Well. folks, here is my tuppence on what I felt were the key points in the last 2 episodes. I do not think I am doing a post on them, and have in fact not been able to bestir myself to do one on any of the episodes after No. 106.
No.111 (Tuesday):
Jalal's Rabelaisian explanation for why he (or rather she + he ) did IT:
To my mind, Jalal was on a fishing expedition with that elaborate piece of bluff on Jodha, and he netted a big one, in the sense that Jodha exposed herself far more than she had ever done before. He was trying to get her to consider the idea that, for all her constant ranting about her ghrina for him, she too might be physically attracted to him. No other explanation holds water. Mansi has elaborated on this in her thread of yesterday.
In fact, for me, that was the single most revelatory part not just of this episode, but of the past several ones, as far as the inner workings of Jodha's mind are concerned, for we have NO idea of what she is thinking given that there are no voiceovers.
She is not afraid of Jalal, she is afraid of herself. She is afraid, above all, once he has finished his Puckish recital, of what she felt or did not feel, and what she did or did not do. She is not at all sure he is lying, and that is what shocks her to the core.
This apart, I think, as they say in the fairy tales, that the wind changed when Jodha had that sullen, puffed face, with eyes like slits, and so she is now stuck with that face and that expression. During the whole of Salima's long, patient and lucid explanation of how both Jodha and Jalal could be right, and her plea to Jodha to keep an open mind and see things from his point of view as well, there was not the slightest change on Jodha's face. Not a flicker of curiosity or anything else. Just a blank. And that was a scene that offered almost limitless possibilities.
If it had been Rajat's Jalal, there would have been any number of microshifts, so many nuances, that would have way gone beyond the script.
For the rest, the only worthwhile segment was the Jalal-Jodha conversation, if one could call a combination of tirades from her and ruminations from him a conversation. I was struck anew by this Jodha's lack of queenliness. Royalty lives, above all, by the maxim of unshakeable dignity, no matter how cold and contemptuous they might feel and act. This Jodha is anything but dignifed, repeating the same abuses over and over again. I am sure Mynavati would never have behaved so to Bharmal no matter what he had done, for dignified behaviour, is something one owes to oneself; it should be independent of the way others behave to you.
Lashy was busy finding romantic signals in Jodha's corridor fulminations as well, to my considerable surprise, but today, Jodha outdid herself and put paid to such sentimentalising in one fell sweep! More of this below.
No,112 (Wednesday)
The green kada-cum-burqa female: I have, as usual, fallen flat on my face with my prediction that it would not be Bakshi Banu, though I knew I would be in a minority of one on that.
This was a reasonably logical conclusion; I had felt that she seemed to be far too obvious a red herring,and then again, assuming that the main culprit was Sharifuddin, I had felt that for a female accomplice, he would have used a different woman. I did not think he would trust his weak wife to stay the course if there was an investigation and not blurt out the truth in a panic. Which is exactly what she did.
Incidentally, the way Jalal springs that on her after embracing her with what I am sure was genuine affection, was very well conceived, and Rajat delivered 111%. The expression in Jalal's eyes as he looks down at her and asks her to confess was a tour de force.
To revert, Sharifudding also referred to his female accomplice as woh aurat, and hinted that she wass going to do something far more dramatic and decisive at the jashn (what, I had no idea, unless he means to poison both Jalal and Jodha; they never indicated what it was to be either) which too did not seem to indicate Bakshi Banu.
In fact, on second thoughts, I was even doubtful about its being Sharifuddin, for he could not possibly have known that there was no marital relationship between Jalal and Jodha, who shared a room in Amer. And if he did not know that, where was the point of this whole plot to defame Jodha and have her punished for adultery?
Now, of course, it was Bakshi Banu,and Sharifuddin as the mastermind, but my objection above remains unanswered. It is a bloomer in the scripting, but what is one more bloomer among so many!😉
Apart from all the rest, I could not see HOW Sharifuddin could be nixed so soon, historically speaking, but lo and behold, he has been driven out, and will now very likely join hands with the other rebels against Jalal. It will be a shock for Adham, and for Mahaam as well.
Bakshi Banu's treachery would be a very painful blow to Jalal, for though she was only his stepsister, he loved her dearly. Jodha will very likely never understand how lacerated he will be inside by this betrayal, and she will of course plead with him to forgive Bakshi Banu, who will probably end up being banished.
She actually tells Jalal she loves Sharifuddin so much and that she does not want to lose him; talk of the beaten woman syndrome!She is proof positive of the saying that the worst criminals are not those who are evil, but those who are weak.
Jalal and Jodha:Any hopeful deductions and inferences for the corridor exchanges in the previous episode, about camouflaged softness and trust from Jodha's side towards Jalal were, I am afraid, totally unwarranted.
Jodha thinks, or rather thought, the very worst of Jalal, much more degrading stuff than she had said thus far. When he has that baandi with the green kada taken aside for him to question her, Jodha openly accuses him, in a very crude and distasteful way, of wanting to have an immediate fling with her, adding that this would be like the one he had with her, Jodha.
Jalal's face twists in sudden disgust at that nasty comment. Rajat was superb then. That is what I meant by nuances and going beyond the script. His opposite number is almost always flatfooted on the ground, and there is no question of her going beyond the script. Ariel, I agree with you completely on this.
Well. no matter how much Jodha might now apologise to Jalal, the sort of things she said to him, especially this last about the baandi, leave a very bad taste in the mouth. It showed a total lack of refinement in her; I would not have believed it possible that a high born princess could talk like this, no matter what the circumstances,and no matter what the provocation. It sounded like the sort of thing a woman from a bordello would say.
I think I am tiring of her very fast, and this irrespective of how the story develops, As I wrote on Cleo's thread, this is not my idea of Jodha at all. But if you young people happy romanticising over this langda romance, why, I wish you joy of it!
I loved the way Jalal left the jashn and came out to comfort Ruqaiya, for he knows exactly how she would be feeling; her pain and his pain are the same. The Jodha-Ruqaiya interaction was a pleasant change from their past exchanges, but this is an exception; I do not think they will ever get on together, not to speak of becoming friends.
As for Ruqaiya in the precap, I can do no better than recapitulate what I had written in my last post of a week ago about her and Jalal and Jodha.
"I do not know if, once her anger passes, the innate integrity she revealed when she slapped Hoshiyaar will make her more amenable to Jalal coming to love Jodha, while still caring for his Gatti as before. That is a toss up, for she has never seen Jalal in love with another woman, and the sense of loss, and the longing to be loved by him that will be stirred up afresh, will be something she has never known before.
Almost everyone here takes all that Ruqaiya utters ad nauseum, about her being happy controlling Jalal's dimaag, at face value, and concludes that she is not physically or emotionally possessive of Jalal, but only mentally. That, to my mind, is far from the truth. It is so often argued here, wrt Jodha and Jalal, that what they say hides what they mean. So why not for Gatti? Even if she is camouflaging what she feels from herself as well?
What Ruqaiya seeks is Jalal's love, and this was clear as crystal in Smiley's last scene with him after the Farida affair, when she was afraid to lose him by confessing that she had broken the taboo he enforces on their relationship by falling in love with him. Till now, though this longing was ever present, it was suppressed and borne because no other woman had gained Jalal's love. Now that will be different. How then will Ruqaiya cope?"
If today's precap was any indication, Ruqaiya will try hard to get Jalal back, and on a different plane. But that will very likely not work at all, for Jalal sees his bond with his Gatti as one of lifelong friendship and solidarity, not of anything emotional or tender. The hardest thing of all is to move from friendship to love, and if this shift is one-sided, it creates huge problems.
An orderly, civilized menage a trois ( a household of three ) exists only in the imagination. Life does not settle down into neat compartments, least of all when it comes to love. I do not see it happening here either. To answer a question often asked here, yes, a man can love two women, but in different ways. The question is not that. It rather is whether the two women can live contentedly in their separate compartments, and here I am not referring only to Ruqaiya, but to Jodha as well, once she really falls in love with Jalal.
Well, all this lies on the lap of, not the gods, but the CVs. I am sure that the end result will be melodramatic and unsubtle, not plausible, or logical, or intelligent. Once one accepts that, the rest becomes easier to bear!😉
Shyamala (Di, Aunty)
Edited by sashashyam - 11 years ago
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