Friends, I am so thrilled to see that about 90% of my predictions of yesterday came true in yesterday's episode. But there still remain some one or two loose ends to this story - and we have to see how the Creatives will choose to tie these up.
Meanwhile, these are the three major points that I want to cover in this post:
1. I have forgiven the Creatives for the distressful elongation of the miscarriage track.
It has come to my knowledge that this miscarriage track was supposed to end at least a week ago - and that Tatasky synopsis about last Monday starting the tiger track was the original plan. Unfortunately, it appears, there was an exodus of staff from the sets in huge numbers. About 90 people left the show, we are given to understand, including some key Scriptwriters, Creatives and Assistant Directors. This had left them with the slim remaining staff having to create a lot of filler scenes and extend the miscarriage saga, as they did not have enough trained hands to launch the tiger track as an outdoor stint (which normally requires even more hands to the deck than usual).
This exodus was later solved by some nifty re-hiring of people for all the vacancies, but to bring them all to the same page has taken up to yesterday. With the result that yesterday was the first episode after at least twelve episodes, when the momentum of events - the tempo of the episode - was gripping and fast-moving enough. The exodus, I am also told, was the reason for all of these things:
a. Continuing to show Jalal as a confused soul unable to take swift action on his own (my big peeve!) in order to create makeshift scenes between him and several others of the "conferring" type. Apparently it was always the intention to make Jalal the hero who gets to the bottom of this mystery - but the only problem was that the scenes we saw yesterday of his jasoosi-giri could not be shown about six or seven episodes back itself. Okay, I'll take that as explanation as to why the hero was made to look like a fool for two and a half weeks, but with my strict admonition to the Creatives to never try that one on me again for any reason! Exodus or no exodus, do please waste time on other fools in the script but don't tamper with Jalal or Jodha's characterisation!
b. Inclusion of scenes of Maharana Pratap (total waste of time)
c. Inclusion of the scenes between Maham-Javeda (again a total waste of time)
Anyway, all's well that ends well - on the exodus front. And the TRPs have stayed where they were at the head of the miscarriage track, more or less, so now its time to move on for both the Creatives and the viewers.
But I hope the Director of the show (the termagant who caused this exodus?) has also learnt his lesson that he cannot afford to go through all this again and he has to be extra careful how he handles his staff. The show is doing too well to risk all for the sake of one poor man-manager. Ekta certainly will not allow the same mistake to happen twice, I am sure!
In the process of seeing this elongated miscarriage track, many of us started noticing other fine details with a free eye (which we may have passed over if the show were moving on at a brisk pace!). For one, the clothes of the principal leads were being too oft-repeated, their wardrobes had become impoverished and a sight for sore eyes; the actors were wearing expressions that seemed to get frozen on their faces (having to repeat their unchanging positions again and again through nearly fourteen episodes); and the length of some of the scenes was going beyond justifiable levels and adding nothing extra to the script (notwithstanding the exodus issue, scripting could have been tighter).
On the other hand, there were also some scenes that did gain a lot from the fact that they were elongated (where normally there could have been a tendency to gloss over them!) and so the staff exodus and the miscarriage track extension had some plus points as well. For example, that one scene where Mahamanga admits to her guilt in her own self-talks seemed to need scene length to fully display her mental working, which may otherwise not have been given enough opportunity to fully display itself in all its glory; and the scene between Bharmal and Jalal seemed to also benefit from some length of interaction between father-in-law and son-in-law (because we have never before seen the full dynamics of that relationship enough to gauge properly how they related to each other, so it was interesting).
2. I am still afraid that Maham will play the humshakal card
However interesting yesterday's episode was, the story is not over. Picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost! This humshakal idea still lies tantalizingly in front of Mahamanga to try and use with Jalal to tell him: "It was not me, it was she!" and point to another lady dressed like herself. But here is where I think Mahamanga may be unable to cut ice with Jalal ...
The painting was most informative to Jalal not for any other portion of it but the EYES!
It was a fully covered lady but the eyes were a dead giveaway. And this is one big reason Jalal may not buy the humshakal story, because no matter how close a humshakal is in appearance, height, build and even facial construction to the original, the eyes are invariably the biggest give away of an impostor. Even identical twins are known not to have identical eyes or "eye-expressions". So it is my hope that Jalal will always reserve a corner a doubt on the Mahamanga humshakal story (even if he has to buy it for expedient reasons).
Having convinced myself that Jalal will never ever fully trust Mahamanga again, and that the cosy days of his blind trust in her are gone, the question in my mind is whether there can be circumstances under which Jalal will be forced to let Maham go scot-free even if he too believes her culpable:
a. Is the painting enough evidence of someone's culpability? Can the artist not have been a trifle incompetent or inaccurate?
b. Is Rahim's word sufficient - even if Rahim screws up the courage to speak with Jalal's eyes bulging out at him?
c. Is it enough if Maham had the means and motives for the murder and Jalal gets to know her motives (i.e. Adham's upward-mobility in the hierarchy) but still the absolute evidence needed to nail Maham is not there?
d. Is Jalal ready enough himself to take any ultimate steps with Maham (the way he dressed up to go to war with Bairam)? There he was dealing with a man, against whom he himself as a man would have felt more comfortable taking a warlike attitude ... but here he is a man dealing with a woman (a mother-figure to boot) and I wonder if he will have the stomach to prosecute her, given his own "hichkichahats" and the "convenient usool" of the Mughlia Sultanate often quoted when regarding dealing with women and their punishments (but selectively applied).
It is my feeling that Maham will go scot free using the humshakal as her wafer-thin defence, but the trust and respect that Jalal had for her are gone for ever. Some day it was going to happen anyway that Jalal would outgrow his old props (Maham and Ruqaiya) and start leaning more towards Jodha and Hamida (both of whom already show great interest in becoming Jalal's "teachers" and "shubchintaks"), but look at the irony of life here: the people to whom it matters most to stay in power, often do the silliest things to stay in power and shoot themselves in the foot. Maham has just done that. She may not have done any harm to her "position" in the palace and the Sultanate, but she has done most harm to her reasons for staying in that position i.e. having Jalal's unquestioning trust. She herself has thus made her own position extremely tenuous!
3. I am thrilled with the direction of progress of Jodha-Jalal love story
I like it immensely that the story so far has not shown those typical soapy ways that the hero and heroine fall in love. I am happy that while Jodha and Jalal may be remotely attracted to each other, thus also causing them to be antagonistic (as they are fighting feelings deep inside themselves as well), the love story has not become one of inane eyelocks, slip-and-catch or silly hand-holdings and finger-brushings.
I am glad that so far the Creativves have shown an interest in building the Jodha-Jalal friendship before making them objects of each other's love.
I want them to grow into love slowly, sweetly, and via the friendship route. I want them to become buddies first before lovers. I want them to find their wavelengths attuned, their thoughts aligned and their personalities pleasing to each other. I want words like "ghrina" and "guroor" to go away. I want them both to feel that in all the world's rocky places, there is one person they can count on the most (and that is the other). I want them to value each other's advice, and to seek each other out in tough situations. I want them to "gravitate" towards each other first before they think of going to others to share their thoughts, problems or even happy feelings!
At the same time I do not want them to be totally devoid of all signs of "inner tension". There have got to be signals of some "sexual tension" between them even as their friendship builds. Without this kind of sexual tension, relationships, especially on-screen, can seem very bland to watch. I do not want Jodha-Jalal to have the kind of friendship that Jalal-Ruq have, for instance, where there is every sign of bonding and friendship and mutual understanding and Ruq is the "go-to" person for Jalal, but absolutely no sign of any sexual attraction exists.
The Jalal-Ruq bonding, no matter how strong it is over years, lacks "sizzle" and "chemistry". At its best it looks like a "topical political alliance for the current management of events" and at its worst it looks like "history being sustained for the sake of history ". To artificially portray "chemistry" with eyelocks is not the way, but to show "no chemistry at all" is also not the way. And "chemistry" is not just about "friction" and "dialogue delivery" and "repartee" either. Chemistry is about subtleties, I suppose, and we need "less of the said more of the unsaid" in the Jodha and Jalal relationship. Let them both talk less and do more.
I will not presume to teach the Creatives how to bring about a feel of sexual tension between Jodha-Jalal without using the cliched approaches, but I do want to see much more thought go into how their relationship is hereafter portrayed. We have seen enough of them individually, now its time to start seeing them together: how they relate and how they bring out the facets of each other as a team.
Creatives, we are watching! This is the stage of the story we all came to the serial for! We hope your staffing problems are over and the show can go on. Do please give it more than your 200%, for this is the now the most important stage of this love story for us viewers!
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