Friends, yesterday's episode was what I would call the ominous calm before the storm. Some of us expected that Jalal would blow his lid yesterday itself and not wait for Monday. We thought he was simmering away already and his spectacular blowout would come on Friday, leaving us all wondering what would happen in the next week.
As it happened the episode yesterday turned out to be much calmer than we thought and we did not get the big angry promo scene from Jalal ... and to add to the calming effect, we also had a late night article in Tellychakkar (one of my "dependable" sources of info) that showed us what the future of this track was going to be.
So all in all, the forum waasis may have had a calm night knowing that no major MU was going to happen, and even if things go from bad to worse on the Jalal anger front, things were also going to unravel pretty fast and lead to a jungle scene - and the the "two leads are going to get closer than ever before" (as Zee always likes to tell us) maybe before the end of next week itself.
Actually I counted at least seven big sankets yesterday on why there may not be a big MU ... here they are ...
One, Jalal was still not completely anti-Jodha on this issue of meeting Sujamal.
Countless times yesterday he kept saying "Why did she not tell me anything about it? I know she would not be doing anything wrong or be cheating on me. She must be having a good reason for doing what she's doing. But why be so secretive? Why shut me out of the truth? Why not trust me? I trust her completely. Why does she have to jeopardise her own safety with these nocturnal visits to this man she meets? Does she not know how worried I am for her safety? And why did she give up the harem job? Doubtless she has "other priorities" ...hmmm?"
Since Jalal was still so much trusting and concerned about Jodha's welfare, the forces of anger in his mind did not get a chance to build up enough steam for a showdown yesterday itself. His other part of the mind was finding every excuse for Jodha's behaviour saying she must be having a good reason for what she's doing, and she would never do anything to hurt the man whose life she had saved by drinking poison!
Thus while he was still simmering with inner fury at her silence, the alter-voice in him was equally forceful in finding goodness in her and expressing disbelief that she would have done anything wrong. Sometimes it felt to me like the voices in favour of Jodha were louder than the voices angry with Jodha inside Jalal. So yesterday was not clearly the day for any major outburst of anger. Things had not yet come to a head!
Two, when Jodha gave up the harem duties, Jalal was miffed, but Salima was very happy about it.
The episode continued from where the previous one left off and we saw Jodha reiterating her stand that she had "other preoccupations now" and didn't want the harem management role any more. This was actually like rubbing salt into Jalal's wounds,(as my friend Jyoti wrote yesterday) because he naturally did not like to hear about these "other occupations of Jodha! He assumed these were the nocturnal meetings with that strange man that were grabbing Jodha's attention away from harem responsibilities.
In actual fact, Jodha wanted to keep time on her hands for ferreting out the real culprit who may be living within the palace and having evil designs on Jalal's life, but she couldn't say this to Jalal. She merely therefore said to Jalal "I don't wish to hurt your feelings, but I want to resign." Jalal became all sarcastic, as he replied "Such excuses for dropping harem responsibilities are not acceptable. But anyway, if this is now the case, why did you stand for elections at all? Nevertheless let me hand everything back to Ruq, who was any day a better harem manager than you."
Jodha bore this insult with as much grace as she could summon, but Ruq fired back that she didn't want the role either. She too had got used to the free life where she could spend more time with Jalal and did not want this drag on her time. But Jalal then "made a request" to Ruq to take up the harem which immediately changed Ruq's perspective. She said she could never say no to an "emperor's request" (no doubt because such a request made her feel big on audha!) and so she agreed ... and she lost no time in mocking Jodha for losing both Jalal's goodwill and the harem.
But there was a good spin in all this for Jodha., even if Jalal was very miffed. Salima congratulated Jodha on following the advice she had given, and said again to Jodha that the harem's main job was done with the abolishment of slavery - and the rest of the work was not Jodha's cup of tea. Salima also noticed that Jodha, despite getting her resignation from the harem accepted, was not happy and was in some deep personal distress. So to me one of the good reasons why there may be no MU between Jodha and Jalal is that Salima could well be a reconciliation-enabler between the leads She can explain that it was her advice that Jodha should leave the harem. If need be Jodha can confide her Sujamal problem to Salima, because she is only vachan-bhad not to tell Jalal, but there is no vachan preventing Jodha from confiding in Salima. So when the time comes for Jalal to have the blowout and reconcile with Jodha, Salima may well be able to set the situation to rights!
Three, Jalal seems to have already got a brainwave yesterday that Sujamal could bethe person Jodha was meeting.
This happened quite by chance and even though Maham managed to quash Jalal's idea that this stranger of Jodha's could be her brother Sujamal, there is always scope that Jalal's mind may return again soon to the idea, without dismissing the possibility completely.
Jalal and Maham were having a talk in his room when Maham saw him looking very despondent. As usual she decided to sow more seeds of deep doubt in Jalal about Jodha's nightly visits to her secret man, and although she kept saying that she believed Jodha to be "paak saaf" she also mightily insinuated that to for a Begum to be going on nightly meetings with a strange man, an old Amer connection, without letting her husband know, was not par for the course. Maham kept saying to Jalal "I know it's eating you up that she is keeping secrets from you. Have you at least talked to her about it and asked her to account for her actions? If there is no wrong doing then why hide her actions?" Maham knew fully well that Jalal was hesitating from broaching the subject with Jodha because he didn't want her to think he was a "suspecting husband" with no trust on her. Jalal said "I did this suspecting once before and it worked out badly, I don't want to repeat it!"
And then on a sudden brainwave he said "Can it be that she's meeting Sujamal, her brother?'. Maham's eyes became large saucers, for he was so near the truth! She immediately dispelled the idea saying "We heard from that spy yesterday that Sujamal has already fled Agra, isn't it? But then even if he was around still, is it not a major gunah for Jodha to be hobnobbing with a declared enemy of the Sultanate?" Jalal was silenced for the time being on this Sujamal angle and went back to his refrain of "Then who is she meeting?"
But although things look suppressed on this front, however, it is my feeling that after the blowout of Jalal, when things start falling into place for him, this idea is going to resurface somehow and some subooth will be found that Sujamal did not flee Agra and he was still very much there! Perhaps the paigam to Atga from Sujamal will be remembered and investigated? Maham will be exposed at least slightly.
Four, the garden scene in the episode hinted at deep friendship still underlying their relationship.
I wanted to detail this scene a bit, because it was among the best scenes I liked yesterday.
Jalal was sitting in the garden, drinking a lot, and diverting his mind with some live music, when he was also seeing visions of flashbacks in his mind of Jodha meeting with the stranger every night. He said to himself, over the strains of the music " I know you are incapable of cheating, but why does my mind keep imagining and suspecting? I know you cannot do "galat" deeds, but why am I getting so angry?"
Jodha came upon him. She wanted to talk to him. He looked up at her and then said "I was just beginning to get the "nasha" of this music. But so what, maybe I can listen to it another time. And then with a "takhliya" he dismissed the musicians. "Tell me, Jodha Begum", he said "what do you want to talk to me about?' Jodha took a seat opposite him and he said abruptly and rudely "I did not give you permission to sit, did I?"
Jodha immediately arose again, but then a grin changed the expression of his face as he said "I was just joking. Sit down". I could see from this little exchange, that he was unable to sustain his rudeness and anger with Jodha even for the space of a few seconds. He was simply unable to hurt her! He laughed a little self-consciously at his own joke, that betrayed his own discomfort with it!
Jodha then said "I wanted to talk about this sudden distance between us. Something is not going on okay. From what I know of you, I am basing my supposition. If things were okay between us, by now you would have asked me a hundred times "Why did you leave the harem job? What was the reason? What caused you do it?" But till now you've not asked even a single question about it?"
Jalal is filled with self-derision as he answers "What difference does it make Jodha Begum? Even if I ask, what truth do you tell me? In fact what do you ever tell me about?" "But I took the harem job only because you told me to" said Jodha. "When did I say that?" he asked.
"I knew you wanted to do some good for the harem, and I too felt that some things in the harem were not going okay. That's why I took up the responsibility. But now everything seems okay, so I decided to give it all back to Ruqaiya. And anyway, Ruqaiaya is very good in managing the harem".
"And you are good too with certain things ... like telling lies, Jodha Begum" he said with with a hurt tone. "You told me lies to get rid of your harem responsibilities. " His eyes never left hers as he said this. Her eyes grew wide with disbelief that he had said such words. "Why do you say so Shahenshah?" she asked. He replied "Because it is a lie that everything has become okay now in the harem. Anyway before your stubbornness, what can anyone say? You only ever do what you want to do." And with that he arose to take his leave.
But then he turned back just before he left to say a few words that really touched my heart at its very core. He said "How I wish you had told me the truth. How I wish you had at least tried to. I am sure I would have listened!" And with that said, he was gone, as the strains of the Amer music began and grew louder. And Jodha was left standing there stupefied, for she knew what exactly he was referring to but she was tongue-tied on that subject!
I saw this scene as one the biggest sankets that there was going to be no MU of any significance between them. He said in so many words that if she had only tried to tell him the truth he would have tried to understand. What more does a man need to say to show that she should have relied on him to take her news stoically and with trust?
I am reminded of a quote here: "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." He was telling her he had the courage to listen to what she said if only she had the courage to say what she needed to say to him!
Five, Jalal goes to Jodha's room to find her missing ... but are his assumptions that she's gone out wrong?
In what looks like the last scene of the episode, Jalal goes to Jodha's room at night to talk to her as he promised himself after talking to Maham. But to his dismay he only finds Moti there, saying Jodha was not in the room at that time, and was there any message to give her. Assuming the worst, Jalal again thinks she has stepped out stealthily at night to go and meet the stranger. He tells Moti not to say that he had visited Jodha's hojra and found her missing ... but his own dejection in finding her gone was so much that we could feel his sadness emanating to us from the TV screen. He was so beaten, so down, his shoulders stooped and his eyes withdrawn.
But then just as he was leaving the room, he spotted someone clearly sitting or perhaps standing somewhere outside the room, maybe in the garden. I have a strong feeling he saw Jodha there, in her own private agony, slumped somewhere perhaps near the Angoori Bagh , feeling utterly lost and lonely. We have to wait and see what Jalal notices so keenly, and what he does if indeed he has seen Jodha sitting there all by herself, unable to sleep and drawn in by her personal despair.
No doubt relief will be the first thing to wash over Jalal, for he will be thankful that his assumptions that Jodha would go to meet the stranger have been proved wrong. But will Jalal go to Jodha, forget his own despair for a moment and try to lift her spirits. Or will go and shake her shoulders and start ranting? Let's wait and see. As long as he still feels a lot more for her than for himself, no big MU is around the corner! Even if he shouts it may shouting that comes from relief at finding her there than anger at not finding her there!
Six, the precap seemed to be about Mazhar and his love, as a hint about Jodha's own love.
In the precap, we see Jalal at the Diwan-e-Khas ostensibly solving the remaining part of the Mazhar love story that he left midway about a month ago. Forum-waasis will remember that in the harem there had been a ladies brawl between two baandhi girls, both gunning for the same boy, Mazhar. One of the girls was betrothed to him in childhood as she was his childhood friend. Their marraiage had been fixed by the parents while the children were too young to decide for themselves. But as Mazhar grew up he fell in love with another girl, and that girl demanded that their love be the foundation of marriage and not the childhood betrothal that Mazhar has not specifically been consulted on. Mazhar too said he wanted to marry his love and not his childhood-betrothed. Jalal had given Mazhar a month to make up his mind and promised that he would agree to what Mazhar wanted.
It looks like the precap scene was of Mazhar returning to Jalal with the story that he had fallen out of love with his beloved because she had lied to him and thus he had lost his trust in her. When this story first broke at the harem all of us were certain that it was an exact parallel to the lives of Ruq-Jalal-Jodha. Ruq-Jalal was the arranged marriage of childhood based on friendship, while Jodha-Jalal was the match of love that Jalal had grown into. Jodha had argued for love to be the basis of Mazhar's life while Ruq had vehemently defended friendship as more solid a reason for marriage than love.
But now that Mazhar may have returned saying he had lost trust in his beloved due to her lies, Jalal seemed, I think, to be seeing even more likeness between his own marriages and Mazhar's story. Jalal wanted to tell Jodha via innuendo, I guess, that if she lied, she too would end up losing the love of himself, strong though his love was. Jalal said as if talking to Mazhar's girlfriend "Through your lies see what you have lost. You have forever lost the unlimited love of man who was besotted with you!" Ruq immediately crowed at Jodha that friendship had won and Jodha's pet subject "love" had lost. Ruq also said Jodha was losing every battle of hers one by one.
Why I thought this subject was a sanket of no big MU was because of the sanket that Jalal himself wanted to give Jodha. Two things stand out here. One, as Jalal talked to Mazhar's girlfriend, it looked like he was hinting at possible future events in his life with Jodha . He was saying "By lying, you look like you have self-sabotaged your man's love and need no other punishment". Was he perhaps saying that he would not punish Jodha for lying, but her punishment would be self-inflicted? Two, he was taking of Mazhar, the man in this case, having "beintihaa pyaar" ... so was he talking of the quality of his own love for Jodha?
Seven, the article from Tellychakkar speaks of a small MU solved with speed and a jungle scene!
Fortuitously, last evening when most of us were feeling down in the dumps anticipating a weekend filled with distressful waiting (and we even heard rumours that Jodha would be banished to Amer since the serial would be following the movie story), an article appeared in Tellychakkar as a godsend.
(Incidentally I believe that Tellychakkar and Tellybuzz are the only two genuine sources of truth regarding the serials tracks ... all the rest of the sources are usually "tukka masters"!).
The Tellychakkar article said that after Jalal has a blowout caused by more instigation by Maham and his own growing internal pressures, he would shout at Jodha and cause her to leave ... but not for Amer (which would have been historically wrong). Instead Jodha would adjourn to a jungle nearby for peace and quiet after the shouting and aspersions on her virtue by Jalal!
But very soon Jalal would discover the truth about Jodha having been meeting Sujamal ... and all will be set to rights in his mind. He will then run after Jodha and find it hard to locate her in the jungle (Wow, imagine those scenes of desperation in the angry young man!) and he will then somehow locate her (Hug, hug, hug?). Their love will apparently reach a new level (Which level, Creatives? Lip level?)
So all will be well again between Jalal and Jodha very soon.
When I called Zee they had told me this whole track would last one and a half weeks, and one week is already over. So that leaves the next three episodes in which this "jungle mein mangal" can happen! I expect that by the end of the next week, all will be once again coochey-coo in the Agra palace.
Phew! I don't know who will be more relieved, Jalal or us!? What will happen to Sujamal, Sharif, Abul Mali and the murder attempt, God knows. But I don't care!
To end this post let me add some more good news/ prediction from my friend Maddy as told to me over phone yesterday.
It appears that the dress that Jodha wears in the precap is of significance. It is the same dress that she wears in the angry promo, and it is again the same dress that she wears in the picture where Sujamal is seen in the background in "stree vesh". So by a stroke of detective work we can all infer that these three events could all happen on the same day ie. Monday.
Jalal may have the DEK scene, and after that he may also have the angry outburst shaking Jodha by the shoulders and calling her all sorts of names in anger. Meanwhile Sujamal may have come to the palace urgently in "stree vesh" as he has some new vital and urgent clue on the case for Jodha. Sujamal may see the fight between Jodha and Jalal and realise that he was the cause of it because his vachan has left Jodha unable to say anything to Jalal. Her decision to go into the jungle away from the palace may leave Sujamal racked with guilt. Thus Sujamal may himself decide to flee and leave Jodha off the hook by releasing her from his vachan.
My own additional prediction.
If Maddy's angle is not going to happen there are two other possibilities of how this case may be resolved. Here are my two guesses:
One, Salima may tell Jalal everything that Jodha has confided in her before going to the jungle. Jodha is not vachan-bound not to tell Salima, and thus she may confide in Salima, who then tells all to Jalal ...
... or ...
Two, Atga may do some exceptional detective work on the paigam that was sent to him by Sujamal. If Sujamal is caught in "stree vesh" by Atga inside the palace, the fact the Sujamal can remember the paigam's words verbatim may suggest that he was the writer of the paigam thus exonerating him from being the possible assassin. He may be released for the goow work he did in warning Atga!
Any other theories are also welcome. But let me warn you all. My mind has already finished with the Jalal outburst and has already gone into the jungle dreaming up all kinds of jungle opportunities for some "you-know-what" between Jalal and Jodha.
Hope he becomes a "tiger" and she becomes a "tigress" and we all get at least a little bit of what we want!
In many serials, consummation scenes happen in jungles, amidst leaves and sticks and hay in some way out tabela ... even though the hero and heroine have fine beds at home!
I know I can't expect that much, but a few grand steps towards that will be more than welcome! What say, folks?
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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