Friends, just before we saw yesterday's episode we were all making so many angry comments on the forum, and so many angry phone callls to Zee, condemning the storyline and the characterisation of Jalal and Jodha, that I am quite spent on that whole issue. Now we have landed in the unsavoury state when things are at their worst, so there's no point cribbing about what is happening any more. I thought I would therefore get on with analysing what is actually happening, to see how we can try to get out of this messy story situation, in one piece, as fast as possible.
My usual posts have some opening remarks and then go on to detailed analysis of some chosen scenes, but today I have decided to do it a bit differently ... I will go scene by scene, describing what I saw and making my comments as I go along, because in almost every scene there was something I thought of as very noteworthy to point out.
So here goes ...
Jodha meets Jalal outside Ruq's room
The episode begins with Ben and her baandhi Zakira rushing towards Ruq's rooms with a view to finding Jalal there. But lo and behold, just outside the room were stationed Jodha and Moti, who had decided to brave the cold and wait out the whole night right there, if necessary, to catch Jalal at least by early morning as he left Ruq's rooms. So Ben and her baandhi were checkmated. They realised that if even Jodha was not allowed entry, Ruq was certainly not going to entertain them! So there went the opportunity to try and harm Jalal when Ben's poison level was still high from the temple snake-fix! Ben was seen cursing Jodha for being a constant thorn in her flesh whenever she tried getting closer to Jalal.
As Ben and her baandhi returned, Jodha sat on with deteremination till Jalal emerged from Ruq's rooms at dawn and started waking away, briskly past Jodha without even an acknowledgement. She had to stop him by calling out his name. He waited to hear what she had to say. To Jodha's credit I thought it was remarkably honest of her to say all that she did!
She told Jalal that she knew the khatra to his life was Benazir. She said she had managed to identify the Abul Mali agent as Ben and further knew that Ben was a vishkanya. She even made open the fact that she had got her information from Sharifuddin! She tried to hide nothing from Jalal!
But the fact that she had received a letter and then met Sharif in prison got Jalal's goat! He began to doubt her version of the Ben story, not because she was not coming through as honest, but simply because her source of information was the dubious Sharif, whom Jalal felt was crook enough to be passing wrong info with a view to getting himself out of jail! "Why did Sharif not write to me directly or tell anyone else? Why give this info to you?" was the question he asked Jodha! Jodha did not have the answers to that!
Then Jodha told Jalal that she wasn't merely relying on Sharif's version but had checked the truth of his statements by direct experience of seeing Ben getting her snake-fix at the Siva temple that evening! She even described exactly how Ben attached the snake to her tongue to let it bite her and talked of her behaviour after the bite. But by now Jalal was acting as if Jodha was was hallucinating! He could not see any credibility in her story! He almost walked off in distrust till Jodha held his hand and pleaded to be trusted.
Then something happened ... Jalal seemed to be mesmerised again by the Jodha "honest eyes" effect! Jalal found himself looking at her deeply and saying "OK" to her pleading. He curtly summoned Ben to the Diwan-e-Khas for questioning - and Jodha got her breathing back. It was clear that Jodha was holding her breath out of deep fear for his life and his safety.
My comments on this scene:
1. Jodha was really extremely honest with Jalal. She was so concerned for his life and safety that she cared not what he thought of her actions to get her information. She came completely clean on her visits to Sharif in jail. I loved that she was so forthright and frank about this. One misunderstanding less!
2. I thought Jalal was not really listening to Jodha with as much trust as he should have had. He had once said "I don't know why I trust you, but I do." Today that trust was totally missing. For four reasons:
a. At first he discounted her story because her source was Sharif, and he discounted that source.
b. The trust between them was already in deficit after the Shivani episode and the behaviour of her family.( which Ruq rubbed in to him).
c. He has been all long trying so hard to make Jodha jealous of Ben that he has started belieiving his own story that Jodha is really jealous of Ben. When you keep on repeating something untrue to yourself, you start belieiving your own story!
d. Hakim has opened this "mohabbat" notion in Jalal that he is inwardly fighting. Because of his own internal conflict with this idea, his mistrust of Jodha seems not entirely because of her credibility problem - but because of his own doubts to hear her out with an impartial mind due to his heightened feelings for Jodha.
There was just one fleeting moment when it looked like he wanted to trust Jodha - when she held his hand and pleaded. He gave in, albeit reluctantly annd curtly. Despite his own rigidity, he was not able to give Jodha an outright "No!".
Scenes at the Diwan-e-Khas
People assembled at the Diwan-e-Khas were all agog, wondering what this meeting was for, when Ben and her baandhi made their way towards a stern and frowning Jalal. Jodha looked partially vindicated, having brought her case against Ben this far. Jalal, without much ado, directly stated to Ben that there was an accusation against her from Jodha that she was a vishkanya, come to Agra to kill him.
Ben was a smart player. She started replying by saying she was shocked the accusation came from someone like Jodha who was so good, so kind to people and so righteous. She then said "I know where alll this is coming from. It's because I come from the harem of Abul Mali".
Jalal lost no time in gettting to the point and cut short her meanderings. He said "Prove now that you are not a vishkanya. Drink this milk I have requisitioned for you." The local Hakim brought and gave her the glass of milk that she drank from. Then Jalal said "Now from the same glass let your baandhi Zakira drink the rest of the milk and we'll see!".
Zakira looked agitated as she had to go through the act of drinking the rest of the milk. But she did and she stood unaffected for as long as it took to convince the assembled sabha that nothing had happened to her!
Ben then pressed her advantage by acting like the helpless victim of a casteist insult. She said to Jalal, "Now that I've passed the test, please sever my head. As a lowly baandhi, my chances of a good life were never great ... but now I am reduced to ridicule as a suspected vishkanya. My life is in pieces."
Immediately the first two persons to start rounding up on Jodha were Maham and Ruq. They both shouted at Jodha that she had reduced the image of the Sultanate by making such false accusations of a mere baandhi without proof, especially considering her status as a Begum of the Shahenshah! Hamida looked on in alarm, while Jodha crumbled in shock - not at the shouting of Maham and Ru, but at the surprise that Ben and Zakira had managed to pass the test.
Jalal then dismissed the sabha and in leaving the Diwan-e-Khas himself he held back Jodha for a few rough parting words. He said "All this is just because of your extreme jealousy of Ben. You have gone to the extent of concocting stories about her." Jodha tried to still defend her position and say "I know for sure she is a vishkanya!" But Jalal said derisively "Yes, I know you are as sure of who Ben is, as you were sure of your sister Shivani and her choices! In recent times, my dear, you are being proved wrong again and again and its becoming a habit!" And with that he left. Jodha was last seen at the Diwan-e-Khas still saying with steely determination "I swear Jalal will soon know one day that I have been telling the truth!".
My comments on this scene:
1. Jalal again seemed to judge Jodha by a combination of present proof and past prejudice. It was true that Ben and Zakira seemed to pass the milk test, but at the back of Jalal's mind as he berated Jodha for her unsubstantiated accusations he brought up her "ignorance of Shivani's motives" as the parallel to her "ignorance of Benazir" and reiterated again his own self-created story of Jodha's jealousy. To me it seemed that in addition to the visible proof being against Jodha, there was an already present antipathy in Jalal's mind towards Jodha that seemed to jump at the chance to show that she'd been proved wrong. He was almost exulting at having exposed her extreme jealousy of Ben, which I found a bit unjust. In a bid to suppress his own growing feelings for Jodha it looked like he was over-eager to see her proved conclusively wrong! There was a bit too much satisfaction in his voice at her discomfiture.
2. It was notable that the two people who gained most from what happened and immediately pounced on Jodha were Maham and Ruq with their arguments about tauheen and shame to the Sultanate! Maham was herself a baandhi and Ben was her protg, so to speak, so it was a bit more understandable when she highlighted the fact that a highly placed Begum should not have crushed the dignity of a lowly baandhi like Ben. But the surprise was the way Ruq jumped at the same "lowly baandhi argument". Already she had told Jodha yesterday "I'd rather see Jalal marry a kaniez than stay married to you". I guess this reaction at the Diwan-e-Khas was a continuation of that motive of ousting Jodha from Jalal's life by giving him another toy, Ben, who would not have a threatebing hold on Jalal the way Jodha had. Ruq sees Jodha as an equal to be quelled, but Ben is small fry and least bothersome even as Jalal's wife!
Ben and Zakira plan to disappear
In Ben rooms, immediately after the exit from the Diwan-e-Khas, Zakira was roiling from the harsh after-effects of drinking from the same glass of milk that Ben had consumed. It was pitiful to watch the small baandhi retching and quivering from the toxic shock, as Ben urgently handed her an antidote which presumably saved her life - and saved Ben from sure exposure as well. The selfless act of the baandhi to save the izzat of her mistress Ben was remarkable. How many servants, however loyal, would be ready to drink deadly poison in an open sabha, and to stoically withhold all traces of the visible effects, just to save a mistress'life?
Hardly had Zakira managed to live down the after-effects of the snake poison and feel the ease of the antidote than Ben was making plans for their hasty exit from Agra via the dargah. The reason Ben gave was simple: "If we are now exposed for who we are, then Jodha will be proved right and we will be killed by Jalal. If we don't kill jalal, then Abul Mali will surely kill us instead. Rather than be agents for killing others, we've got to now run for our own lives!" Zakira said "But why fear Abul Mali, he's in prison and can do nothing to us. Let's stay and complete the Jalal assassination job!". But Ben was adamant - and so with shawls covering their heads they attempted sneaking out of the palace ... till Maham noticed them and stopped them. This was at the very end of the episode, so we have to guess what Maham's motives may be ...
My comments on this scene:
1. Hats off to Zakira. She stole the show for me here by the sheer depth of her loyalty to Ben. The fact that she withstood the poison without letting any effects show up on her body while she was at the Diwan-e-Khas, and then still mouthed loyalty dialogues even as she was retching in the room was phenomenal. She also seems a shade smarter and bolder than Ben herself, since she was advising against fleeing and exhorting Ben to do her dirty deed with Jalal without fear of Abul Mali escaping prison. The little woman has a great deal of nerve and guts!
2. The big question here for me in this exit-attempt scene was the role of Maham. Why did Maham stop these two women from fleeing? My own hunch is that since Maham knows they are fleeing, she must be already suspecting they have some thing to hide ... and she must suspect therefore that Jodha may have been telling the truth and that Ben and her baandhi are very suspicious personages. But Maham being Maham, she must be calculating how best she can "use Ben" now that she has her in her clutches and has caught her red-handed trying to make a run for it! I think tomorrow when Ruq presses Jalal to marry Ben to "protect a destitute baandhi" it will suit Maham to second Ruq's case. Maham will believe that Ben could be used beatifully against Jodha if Jalal were to marry her as per Ruq's suggestion!
The mistrust of Moti and Hamida
Of all the worst aspects of the whole episode yesterday for Jodha, two of the most hurtful things must be the mistrust of Moti and Hamida. First Moti acted like Jodha needed more rest for she had not slept for two consecutive nights. She told Jodha not to be consumed by "brahms" as these are common when one doesn't get enough sleep. The fact that even her own trusted confidante Moti is disbelieving her story must be bad enough, but then Hamida visited Jodha and gave her more of the same dialogue.
Hamida further said "Jodha you have to be very careful what you say at the Diwan-e-Khas, about the accusations you make, for which you may not have enough proof. You haven't been sleeping well, and that must be the reasons for your mind working against you. But remember the important thing - such events will only distance you totally from Jalal!". If Jodha was looking for succour from Hamida, she wan't getting any. We have the classic case of one girl's word facing disbelief from all quarters now, enemies and friends!
After both Moti and Hamida had left, Jodha was seen thinking: "They all think I am jealous of Benazir ... but I am really worried about Jalal's life safety. How do I make them understand?"
My comments on the scene:
1. I hope this whole situation teaches Jodha a lesson in self-sufficiency as well. It has been her irritating habit so far to confess everything - but everything - to Moti. Many of us have already written before that it seems un-Begumly for her to be telling Moti even the details of her interactions of the private kind with Jalal. Moti may be more of a friend than a daasi, but there have to be limits to what is confessed, surely? But now this whole situation has given Jodha a natural juncture where the equation with Moti can be changed. In a crunch situation, Moti herself has showed lack of unconditonal trust in Jodha. Jodha would not be wrong if she did the same with Moti going forward! I am not saying they can't be friends, but I do hope Jodha has seen that even in friendships, the closest of friends are never as close as one thinks, and so she herself can be the same as well and preserve her own space a little more!
2. As regards Hamida, it was very revealing to me that she stressed more on the fact that such behaviour from Jodha would "distance her from Jalal". In that moment it seemed like it was not Hamida the friend speaking - but the Marium Makkani of the Sultanate speaking. She sounded like the big issue between Jodha and Jalal was not "trust" or even "love" ... but "distance". It sounded to me like she was more worried about "distance=no waaris" rather than "distance=no love". Is Hamida really a "Jodha-fan" or is she more of a "waaris-fan", is the question that will always be on my mind hereafter after listening to the way she handled Jodha yesterday. I know that she often has displayed inordinate trust and affection for Jodha, but I always believe that it is in a crisis that one's true motives are visible. So yesterday's behaviour of Hamida has raised some question marks in my mind! Does she love Jodha for herself or does she love Jodha as a waaris-prospect?
3. Jodha's last sentence I the scene is also very revealing. She says "While they think I'm jealous of Ben, I am actually really worried about Jalal's life!". On the face of it, these look like two different issues - jealousy of Ben and worry about Jalal's life. But if Jodha thinks about it, these are just two sides of the same emotion. Jodha has started caring for Jalal more than she knows. She may tell herself it's the natural worry of a wife for a husband, or indeed any one human being for another, if the life of the latter is in visible danger. But Jodha's worry is going beyond the normal into sleepless nights and a very real fear of losing Jalal. She would do well to ask herself why it matters so much that she is able shrug off all insults and mistrust from him, from Ruq, Maham, Hamida and even Moti to somehow save him! Curiously, the more she worries for him, the more paranoid she sounds to him - and he would rather write that off as "jealous". Both of them seem to be copping out of facing what this depth of emotion really is about!
Ruq is the real culprit behind our angst
The precap scene was by far the most interesting piece of action in yesterday's episode for me. Ruq is seen arguing with Jalal that part of an emperor's duty was to marry for love, progeny, growth of the kingdom and protection of the destitute. And in this case, Ben has been made destitute and rendered without chances of a decent life by the atrocious accusations of Jodha Begum. So Jalal should immediately marry Ben as a righteous emperor!
Lo and behold, Jalal is also convinced he should set right the wrong to Ben and agrees to the marriage!
My comments on this scene:
1. To those of us who were so despondent yesterday that Jalal was thinking of this ghastly marriage idea himself, and as a deliberate and callous revenge on Jodha, the precap must have come as welcome relief. The horrible "marriage to Ben" idea was Ruq's - not Jalal's - in the first place. It was at least not as rotten as him thinking of the idea on his own. And even if he acquiesced under pressure from Ruq, and agreed to the marriage with Ben (which made him look brainless enough), he looked like he was agreeing out of guilt at the destitution of Ben rather than as seeking petty revenge on Jodha. Thank God for this small - very small - redemption of Jalal's character! I didn't know what kind of an ass to call him if the whole marriage idea had been his - and that too if he had done it all from vindictiveness at Jodha!
2. This brings me to the question of how far the promo yesterday was a true indicator of the real scene coming in the episode. If this precap is the real scene, the promo was bloody misleading! And it caused all of us so much angst, it is not funny! The promo seems to suggest that Ben is pleading for her dignity, when Jalal comes up with the brainwave to marry her and looks askance at Jodha. The promo does not even hint at the fact that Jalal had to be convinced by Ruq that this was the way to uphold his sense of justice as emperor by doing the "right thing by Ben". I'll never believe another JA promo in my life ever!
What's more, even the phone calls to Zee didn't quite give us the right picture. All day yesterday we were all agitated after hearing from Zee that "Jalal is feeling so many new feelings for Jodha and trying to suppress them, that he makes a big error in judgement in trying to hurt Jodha by marrying Ben .. and later discovering that he had made a big mistake from which Jodha would save him!". Phone call after phone call to Zee gave us the same message - to me, Lashy, Aanchal and countless others! Look at the precap. Jalal is not trying to hurt Jodha. He is being forced to consider marriage to Ben from the guilt of his Begum having wrongly accused her and shattered her life!
Ovaerall, after yesterday's episode, I am slightly happier that both Jodha and Jalal seemed slightly redeemed in my eyes. Jodha has lost the crutches she was leaning on for emotional support in a crisis, and will emerge a stronger woman even if she has to be a "lone crusader". The loss of "friends in need" like Moti and Hamida will hopefully draw her closer to new supports like Jalal.
Jalal on the other hand has been partially vindicated in my eyes by not being the perpetrator of the "marriage to Ben idea" out of petty vidictiveness on Jodha (phew!). He should have questioned Ruq's logic and not accepted it so readily, but still its better than him having such ghastly ideas of his own!
As for Ruq and Maham, if they think by getting Jalal married to Ben they can get him un-married to Jodha, that's where the overconfidence will boomerang!
My prediction: My feeling is that now Ben herself will get even more shaky after hearing Jalal's marriage proposal. She would much prefer biting him and running away rather than living with him as a Begum and living in the fear of daily exposure as a vishkanya (especially if Abul Mali should work himself free). It would be difficult for a wife of an Emperor to hide her need for a daily dose of snake poison to survive. Thus being Jalal's wife, however attractive that sounds, would be untenable for Ben. She would therefore try to bite him before the marriage ... when I fully expect Jodha to stoically take the bite and show Jalal how wrong he was to distrust her story! Hope it all happens fast ... like today and tomorrow??? Ganpatiji, I'm bringing a coconut!
Veer Hanuman
Kumkum Bhagya
24