JALANDHAR TODAY: MOHIT’S TOUR DE FORCE
A normal episode is of 30 minutes, with about 22-23 minutes of actual telecast, minus the ads. Today, DKDM had many tracks within these 23 minutes: Narayan and Brahma seeking a way to get Mahadev back in action, Kartikeya in a life and death struggle with Mrityudevi, where he puts up a spectacular display of martial skills, Ganesha in a parallel struggle to awaken his father from his Samadhi, and a face off between Jalandhar and his guru in the mayalok.
But at the end of the viewing, only 11:53 minutes remained in my consciousness. The 11 minutes and 53 seconds of Jalandhar’s struggle with his mentor, in which he moves from sullen defiance to helpless, anguished pleading in an attempt to prevent his guru from leaving him.
When he fails in this attempt, he falls to his knees, screams in despair and then weeps, openly and without reserve. Not like a strong man ashamed of tears he cannot hold back, but, as his face crumples in uncontrollable anguish, with the abandon of a desperate child. For at that moment of being abandoned anew, he is not the great warrior, the Asurraj or the Trilokadipati, but the 8 year old who was dragging the body of his murdered mother behind him, and calling hopelessly for help.
I was reminded of another heart wrenching scene – of the little robot boy in Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence, who is abandoned in the forest by his human adoptive mother. His figure in the rear view mirror of her car as she drives away, growing ever smaller, was for me the most poignant image of the trauma of being abandoned by a loved one.
Today, Jalandhar’s grief came through as sharply as that of Haley Joel Osment’s robot boy, and I found, to my surprise, that my cheeks were wet with unaccustomed tears.
Jalandhar has height, an impressive physique, and a strong face that effortlessly commands attention. But today I saw only his eyes. Unnaturally huge in a tense, drawn visage, magnified by the kohl lining, they mirrored every fleeting image in the kaleidoscope of shifting emotions that washed over him.
In the beginning, they show stubborn defiance as Jalandhar blocks Shukracharya from rescuing Parvati.
As his guru started moving away, and he says , with assumed off handedness, that he can go, but must return soon for consultations, they are hesitant under a fake display of confidence.
When it becomes clear that the guru is calling it quits, his eyes reflect the panic that is setting in: “My mother promised never to leave me and then she went away. And now you! You cannot leave me, you promised never to do so. You have betrayed my trust in you!” When he is reminded of the condition attached to that promise, that he should to stay on the path of dharma, a promise he has broken, the panic is even clearer and the face is drawn with escalating tension.
When Shukracharya starts detailing his early hopes that Jalandhar would rescue the asuras from their sad plight, and his pride in his pupil’s success against the devas, the fear in the eyes is still there. But as he begins to lament the changes in his shishya after he had conquered the devas, and the loss of his chance, rooted in his being a shivansh, to achieve true greatness, Jalandhar’s eyes look out from a face that has become a mask of grief.
As Shukracharya describes how he used to look at the sleeping Jalandhar, seeking a darshan of the ansh of his guru, Mahadev, Jalandhar’s grief deepens and seems to turn into despair.
But what is the grief for? For what could have been but was not? Or is it once again grief at being valued not for himself but only because he is a shivansh?At his having been protected and cared for only because he was an instrument for the uplift of Shukracharya’s protégés, the asuras? Perhaps it is both, but more of the second, which cuts much deeper and makes his heart bleed.
When he rushes after his departing guru and clings to his hands, his words spilling over themselves as he pleads for forgiveness for his mistakes, and begs Shukracharya not to leave him, the regression into a desperate child is unbelievably convincing. Every muscle in his face, every shade of expression in his eyes, rings so true that one cannot believe this panic-stricken Jalandhar is the same as the demanding, impatient, dominating conqueror of old.
As his guru slowly frees his hand from Jalandhar’s grasp, his shishya’s eyes stay fixed on that hand. As the hand is raised, Jalandhar’s eyes, rising slowly, seem uncertain whether to hope or not. When Shukracharya moves to place his hand on Jalandhar’s head in a blessing, a sudden joy illumines them as relief washes over Jalandhar. Only to be extinguished when his guru explains that he has no powers to grant him forgiveness, and knows that he will not seek forgiveness of the one who has that power, ie Mahadev.
So it ends, in the wrenching trauma of a second abandonment, deepened and doubled by the fleeting appearance of his mother, who offers no solace but seems as griefstricken as her son, left all alone once again. Is she really there, or is she only the projection of his desperate desire for emotional support from the one being, other than Vrinda, who loved him for himself alone? One does not know, and perhaps it does not matter after all.
The final shot of his face could have been the classical version of Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream. And my heart ached for him in his loneliness.
It is true that he has brought on himself much of what he now suffers. But that does not lessen his suffering. Nor does it diminish my conviction, reinforced by his reaction to Shukracharya’s ultimatum today, that if only his guru had taken such a tough line earlier, and coupled it with a compassionate explanation of what it meant to be a shivansh, and to what heights this distinction, and the powers it confers, could take him, he might never have embarked on this self-destructive path. He is so fearful of being abandoned anew, and his psychological dependence on his guru’s support is so great, that if sufficient pressure had been applied early enough, things could have been salvaged.
But that was not to be. And so on to June 2.
For today, unstinting praise is due to the writer, Utkarsh Naithani, and to Mohit Raina, who not only brought the powerful script alive, but went beyond it. Truly a tour de force of a performance. Never have 11 minutes and 53 seconds tugged so at my heartstrings, and I am no sentimentalist.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Everything Mohit Raina 