#amba

Jaskirat is Arjuna in this case. The fighter and avenger and warrior supreme. Sanyal obviously is Krishna considering he is pulling the strings of Jaskirat and laying the ultimate trap, the master of the chessboard.

In a way Hamza, Jaskirat's identity can be paralleled into how Arjuna was in disguise as Brihannala. Not exactly apt but you get the gist. The espionage factor during the incognito period of the Pandavas' exile.

And Hamza had to kill his family, his loved ones (as Hamza not Jaskirat) for dharma, for the righteous deed and for his motherland. So in this scenario I feel like I can parallel Rehman as Bhishma considering he is somewhat of a father figure as shown in the movie. The mentor. He is nearly invincible and the first domino that needed to be felled to destroy the Kauravas (here to get to the heart of the underworld nexus in Lyari).

Hamza loved him but he killed him like Arjuna had to. He couldn't do it alone so he took help from Amba/Shikhandi who in a way could be called Bhishma's own karma coming back to haunt him. Though I can't quite match Aslam to Shikhandi but then again, you get the basic gist.

I think I have losened some screw in my head.

My mahabharata heart is crying.

I've been an ardent fan of Mahabharata, but now that I think about it, except for Draupadi, Amba etc. getting their rightful revenge, it actually normalises rape and materialising women during several instances... Here are a few I remember:

Sage Parashara sleeps with Satyavati, in spite of her unwillingness, his only assurance to her that she will go back to being a virgin after giving birth to his child and she gets a “divine fragrance” (because apparently trauma is fine if you get perfume out of it; wth?)

Bheeshma "ACQUIRING" Ambika and Ambalika from their swayamvar for Vichitravirya....

Salva refusing to marry Amba, because he got defeated by Bheeshma.

Satyavati later calls on Vyasa to impregnate her daughters-in-law (who are clearly repulsed by him) by something called "niyoga", which does not make the term rape better in any way. And mind you, they were not even asked for consent. It is nauseating to think that Satyavati, herself, who went through something similar, did this. Oh, also after, Ambika, one of the victims, sends her maid to Vyasa, when he comes to impregnate her again... Ik it was a desperate move, Ambika, but way to go👏

Kunti accidentally calls upon Surya to test her powers, when she's still a child, and poor Lord Surya, bound by his duty, rapes her and leaves her to have his kid.

Pandu having no issue with the fact that multiple gods are sleeping with his wives, just so that he can have a son, which is obv not his.

Dhritarashtra impregnating Sugadha, Gandhari's maid, because Gandhari did not deliver her child past usual due... Apparently, being desperate for a child (i mean, a SON), is a valid reason to rape a maid

And yes, Draupadi is powerful. She questions the court. She refuses silence. But she and Bhanumati are both gambled away like property before anyone suddenly remembers morality exists.

Basically, Lineage > women. Sons > consent. Dynasty > dignity.

She is the oldest daughter of a King of Kashi, who alongside her younger sisters Ambika and Ambalika, is forcefully kidnapped from a swayamvara arranged by her father by Bheeshma after the other participant kings make fun of him.

Later, once they reach Hastinapura, Amba tells Bheeshma, in front of his ministers, that she is in love with the king of Shalva, and with the permission of her father would have chosen him if Bheeshma had not messed up her plans. Slightly offended, but still polite, Satyavati and Bheeshma let her go.

Shalva, however, rejects her now, citing Bheeshma's assumed wrong intentions.

Angered, Amba seeks refuge with some rishis, and as fate would have it, she runs into her now-hermit maternal grandfather Srinjaya-Hotravahana. He, along with Parashurama and his disciple Akritavrana, hatch a plan to kill Bheeshma in a duel.

Bheeshma however defeats Parashurama after seven days of battle, and Amba therefore goes away to perform harsher tapasya in the hope of achieving enough merit to kill Bheeshma. Here, Ganga curses her to become a seasonal river infested with crocodiles, but Amba continues on her path, unbothered.

Finally, Shiva appears to her and gives assurance that she would be reborn in the Panchala royal family and that she would eventually become a man, and would retain this feeling of revenge.

Bhishma stares at Amba. 

The others call him (her?) Shikhandi. Duryodhana’s worried voice as he shouts at his warriors to “cover Pitamaha, damn it!” is a buzzing fly in his ear. Nothing more than an inconvenience.

The last he had seen of her was not in the radiant court of Hastinapura, swearing she would find a way to make him marry her, no. 

It had been an accident.

He had been separated from his hunting party, and had wandered into a clearing where he could sense the sharp tang of tapasya in the air. He was the son of Ganga after all; he was drawn to purity and divinity like a river is to the ocean. 

Then she had opened her eyes. 

She was not the slender maiden he had abducted for his younger brother any longer. She was emaciated, dirty, but her eyes burned with all the intensity of a forest fire that Bhishma found himself trapped inside. 

“You,” she had said, and, oh, it burned.

Bhishma sees the same smouldering gaze in Shikhandi now, on the battlefield, and the warrior smiles. 

It was his time to burn in the embers now.