least in Jodha Akbar, the leads were good to look at.

So what can I analyse there? I can write well only when the subject interests me, and Asoka, till now, does not interest me at all. But I intend to continue watching it - I really do not know why, for it was for Siddharth to begin with but it is not even that now - and if the adult Asoka is interesting, I will write there, since my stint in JA would be over by then. That, my pets, is a promise!

Mandy, you can be at peace for now, there is no reason for you to watch Asoka!😉

Affectionately,


Shyamala Aunty

PS: This took me 35 minutes to type!

Originally posted by: Autumn_Rose

Please please please...😳

My dear Devki,

Thank you! I am very pleased that you liked this one so much.

Your comments are crisp and telling, though one cannot argue that Jalal would not have understood the depth of the fury the temple depredations by his soldiers would have stirred up. How would he have reacted if a mosque had been pillaged in like fashion? I think your earlier argument was more telling, that it is a very commons thing for invaders to do (and the Mughals right at this point have been almost reduced to that state), and this time, it just slips thru his consciousness as he is focussing on the Jodha part.

I agree completely with you on the 'grapes are sour' part, though it is not just agitation and anger that is stirred up in him, it is bitterness. And as for the mohabbat between that woman and her husband, at least from his side it is a joke!

As for Bharmal, realism apart, I did not like the way he goes into a tailspin at the very mention of Jalal.After all Maharana Pratap held a much stronger Mughal force at bay for years with far less resources. The fact is that Bharmal lacks courage.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: devkidmd

Lovely analysis Aunty!

Registan ka Gulab: I think the soldier was just adding as much maal masala as he could when describing Jo just to get his 2 minutes of importance in front of the Shahenshah.😆😆

"Mera sab kuch bechkar usse kharid loon" was really in bad taste.😒

There is no way that Jalal would be unaware of the temple situation. What he is ignorant about(genuinely or kept deliberately in the dark by people ruling in his name) or maybe does not understand at this point is the hatred, angst and bad will it is creating in the hearts and minds of the majority.

BK and his servitor was a chilling scene. Very cold and creepy. BK's method of psychological warfare is cruel. There is no semblance of humanity in him. Thank god Jalal said tata- bye bye to him as soon as he did.

Grapes are sour: That is Jalal's response to anything to do with the word "Mohabbat". It just agitates and infuriates him no end that everyone else seems to be experiencing something that he has no clue about.😆

Bharmal: We have to give him credit for trying to bring the Rajputs together. The fact that he wants to do it amicably through marriage is praiseworthy. And he is smart enough to know that he stands no chance on his own against the mighty Mughals.

Devki

Thank you, my dear Lavanya. That is because my tongue is mostly in my cheek, but it takes good taste to appreciate a crack like that. But she does look like that, does she not?

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: Sabdabhala

DESSICATED STICK OF CELERY

🤣

YOU AMAZE ME SHYAMALA AUNTY

WITH ALL THE STIFF KNEES AND PAINS AND OTHER ISSUES YOU STILL COME UP WITH THE BEST WISECRACKS OF ALL TIMES 😆

TAKE A BOW AUNTY 🤗

Mandy dearest,

What can I say about your comments, except that they are more warm-hearted and more emotional than my text? Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And I loved that exchange from Silsila, which was, if I am not mistaken, written by Salim-Javed.

Shyamala

Originally posted by: ghalibmirza

Now this last, Lavanya, is a truly wicked crack!😉

No, I do not think Jalal even intended to use any force with her, for the whole incident was meant only to humiliate her husband, and is applauded as such by Bairam Khan. But by the time Jalal gets rid of her, seething anger and bitterness about all this prating about mohabbat takes over, whence the deliberate play with the khanjar and the cutting off of her maangtika, and what he says about the hollow relationship between her and her husband.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: Sabdabhala

WELL, TRUE TO OM PURI'S RAMBLINGS, JALAL DID EVEN WORSE - HE CREATED A DISMAL SITUATION FOR HER

ON ONE SIDE SHE HAD TO WITNESS HER HUSBAND, WHO FORSAKED HER AS SOON AS JALAL GAVE HIM A CHOICE BETWEEN HER AND HIS LIFE

AND ON THE OTHER HE REJECTED HER, THEREBY SAYING THAT SHE, FOR SOME REASON, WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM EITHER

SHE COULD, AT LEAST, PRESERVED SOME OF HER DIGNITY AND RESPECT IF HE HAD FORCED HIMSELF ON HER, BLAMING JALAL AND THE FATES

NOW SHE IS NOT LEFT WITH THAT OPTION EITHER

Originally posted by: elasingh

Shyamala no need to say how wonderful you have been...About Jallu and that pretty woman scene , I liked one thing..Jallu did not force himself on that woman, which he could easily have, not even for pride's sake..This also shows that somewhere deep in him a gentleman exists..who has not yet fully raised his head...

I too was upset by the method of BK sending those chudis to Salima..but was not that father foolish who brought his infant to be blessed by the like of BK...He had to pay the price of doing Khushamad to BK..

Thank you, my pet. And such snappy comments too: the one on Dhritarashtra was so perfect that I wished I had thought of it! Bharmal is a hypocrite of the first order.

As for Bairam Khan, in this sequence he was hateful. And I agree with your comparison with Voldemort. Jalal, vis a vis his Khan Baba, has that one quality that sets him apart and above, as with Harry vis a vis Voldermort. The ability to care, to love.

Finally, it is not just that the grapes are sour. They are bitter.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

👏👏👏[

QUOTE=sashashyam]

Jodha Akbar 3: Cynicism abounding

Folks,

Registan ka gulab: First, there is Jalal, knocking a good seven soldiers flat as usual during hisjungi riyaaz (in the brown outfit that we came to know so well), lending half an ear to the babblings of the Jodha ka diwaana. This last was bizarre, for no common sipahi in the Mughal forces would have dared to unload such stuff on the Shahenshah if he valued his sar.

For once, I wanted Khan Baba to fulfil his whim on this nutcase.😆

The expression on Jalal's face as he slowly repeats the name that Abdul has just spoken, Jodhaa... , is amazingly evocative, as is his voice. It is as if he was rolling a particularly delicious sweet on his tongue, savouring the pleasure of things unknown.

So many Jodha s in these initial without the annoying suffix...😳

Scheme of last resort: Also over the portly Bharmal's discussion, with his sons and nephew, about how to tackle the danger that now lies at the door of Amer. He is clearly besides himself with fear - the good old khauf-e-Jalal at work - and his plan of action has only one merit, that it is the scheme of last resort.

Yet you must give it to this man for his pretense bravery and 'keele vizhundhalum mann ottavillai' attitude...😡...even in Epi:31 he says Maa Bhavani jaanti hai ki whatever he is doing (selling his girl) is not an act of cowardice but mahaanta for the welfare of his praja.

Seeing the rampant disunity that pervaded among the Rajput royalty, how Bharmal expects that a few marriages with his daughters - and he does not even have enough of them to make an impact, as there are only three!😉- will set things right and produce unity against the Mughals in a miraculous fashion boggles the mind. It is in fact far more likely to lead to more squabbling and drawing of swords about which princes are to be allied to Jodha and her two sisters!

🤣

May be he will open a matrimony office and fix up other intra Rajput alliances and make everyone a samdhi of someone else and then ofcourse declare that his Ambe Maa knows that his action is one of extreme greatness and cleverness.

The only merit of this sequence is that it fits in with my theme for this post. Bharmal does not eventhink of fighting on his own, and is instead focussing on how to get others to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, and he does not hesitate to use his daughters as bargaining chips.

His idol must have been Yudhishtra from Mahabharata - only thing is that he will follow his idol only on one score. As for Dharma-nishtatha, no way. Like Drithrashtra, he will want to make his own son as the next king though he himself was only a caretaker king. Yet will pretend putra sneh with his nephew.😡

Ek bar kisise uski kamzori ko cheen liya jaye: Of the two scenes that lit up this episode and made me choose this title, this one, between Bairam Khan and a devoted servitor of his, was in fact the more brutally cynical and the more chilling. Kyonki dushman se dimaagi khel khelna to phir bhi laazmi haim, par apnon se nahin.

Exactly. That is what makes BK a tryant...he belongs to the next level in Voldemort genre. While the Dark Lord cared for none, BK had a soft corner for Salima and his protege.

Dimaagi taaqat ki hadein: Yes, this is a dimaagi taaqat, but what Bairam Khan does not know, and thus cannot teach his pupil, is that when a man is desperate enough, snatching hiskamzori from him might not result in slavish obedience out of fear, but in open and murderous rebellion.

The contrast between Bairam Khan's ruthlessly cynical, and eventually faulty doctrine, and Akbar's single-minded devotion to the welfare of his awaam could not be sharper. Which is why Akbar was Akbar, whereas Bairam Khan was only a footnote to history.

👏👏

Jalal was very acomodating for those whom he cared for and loyal to those who cared for him. He could appreciate intelligence and loyalty. Had BK's friend (if there was one) spoke to him the way Abdul did today, his head might have rolled. But Jalal appreciated those who had the guts to speak the plain truth. Howmuchever BK tried to make Jalal his carboncopy, Jalal's originality always stayed with him and it was that which made him Akbar.⭐️

Firstly, it was a kind of power-point display of acting by Rajat, as he forces the husband, at knife point, to abandon his wife to her fate in order to save his own skin. The eyes look, not angry, not even threatening, but coldly calculating. Their focus is eagle-eyed as Jalal seeks to assess: At which point will this man break? And break he does, as Jalal laughs his mirthless laugh of triumphant certitude, and Bairam Khan applauds him for a lesson well learnt on how to subjugate the Rajput enemy by breaking, not him but his pride.

Perfect analysis aunty. You have put in words what was in Rajat's eyes.

The bitterness of the soul: But secondly, and far more interesting, it is a cri de coeur ( cry from the supposedly non-existent heart) of Jalal against the very concept of mohabbat, which drives him to exasperated rage. This stands out in his angry words: Gair zaroori mohabbat ki khatir kitna kuch.. Samajh nahin aata ki mohabbat tumhari zindagi par raaj kaise karti hai?...and he kicks the man to the ground in ferocious contempt.

He wants to demean the very idea of mohabbat, whence his sneering comments to the woman as he tells her to go back apne pati ke pas ( not shauhar?), ek aisa insaan jo tumhari izzat bachane ka jigar bhi nahin rakta... Then the frightening transit of the knife point, with slow deliberation, from her wrist to her maang.. as he speaks of what really riles him.. Aur sochte rehna.. jis mohabbat se tum donon jude huye ho, asal mein us jazbat ki keemat kya hai? As far as the cowardly husband was concerned, nothing. And this is reflected in the tragic desolation in the eyes of the wife.

Agree with Devki's concept of 'grapes are sour' here.😆

Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di

Your wicked little imp,

I do not know for what the hug I am going to give you🤗 should be bigger: for the cats, which never fail to delight me, or for your masaledaar comments. Both, I guess. And no, you cannot ever really drive me mad, for I am too fond of you!

As for your libellous crack about the Roohon ki baatein😉, this was very early on and the writing team for Jodha Akbar was top class. Even if they had not heard of the Mirror of Erised, they must have meant what I deduced, for if not, why that line for Jalal at all?

I simply never understand HOW you put together such mind-blowing collages. You rock, kid!👏

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: harrybird

Now this last, Lavanya, is a truly wicked crack!😉

No, I do not think Jalal even intended to use any force with her, for the whole incident was meant only to humiliate her husband, and is applauded as such by Bairam Khan. But by the time Jalal gets rid of her, seething anger and bitterness about all this prating about mohabbat takes over, whence the deliberate play with the khanjar and the cutting off of her maangtika, and what he says about the hollow relationship between her and her husband.

Shyamala Aunty


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