Vertical slide called Jodha-Akbar

From the star cast to the grand sets, Ekta Kapoor (the then-producer of this show) had done everything right. Rajat Tokas as the angry young Jalal and Paridhi Sharma as the coy but strong minded Rajput queen Jodha were a perfect jodi. Add to this the experienced Ashwini Kalsekar as Mahamanga and the melodramatic lavina Tandon as Ruqqaiya Begum and the makers had nailed it as far as casting was concerned.  

Kapoor went through as many as 99 auditions to choose her Jodha. “I wanted my star cast to be absolutely spot on. That is the reason the delay in getting the show on air. Paridhi has a very determined expression on her face which suits the character. Rajat has the fire power,” she said at the launch Press conference in New Delhi.

Director Shantaram was convincing in the first 200-odd episodes, keeping the show taut. “The beauty was in the way the love story was picturised. We did not want to rush into things nor did we have the licence to stretch it further. The director was spot on with the pace of the story,” scriptwriter Rajesh Joshi recalls those days when the show topped charts and became a TRP machine for the channel.

Jodha Akbar became numero uno in no time. “The USP was in the romantic track and we did well to keep the tension going. What worked for the script that there was room to improvise. Every track was pre-decided and rolled out months before the finale,” Joshi tells you.Apart from the script and the acting, the background score set the tempo. “Ishq hai woh ehsaas… became a part of my life. Its high note beginning and soft base culmination swept us fans off our feet. It remains as my ringtone,” Bina Joseph, a member of the JA community on India forums, says.

The story, cast and the music were hotly discussed over the Internet. Bina was an active member of three communities where members wrote summaries on episodes. From English professors to medical practitioners, everyone had Jodha Akbar on their minds!But then came the slide. The show slipped behind Diya Aur Bati Hum for the fifth consecutive time in November 2014. And Ekta’s new show Kumkum Bhagya on the same channel started hogging the limelight. What went wrong and whyIJ 

“The moment Akbar and Jodha consummated their marriage the romance got sterilised and everything started sliding. The chemistry became thanda and the script went awry,” a fan explains.Apart from the romance, the audience also got tired of over dramatisation and the entry of spirits and soothsayers. “The death of Mahamanga was stretched beyond limits. The misunderstanding between Jodha and Akbar too was very far-fetched. Fans who were still hooked to the show felt angry that history was being misinterpreted,” Bina tells you.

Even the most docile anti-feminists would argue that the treatment meted out on Jodha towards the latter part of the show was unfair and not called for. Too much violence and the doing to death of the misunderstanding track took away a chunk of the audience.“There were many ugh moments in JA. Take the consummation track which coincided with Rukkaiya’s fake pregnancy. It was in very bad taste. Wish there was a better occasion to show that special moment. The way the twins (of Jodha begum) died, also did not gel. Mahamanga’s curse was neither a part of history nor appropriately shown. Too much dramatization spoiled the show,” Ashish Mahajan, another fan on indiaforums.com, says. Apart from this, Shariffudin leching on Jodha begum put off many viewers! “That is the point, I decided enough was enough,” Bina says.  

The unnecessary tracks introduced in a bid to spice up the show also did it in. Benazir was a huge flop. She was neither extremely beautiful, nor helped the story move,” Bina says.  Random plots like Shenaz too did not help. Then there was Akbar all over a girl he almost wed!  Follies got topped by preposterousness introducing a new low. Mita Vashisht as Mah Chuchak Begum was hilarious and then there was the gigantic Ketan Karande as Khyber who entered the palace to kidnap Jodha begum not once but twice. If this craziness was not enough, Shantaram experimented with Akbar’s character too, making him flip-flop as bad-to-good-to-bad-to in-love- to worse and nothing made sense anymore.

And then, one fine day, the producers decided to change tack and jump from Jodha-Akbar to Salim-Anarkali. “Maximum people left the show then. Online communities shut down and fans stopped discussions. The ones who remained tolerated the rubbish for a while but it was a sinking ship,” an ardent fan says, summarising the end of Jodha Akbar.