Friends, I think all of us must be heaving a collective huge sigh of relief that the precap of Friday (the Big Benazir dive and the rescue by Jalal) was not so intolerable after all when it happened in today's episode. The reason for this much-feared scene not searing us was because just before and after that scene we got to see how Jalal had no eyes for Benazir at all, and instead was all eyes only for Jodha! That redeemed Jalal no end!
Just before that dive scene we saw how Jalal was not even turning to look at the approaching Benazir as he started extolling the hair and beauty of Jodha (albeit sounding like he was praising Benazir). So Big Benazir was forced to make that splash to try and get Jalal's attention. Even so, as she later admitted, it was not as much of a success as she hoped it would be!
And after that dive scene what followed was Jalal again seeming more preoccupied with Jodha than Benazir. He was not even remotely perturbed that Benazir had lied that Moti's warm water was too hot! He was instead saying to himself (after Jodha dunked his hand into the water) " Yes indeed, the water is cold after all, but Jodha's jealousy of Benazir seems burning hot, which is just as it should be after she has spurned me!" Even though Big Benazir tried her best to occupy his eyes and mind, I loved the way Jalal was almost every moment lost in thoughts of Jodha! He was angry with her, but he couldn't stop thinking about her or take his eyes off her!
I now forgive Jalal - slightly - for the way he has behaved with Jodha in the last few episodes ... and especially, I must add, after that last scene when he was tossing and turning in bed unable to sleep, thinking even more thoughts of Jodha. He was hurt and angry remembering the way she had reacted to him that night, but I heard him say "This Jodha, she exasperates me, she doesn't come to me herself, and now she will not let me go to any other lady!" Oh, boy, did I want to hear those words! Way to go, Jalal!
As for Jodha, she was suffering in silence for the most part today, unable even to confide in a sympathetic and worried Salima. In fact, I thought Jodha was continuously harping on the insults of the last two days by Jalal (the Diwan-e-Khas seat and swordfighting clothes) if only to try and wipe out the more immediate anxiety that he was going to sleep with Benazir imminently! I thought she was a bit too emphatic when she told Moti "I am not jealous of Benazir!" when she was beginning to feel eaten up with her unnamed feelings! Later, when she too was tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep, and saying to herself "Why am I feeling so bad today? It's his wish, isn't it, who he sleeps with?", out came her truth!
Leaving Jalal and Jodha aside, Benazir also seems to have given some hint of her "vishkanya" agenda today. She told her baandhi in one scene "Today was not a huge success with Jalal, but if I can get just one more night with him somehow, I can do my trick" (or words to that effect). So obviously she is just waiting for the next one chance to do whatever she has come to do.
I still have a doubt though, whether Maham knows Benazir is a vishkanya, because she seems only to be thinking of Benazir as a distraction taking Jalal away from Jodha. We have to wait and watch if Sharif has brought this Benazir here via a deal with the Kabul Munim, or whether Maham knows more about Benazir than she shows out.
Ruq was again an enigma for me today. When she told Salima "Even if Jodha and Jalal are at odds with each other, I can guarantee Jalal will not go to Benazir tonight", she looked to me like a person in the know of something. Folks, I still have my hunch that Ruq is playing some games to counter Maham and help Jodha and Jalal. The precap, where she acts both surprised and triumphant before Maham that Jodha and Benazir are rivals, further confirms my suspicions.
Lastly, my own best friend Rahim is back in the picture and now I hope he is going to piece together the Jodha letter and give it to Salima for further action. I wonder if it will all get to Friday before Rahim comes to the rescue on the letter front, and Jodha and Jalal unmask the "vishkanya" and Ruq does her bit (whatever that may be). I hope this track will not take longer than that, and what we get to see will at least be interesting and intriguing.
Now for my slightly detailed analysis of the three key topics that I picked for today ...
Jodha and Jalal: playing hide and seek with their feelings for each other?
I liked the way Jodha and Jalal were shown today, alternating between their private feelings and their public attempts to hide those feelings. The garden scene between Jodha and Jalal was a good one. Jodha was sitting all by herself in a sombre mood, thinking of Jalal and the way he was treating her, when Rahim came up to her asking for a story. Jodha was not in the frame of mind for narrating stories today and she had to disappoint Rahim by telling him she was not up to it. Rahim, unfortunately was not in a mood to listen to Jodha either. Thankfully Salima came there, chided Rahim for disturbing Jodha, and then after Rahim left in a slight huff, Salima looked at Jodha with concern and asked what was troubling her.
Jodha was about to say something when she herself stopped ... and we saw Jalal walking on to the overlooking balcony, seeing both Jodha and Salima in deep discussion. He looked grumpy and kept staring at Jodha balefully, but despite his seeming anger he couldn't stop looking at Jodha. Salima eventually left as Jodha sat on in silent sadness.
Just then Benazir's baandhi came to Jalal to say Benazir was waiting for Jalal. I loved the way Jalal imperiously told the baandhi, "If Benazir wants me, she has to come to me - for I go to no one." The baandhi then went off to dutifully to convey these words to her mistress. The Big Benazir was then seen in her room digesting this and saying "Tough man, this Jalal. All eyes only for Jodha. Well, let me then go to him - alone. You stay where you are!"
We then saw Benazir approaching Jalal on the balcony from behind - but although Jalal sensed she was there, he didn't so much as turn to look. His eyes were on Jodha as he started describing her hair and her overall beauty. To Benazir, it was clear he was talking of Jodha and not herself. To Jodha, who could see them both and overhear, it sounded like he was praising Benazir.
By then both Jalal and Benazir seemed to have come down from the balcony and were walking on a path beside a huge pool of water, within eyeshot of Jodha. All told, Benazir started getting anxious at the way Jalal couldn't stop looking at Jodha. So Benazir did the easiest thing that came to mind. She threw herself with a huge heave into the water, and the next minute had Jalal diving after her to rescue her. (Jyoti, I thank you for mentioning that he was fully clothed, for we could not have borne it if he had been shirtless during this dive-and-rescue!)
Anyway he then brought the wet and watery Big Benazir to the seat near where Jodha was, and started shouting at Moti to fetch warm water to help this apparently shivery splash-victim! When Moti brought the water Big Benazir turned it away saying it was too hot - which made Jalal again shout at both Jodha and Moti for this poor first aid! But anyway, Big Benazir was soon packed away to a warmer place instead of remaining still hugging Jalal. After she was whisked away, Jodha, who had begun doubting if the water was too hot, put her hand in the bowl and saw the water was actually cold. She then snatched at Jalal's hand and dunked it into the water so that he could see for himself that Big Benazir had been lying ... and then she stormed off, having made her point. Jalal did see that the water was cold. But the point that hit him was not the Big Benazir lie ... it was the fact that while the water was cold, Jodha seemed "hot with jealousy". He tried muttering to himself that she should suffer these jealous pangs for the be-izzati she had done unto him!
Later that night both Jodha and Jalal were seen tossing and turning in their respective beds, unable to sleep. Jodha had just told Moti that she was not jealous of Benazir, but she told herself in bed "Why am I feeling so bad about it? It's his wish who he wants to sleep with." And Jalal on the other hand was seen fuming at the way Jodha had acted with him on that earlier night, and he said to himself "Neither will she come to me, nor will she allow me to go to anyone else!" Now, when did she stop you, dear boy? How can you blame her for the way you now feel nothing with any one else?
The precap is very interesting because Jodha is telling Moti "This Jalal has given Kohinoor status to Benazir, but it looks like he is doing all this to rattle me!" That suggests that she is beginning to see through Jalal's game of trying to woo Benazir just to make her feel jealous. How will she act with Jalal now that she sees his game, I wonder.
All in all, I thought the Jodha-Jalal scenes today were very nice and it helped me a lot in trying to forget my anger of Friday. After that horrendous Friday episode I was expecting to see more of the fiendish Jalal and the crybaby Jodha, and the "water rescue" as a very key scene - but fortunately today's episode relegated the "water-rescue" to just a distraction of sorts, and instead focused more on Jodha and Jalal, showing both of them as beginning to acknowledge each other's importance in new ways. So far so good!
Benazir and her dive: part of a larger saazish to lay a honey trap for Jalal?
Benazir today seemed to have a lot to say to her baandhi about Jodha as the thorn in her flesh. She even went to the extent of saying she was jealous of Jodha, the way she was able to attract Jalal towards her exclusively. But aside from venting on Jodha today, there was a slight change I noticed in the way Benazir stressed her real need for getting Jalal's attention.
On Friday it sounded like Benazir was angling for the Begum title herself - probably even fancying herself as a potential wife for Jalal? But today she seemed to hint at some other agenda.
In one key dialogue (which I have already mentioned in my opening comments) she says "I haven't scored with Jalal today, but I just need one night more with him to do my thing". Whether she was talking of striking at him as the vishkanya, or whether she was just talking about getting him to herself for one night, away from the Jodha influence, is a bit unclear. I thought she was talking of one night in which to strike!
Overall, the role played by Benazir in the episode - despite the jump into the pool and the subsequent pretence of shivery hugging of Jalal - seemed muted and peripheral. She was not the focus of today's episode.
Also what we have seen of Benazir so far, trying to seduce Jalal, does not give cause for alarm. As "Benazir The Bombshell" she is a total flop show, as far as I am concerned. In fact, if anything she left Jalal stone cold ... and even to us viewers, she has not exuded that on-screen sexiness that I thought she would. We all also feared we may have to bear the torture of Jalal ogling her, or pretending to ogle her, but happily that is not to be the storyline.
Now we have to wait and see if "Benazir the Assassin" (as a vishkanya) plotting on the life of Jalal will be more threatening and will have a bigger and meatier role for her to play than as "Benazir The Bombshell".
Maham and Ruq: what double-games are these two players up to now?
Maham's role is a bit doubtful to me as yet (as I again mentioned in the opening comments). On the surface it looks like Maham is only aware of Benazir as a potential seducer of Jalal, who can be used to create a greater rift between Jodha and Jalal and drive Jodha away from Agra. So far we have seen no indication that Maham is aware that Benazir is a vishkanya.
I am wondering about two things here:
a. Was it Sharif's idea to bring Benazir here to assassinate Jalal with a poisonous bite after seducing him, and was the Kabul Munim hand-in-glove with Sharif? Has Sharif made his plans known to Maham? Will he ever tell Maham - or will he doubt that Maham may have some lingering loyalty to Jalal?
b. If Maham does come to know that Benazir is a vishkanya plotting to take the life of Jalal, would she still be more preoccupied with chasing Jodha out of Agra or would she make a U-turn to save Jalal's life? In other words, how does Maham really feel about taking Jalal's life as revenge for Adham's plight? I remember her once telling Adham that she wanted to see him get the takht but not by sinister attempts to take Jalal's life - as Jalal was also like a son to her.
Overall I get the feeling so far that this vishkanya plan must be Sharif's (in cahoots with Kabul Munim) and Maham may not be in the know. By the time she suspects Sharif's real plan, maybe Jalal will unravel the vishkanya plot himself.
As regards Ruq, there was something very interesting in the way she told Salima "I know Jodha and Jalal do not get along, but I can guarantee he will not go to Benazir tonight!" I wonder what made her say that? Something she knows privately that she and Jalal may have shared between them? Or was she hinting at the fact that she knew that Jalal only craved for Jodha and she was reconciled to it?
In the precap again, she seemed to act quasi-surprised and quasi-triumphant that Jodha and Benazir were now rivals for the attention of Jalal. But there was just that hint of knowingness in Ruq's eyes that seemed to suggest that she was one step ahead of Maham in whatever game they were both playing.
Maybe I am wrong totally, but I still continue to feel as if Ruq is in control of the goings on ... as if she's baiting Maham ... as if she's trying to do something covertly to help Jalal. We still have that chat between Jalal and Ruq left unfinished for a later time. I wonder if they have already had that chat or are yet to do so.
Let's see how it all pans out ...
Cricket
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