Jodha Akbar 16-20: Coming of age - Page 6

And I, my dear Preeti, am delighted that you pulled me up for my intellectual laziness re: Lucrezia Borgia. That needed doing.

The fact is that while I came to Catherine de Medicis via Alexandre Dumas, in the Marguerite de Valois, Chicot the Jester & The Fortyfive Guardsmen trilogy, I never came to Lucrezia Borgia in her own right, so to speak. I knew of the Pope Alexander VI, her father - attending whose dinners was widely compared to playing at Russian roulette - and of her infamous brother Cesare Borgia. And I think I simply assumed that she would have been exactly like them.

I was wrong, and I have learnt something both new and anew today. No, not only about Lucrezia Borgia, who must have led a terrible life, both as the Duchess of Ferrera - bearing all those 1o children plus many miscarriages - and otherwise. Rather about the need to be sure of what I write before I write it, even if it is about an obscure point like this one that 98% of my readers here will not spot. Thank you so much, my dear Preeti. I really mean it.

Actually, even Catherine de Medicis does not seem to have been as bad as Dumas painted her, for most of the crimes she committed must have been for reasons of state. She lived in very difficult and tubulent times in France, and it must have been a herculean task even for her to keep the House of Valois afloat after her husband died. She did not, I think, "use" her children other than Margot, and even her marriage to Henry of Navarre was nothing to complain about in those times. Catherine dominated all her three sons, who ruled France one after the other, but that I think was necessary for them to survive.

As for Bairam Khan, do see my next post. You will find the opening part interesting. As for the comparison between him and Maham Anga; to the end, he was a patrician, whereas she was cheap. He would never have stooped as low as she did time and again. That is, the serial characters, of course.

Thank you so much for your good wishes for my health, my dear. I am going to need them!

Shyamala

PS: Why are you and Sandhya reducing the size of your fonts to these miniscule levels? I can hardly read them without enlarging them!

Originally posted by: Coolpree

Dear Shyamala, I am delighted that your health permits you to post again. Hope your pain does not flair up again. While I am relieved it is not Rheumatoid Arthritis, an impingement at the C3-5 level of the spine is nothing to scoff about. The electrotherapy will help alleviate some discomfort but good posture, exs and avoiding bending over a computer for hours on end will be just as important. Wishing you good health always.

Your post as always was extremely interesting. The clash between two giants in Akbar's early life was fascinating. The views posted by other forum members about the difference between the two was also very interesting to read. Although, I do feel Maham was definitely the more dangerous one of the two.

Both were ruthless in their quest for power and their only standing in life was through Jalal. Without him they were nothing so it hardly matters to me if Bairam Khan was more loyal of the two. I do secretly wish he would have been kept in the show a little longer, just to see his reactions and interactions with the Ameri's and Jodha.

I am struck by your comparison of Maham with Catharine de Medicis and Lucrezia Borgia. The comparison with Catharine de Medici may have been more apt as both Maham and Catharine epitomized the Machiavellian personality : "the employment of cunning and Duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct" as defined by Machiavelli himself. However that's probably where the comparison might end because Catharine Medici in her quest for power was infamous for the abuse of her own children!! Who can forget her abuse of poor Queen Margot. Maham on the other hand did everything possible for her own son.

Lucrezia Borgia on the other hand I have more sympathy for as she was I feel just a pawn in the hands of her ruthless father and brother. In fact there is evidence that the account of the poison rings was just some of the stories that grew around her due to the awful reputation of the Borgia family. She did try to lead a quiet life with her third husband and bore him 8-9 children whom she remained devoted to ( infact did'nt she die delivering her last still born child?) until the end. Something I find very hard to see Maham doing...leading a quiet life without power that is.

I want to bring an angle of reality for both characters.

My dear Sri,

Thank you so much, my very dear girl, for your warm praise of my posts. As for me, I find that I still enjoy these episodes despite having seen them all once before. They are entertaining.

While the life of the real Maham Anga is pretty well documented and you have summed it up neatly, I agree in toto with you about the part @blue.

Ashwini's Maham is OTT enough at times, but we should thank our lucky stars that she did not open up full throttle and ham away to glory as she usually does in the other Ekta soaps. 😉

By the way, do you know why these serials are called "soaps"? It was because the first such Mexican TV serial was sponsored by the big soap maker Proctor and Gamble.

Shyamala Akka

Originally posted by: jayaks02

I want to bring an angle of reality for both characters.

From whatever I read,

Maham saved his life in childhood and brought him up. But she and Adham started doing kitchen politics maybe during Akbar's 15-19. It was when Akbar was kind of growing up politically in a sense. She also killed supposedly Akbar's babies, not sure how true. But Akbar had a rare sense of justice even at a young age. Post Adham murdering the minister, Akbar gives him a harsh death, goes to Maham and declares that this is what he did and Adham is no more. Surprisingly, she replies that you have done right. Even she somehow thinks that there is no other answer to this Akbar at this stage, after Adham's action. She goes into depression and dies in Delhi - Akbar does remember to build a makbara for her.

My take is he indeed had a lot of respect for what she did but when it came to defining boundary, he clearly did. This is the hallmark of true governance. Unlike today's age or any age, any ruler who had only objective justice clearly did become great. I am unable to believe that he placed Maham above his mom at any stage. To me it is not true.

Maham must have been a scheming woman to have done all of this - She never had loyalty to Akbar or saltanat. She wanted power and loved the idea of it.

Now coming to REEL, this character was bloated out of proportion as they wanted a strong female villain for Jodha and hence Ashwini's role was stretched beyond what story required. So there is a quite a lot of drama baazi stuff.

Had it been curtailed a bit, I would have liked it more.

Now I find the magic of JA in Akka's writing and not in episodes. This is the truth for me.

About Bairam khan, will write later. 😃

As for Bairam Khan, do see my next post. You will find the opening part interesting. As for the comparison between him and Maham Anga; to the end, he was a patrician, whereas she was cheap. He would never have stooped as low as she did time and again. That is, the serial characters, of course.

Thank you so much for your good wished for my health, my dear. I am going to need them!

Shyamala

Akka - In another sense, Bairam Khan's loyalty is not greater than Maham at all. His loyalty is to himself or rather his idea of Akbar and not any greater common good. Akbar saw to that when he came of age at 21 !! and sent him to Mecca.

Else had be been good, he would have been one of the early Navratnas.

Only thing is he played as a warrior and male politics unlike Maham who used may be the emotional angle.

No, my dear, his loyalty was not to himself, but to the Mughal sultanate that he had, almost single-handedly resurrected.

As for the idea of the "greater common good", that was an alien concept in those days. The awaam was hardly a major factor in the calculations of kings, Muslim or Hindu. They took care to keep the powerful nobles on their side, yes, but they would hardly have bothered about the common folk and their problems, unless there was a popular revolt, and those were rare and easily crushed.

The problem with Bairam Khan was that he wanted to make all the decisions in perpetuity, as he did not trust Jalal with making them, and that was the clash between them. So where would there have been any question of his being one of nine men all clearly subordinate to Akbar?

As for the emotional angle, Bairam Khan too repeatedly asserts that he had protected Jalal, guided him and brought him up as his farzand. How can he get more emotional than that, seeing that he cannot cite a doodh ka karz as Maham does at the drop of a hat?😉

Shyamala Akka

Originally posted by: jayaks02

Akka - In another sense, Bairam Khan's loyalty is not greater than Maham at all. His loyalty is to himself or rather his idea of Akbar and not any greater common good. Akbar saw to that when he came of age at 21 !! and sent him to Mecca.

Else had be been good, he would have been one of the early Navratnas.

Only thing is he played as a warrior and male politics unlike Maham who used may be the emotional angle.

As for Bairam Khan, do see my next post. You will find the opening part interesting. As for the comparison between him and Maham Anga; to the end, he was a patrician, whereas she was cheap. He would never have stooped as low as she did time and again. That is, the serial characters, of course.

Thank you so much for your good wishes for my health, my dear. I am going to need them!

Shyamala

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Folks,

Being somewhat handicapped at this point of time by the fear that my displaced neck vertebrae might start acting up again, and paralyse me with shooting pain in the shoulders and arms, I am forced to keep this relatively short, by my standards, that is😉! And also to handle the episodes from 16 to 21 in two posts, each covering a different aspect of the show and the characters.

No pain can lessen the sparkle in your posts even by the tiniest shade...👏 I was reminded of Tennyson's words...

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 👏

Coming of Age: It was High Drama (with mandatory caps) all through this segment, as Jalaluddin Mohammed, the erstwhile👏 protege of Bairam Khan and de jure Mughal Emperor, finally came into his own, staring down his Khan Baba in a fierce tussle of wills. It was a watershed on the long road that would lead him, and us, to the Emperor Akbar the Great (a patent verbal redundancy, as Akbar itself means 'the Great'), and it lived up to all our expectations and more.

These episodes portrayed Jalal as closest to Akbar the Great, was layered and had siyaasat at its best with the line between duties and rights meandering into one another and the resultant clash of strong personalities...i very badly needed to watch these episodes to shake off the buddhuram image..

The prelude: The way in which Jalal gets to know about the murder of Raja Takhatmal by Bairam Khan is itself an illustration of how fate plays into the hands of (wo)men, in this instance, Mahaam Anga. She is just thru with warning her blockhead of a son to keep his fingers out of l'affaire Takhatmal, and is looking around for a way to convey the fell news to Jalal without her fingerprints being all over it. And lo and behold, the ideal tool just drops into her lap, like manna from Heaven! Exactly as in the case of the blinding of Zaheer, when the hakim came in at just the right moment. Shaitan surely looks out for his own!

Shaitaan tempts the fallible with all perks and golden opportunities and leads them happily to their own fall. Higher the rise, greater the fall for those who choose to rise holding Shaitaan's hands. MA is the perfect example of disgraced fall.

As Jalal listens to Takhatmal's soldier pouring his heart out, we can practically feel the rage rising in him like molten lava. The narrowed eyes have a manic glare. A hand clenches on the hilt of his sword and almost crushes it.

Sorry! Ididn't note any of that...🤪I was so captivated by the dashing set-wet looks and the absolute royalty radiating from every inch of his persona even without his taj and royal robes, draped in the red shawl...(that was eventually sent to Amer as a gift for munh dikhayi...🤣)

Eventually, he stands up, and we see, with somewhat of a shock, (and I was shaken out my stupor) that his face is smooth and inscrutable. The rage that was consuming him only moments ago has disappeared without a trace, and as he leans back in his seat, the whole body is loose and relaxed. The change in the body language is as startling as it is eloquent. The Shahenshah has made up his mind, and he knows exactly what he has to do and how.

The tectonic clash:The scene that follows could have been scripted by a Renaissance dramatist. Jalal never once raises his voice, but his level tones have a force and a finality to them that none of Bairam Khan's high pitched rants can command.

When Jalal effectively ignores Bairam Khan even when he has marched right up to the Shahenshah, and issues a stream of orders to rehabilitate the Takhatmal family, Bairam Khan seems to lose it totally. The crude putdowns of Jalal, and the self-glorification he indulges in reach their nadir when he derides the Emperor Humayun as totally ineffective.

Which leads to Jalal making it clear to his former mentor, with unprecedented bluntness, when he asserts his rank as the Wazir-e"Aala of the Mughal sultanat, that

(a) Aur hum is sultanat ke Shahenshah hain.

(b) Aapko faisle lene ka haq humne diya tha.. aapko Wazir-e-Aala ka auda humne diya,

(c)Us insaan ki jaan lekar jisne hamare walid ki jaan bachayi thi, aapne gunah-e-azeem kiya hai, and

(c) that while he would never wage war against his Khan Baba, lekin agar baaghi baghawat karega to yeh badshah apni talwar zaroor uthayega....

The final denouement seems scripted to sum up in itself the essence of the scene. As Bairam Khan is storming out of the Diwan-e-Khas, Jalal calls out Baba! Khan stops, hoping against hope for a reprieve, some shred of pride that he could perhaps salvage. There is none.

Instead, Jalal delivers his final warning: Aapne humein har jung se pehle ek taalim di thi, ki jung jaisi bhi ho, jis se bhi ho, humein har hal mein jeetna hai..Aap ki yeh taalim hum kabhi nahin bhoole hain..Aur na hi bhoolenge...

Every word spoken and unspoken in the scene was extremely powerful. Jalal, having made up his mind to exhibit his displeasure at Khan Baba's overriding his orders, that too behind him, is prepared for any eventuality. Had Khan Baba insisted on Takhtmal's execution with Jalal and fought the case with him directly, there might have been a chance. This was no case of petty civil issues where Jalal could let his Baba have his way. And this came just after the Zaheer case and added insult insult to injury which prompted Jalal to turn deaf ears to his Baba's tirades.

The double wave: He then sweeps past Bairam Khan and exits, in effect preempting him. Immediately, all the courtiers stream after the Emperor, forming a double wave that flows past Bairam Khan as he stands, still and isolated, in the centre of the hall. It is as if all his vaunted powers were flowing out of him with that double wave, leaving him a hollow shell bereft of all but life.

What an imagery!👏

It was an extraordinarily effective take, this double wave, a superb blending of the vision of the director and the cinematographer. I have rarely seen a scene ended with such elegiac smoothness, the visuals conveying the essence of the climatic change that had just occurred, and this without a word being spoken. Beautiful.

Beautifully envisaged and created and beautifully described too.👏

When Jalal asks him why he had had Zaheer imprisoned, Bairam Khan launches into a tirade of self-exculpation and self-glorification: Aapki umr jab 14 baras ki thi, tab se yeh faisle hum hi lete aarahe hain..Aapke walid Mohataram ne aapki hifazat ki zimmedari humein di thi..Humare farzand ki tarah paala hai aapko..Hum aisa koyi faisla nahin lenge jo aapke haq mein na ho.. He stoutly denies that he has done anything wrong, even as Jalal looks at him with level, cold, questioning eyes.

Khan Baba's standard mantra parallel to MA's Dhoodh ka karz...😆 The only difference being that while MA reminds her contributions and asserts her rights in the most heart-rending way while BK demands them as though it were his birthright. That is why MA lasted longer than BK. But none could retain their importance as they sought more importance than what was their due. And they lost what they held too. Reminds me of Kannadasan's lines from his famous song 'Varavu ettana'

Nilaimaikku mele ninaippu irundhaal, nimmadhi irukkaadhu

Alavukku mele aasaigal irundhaal ulladhum nilaikkaadhu...😆

Finally, in an extraordinarily arrogant and insulting gesture, Bairam Khan, after asserting: Hum ne wohi kiya jo Wazir-e-sultanat ko karna chahiye.. turns on his heel and strides out, without, as Maham promptly points out to Jalal, having taken the Shahenshah's permission to retire, or even offered a salutation before he left.She drives the point home with a silken comment, like a hot knife going thru butter. Agar wo aapko dil se Shahenshah maante, to aisa kabhi nahin karte...

Trust this lady to create divides. She is matchless in the art of mind-poisoning. 😈

Jalal looks brooding and uncertain, but surely Maham's arrow has gone home. 😈

The Takhatmal affair: If I was to pick the second best scene of these 6 days, it would not be the hamaam one over which so many young ladies here were surely in ecstasies (at the risk of being pelted with rotten tomatoes, I would say that Rajat needs to work out more in the gym and try for at least 4 pack abs, if not 6 or 8. Right now, when exposed, front or back, he looks like a very handsome, khaate peete ghar ka ladka!😉 ).

Anjali has answered this most appropriately...🤣

By the end of the week, this power play had ended: Bairam Khan had destroyed himself thru sheer stupidity and overweening conceit. And the fact that Takhatmal managed to take his revenge on BairamKhan from beyond the grave is exquisite irony.

👏 and Zaheer too. Unjust Cruelty to Zaheer was BK's first fall in Jalal's eyes. All his prior unjust acts were probably against those whom Jalal did not know and thought that probably his Baba was right. But in Zaheer's case he knew all angles and there was his guilt too that he was responsible for Zaheer's fate. Most of the tyrants face their fall due to those they repressed.

Jungi riyaaz aur siyaasat: I have rarely seen a scene as dramatic, indeed startling, as the one where Jalal literally hurtles at us, reaching almost out of the frame as he whirls and turns with bewildering speed, his shamsheer tracing arcs that glitter in the sun. He reminded me of nothing so much as one of the whirling dervishes of Turkey. It was a dazzling display of control, at a speed and with a weapon that were both very dangerous.

Though Jalal dismisses Abdul's wise and well-argued warning that Jalal should be wary of the rebuffed Wazir-e-Aala, he does add in the end: Unhon ne hi humein sikhaya hai ki ek Shahenshah ka farman sabse bada hota hai. Aur us sab mein wo bhi shaamil hain.. Yakeen hai humein ki wo hamare is farman ki izzat zaroor karenge..

Had BK done that he would have risen a hundred times for Jalal. But then, as Dumbledore says, he wouldn't have been Voldemort at all...had BK understood the other person's zehen and respected them, then he wouldn't have been BK at all.

But of course this touching faith of Jalal's is betrayed, and this forces him to finally cross his own personal Rubicon. And in the process he begins to discover himself and what he is capable of. He is now finally set on the path to becoming Akbar.

👏

A friendship beyond compare: On a different note, I loved the endearing note in Jalal's voice as he asks Abdul: Tumhein maut se dar nahin lagta hai na? And Abdul replies in a classic assertion of love and loyalty: Apni maut se to bilkul dar nahin lagta Shahenshah, par aapke saath kuch bura ho, is khyal se dar zaroor lagta hai.

I have said this before, and I will say it again. The CVs committed an act of unbelievable folly when the dropped Abdul, not just the actor, but the character as well, for no rhyme or reason.

😭

That is it for today folks. I left out Jodha completely and she does not fit in here.

No wonder these episodes had a touch of class to them.😉

Thank you, my child, for such a beautiful set of comments. Tennyson reassured me and Kannadasan reinforced what I have always felt. And the last line is you at your mischievous best!

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: Sandhya.A

Originally posted by: jayaks02

I want to bring an angle of reality for both characters.

From whatever I read,

Maham saved his life in childhood and brought him up. But she and Adham started doing kitchen politics maybe during Akbar's 15-19. It was when Akbar was kind of growing up politically in a sense. She also killed supposedly Akbar's babies, not sure how true. But Akbar had a rare sense of justice even at a young age. Post Adham murdering the minister, Akbar gives him a harsh death, goes to Maham and declares that this is what he did and Adham is no more. Surprisingly, she replies that you have done right. Even she somehow thinks that there is no other answer to this Akbar at this stage, after Adham's action. She goes into depression and dies in Delhi - Akbar does remember to build a makbara for her.

My take is he indeed had a lot of respect for what she did but when it came to defining boundary, he clearly did. This is the hallmark of true governance. Unlike today's age or any age, any ruler who had only objective justice clearly did become great. I am unable to believe that he placed Maham above his mom at any stage. To me it is not true.

Maham must have been a scheming woman to have done all of this - She never had loyalty to Akbar or saltanat. She wanted power and loved the idea of it.

Now coming to REEL, this character was bloated out of proportion as they wanted a strong female villain for Jodha and hence Ashwini's role was stretched beyond what story required. So there is a quite a lot of drama baazi stuff.

Had it been curtailed a bit, I would have liked it more.

Now I find the magic of JA in Akka's writing and not in episodes. This is the truth for me.

About Bairam khan, will write later. 😃

Hope you feel better soon dear Aunty,oh those episodes have i watched till late night now im no late night person but ab to tv dekhna hi bandh kardiya hai😆😳