Originally posted by: skanda12
1. Ruq botches up a rosy plan
Satisfied with her plan to knock Jalal off to sleep on his Wedding Anniversary (and thus render Jodha alone on her special day), Ruq re-summoned Hoshiyaar to take the bouquet as her gift to Jalal. As Hoshiyaar gave Jalal the bouquet, Ruq also followed to see her plan take effect.
But alas, Jalal smelt the roses twice and did not even yawn with sleepiness. Ruq was miffed beyond words. How did the scent not put Jalal to sleep, she wondered. As usual, her well-laid plans had gone for a six!
Actually, I may be in a minority here. But I thought from Ruq's POV, this was a very good idea to send the jashn for a toss without harming anyone seriously and God knows, Jalal can do with some sleep. 😉 JJ fans, please don't take umbrage. I love JJ as much as you, if not more. I also want them to have a great WA jashn. I am just talking about it from Ruq's POV. This is a classier idea than faking a preg.
It later turned out that Hoshiyaar was the one who had somehow seen Ruq spraying the potion on the rose and seen the bandhi get knocked out and deciphered Ruq's plan to hurt Jodha by making Jalal sleep of their Anniversary. Hoshiyaar had some lingering loyalty to Jodha for she had taken the pains to really celebrate his birthday well. And so he decided to do Jodha a good turn by discarding the tampered rose with another benign one.
Loved Hoshiyar yesterday. 👏👏 See, sometimes we bemoan the sympathy Jo feels for everyone and we had (at least I had) wondered why she went to such great pains to celebrate Hoshiyar's b'day, without thinking that it might set a bad precedent. But that innate goodness of Jodha paid yesterday and saved the day for JJ. The good we do to others returns to us manifold.
I was happy to see Ruq botch up another plan ... but seriously, she seems to have a terrific propensity to score self-goals. I don't see Ruq ever becoming a truly A Class villain. She will always remain just a shade above the average circus buffoon who blunders along merrily and may accidentally manage to pull off some average machinations!
She is a sweet vamp - we don't need to fear her, the way we fear Maham or Shehnaz. She is always trying to do something really bad, but ends up bringing JJ even closer.🤣
2. Shehnaaz reveals more of her true self
Already many of us have been speculating that Shehnaaz may be the long lost sister of Jalal now come back to the palace to "claim her takht" by killing off Jalal (and with him Jodha too). In fact Diksha has a very interesting and possible theory that either Shehnaaz may be that long lost sister in truth ... or else she thinks she is that sister but needs proof ... or else someone may have put her up to act as if she could claim to be that long lost sister, though she isn't so really.
In the last episode Shehnaaz had given us enough dialogues for us to reckon that she wanted to make a claim on the takht, and that her "enemy-in-the-way" was Jalal. She was just putting up an act of being a mentally-regressed person, with a grown body and a childlike mind. That was her ruse to ensure that no suspected her behaviour as strange if she was seen as psychologically affected.
Yesterday, in confirmation of this "long-lost daughter of Humayun theory", we saw her go straight to Gulbadan Begum's room and start ferreting through her drawers and cupboards clearly looking for some farman or authoritative paper. She saw a pile of books on a table nearby and suddenly got mightily interested in the Humayun Nama that Gulbadan was writing.
...
But those of us who had suspicions that Shehnaaz was perhaps looking to resent herself as the lost daughter of Humayun seemed to see enough to confirm our theory. This girl is avidly looking for some farman of entitlement with Humayun's mohur on it to be able to prove her antecedents. It is perhaps the same farman that Maham is looking for to try and get Adham the Delhi takht. The question still lies open whether Shehnaaz and Maham are a team - or are separately on the same trail. The answer is likely to be blown open this week ... for in the precap we see that Jodha and Jalal have entered the suspicious surang and are closing in on Maham's trapped-victim there, who may well be the husband or lost love of Shehnaaz. I am really looking forward to the big bhandaphod today on this issue for it is intriguing me!
Hold on to your horses, Mansi. The precap may well be the last scene today. Or it may not even happen today or it may happen in another way. I don't want to set up my hopes too high. 😊
3. Maham gets a royal ignore from Jalal
In a slightly later scene Hamida has called both Jodha and Jalal to her room to wish them for their anniversary. She kindly advises Jodha (who is both daughter and bahu to her) that while a Shahenshah has to care for and build the Sultanate, it falls on his wife to care for and build the home. Hamida also gifts the two of them some specially ornate new crowns (which she says are a set) for both of them to wear.
@bold: time tested advice 😆
Jalal point blank refuses to meet Maham or have anything to do with her - but Hamida and Jodha both prevail upon him to show graciousness on this one occasion. Jalal then agrees to let Maham in.
Now comes the ugliness in the tale. Maham greets Hamida and then gives her good wishes to Jalal, but ignores Jodha despite Jodha showing the courtesy of greeting her. I am sure Jalal saw and registered this slight on Jodha, for in return he just acted as if Maham was not in the room at all and neither had he heard her greetings! He left Maham looking like a piece of the woodwork, and pulled Jodha along with him out of the room on the pretext of some other work.
It was so cheap and crass on Maham's part to not greet Jodha or wish her or even to acknowledge her greetings. She was, after all, putting on an act to please Jalal and get into his good books temporarily, while she worked her plan. So, why couldn't she extend that act and include Jo also in it? If only to put up appearances in front of Jalal and HB. I was really happy that Jalal didn't take HB and Jo too seriously and royally ignored Maham by walking past her, as if she didn't exist. 👏👏👏 It was wonderful he took Jo away from there (generally, he doesn't bother about others and goes away alone); he must have sensed that Jo would probably linger there and get more insulted by Maham.
I personally cannot believe that Maham was foolish enough to want to come here and get this snub, so I have a kind of funny feeling that she insisted on this greeting business as part of some new saazish. Especially since she had told Adham that she would take revenge on Jalal, it seems most probable that she wasn't really wanting to be back in Jalal's good books. Something else is working on her mind whereby she doesn't seem to mind the slights and insults of Jalal ignoring her because it is all part of a plot she is working on!
She is trying to get back on his right side because she may require some of the power and privileges that come with being associated with the SS. She may need these to work her plan effectively.
She doesn't mind being snubbed, as long as she shows to the world that she is still loyal to the SS. She probably wants to build an alibi that she has always been loyal to the SS even when he didn't look upon her too kindly. When he is dethroned, no one will suspect her because she will appear to be "oh, so loyal". Even in the Sujamal case, HB and SB look kindly on her because she has built her alibi of loyalty to the Sultanat over many years. So when she does something bad, people don't take it as seriously as they should. They feel it's an aberration, not her real nature.
That is why she came to HB's room to wish him so that HB is a witness to her efforts in wishing the king. She will put on this act only in front of others, not when Jalal is alone.
4. The precap: all roads lead to the surang
The precap was the best part of the episode, I thought. We don't know how Jodha and Jalal decided to follow Maham, but they seemed to have done just that. As Maham disappeared into the surang, Jodha and Jalal seemed to have also entered the mouth of the surang. There perchance, Jodha hears a muffled voice that sounds like someone is in trouble. She alerts Jalal and the two of them plan to investigate. The episode ends there tantalizingly!
What will they find in there is the intriguing question. I have a feeling that they may see the Gwalior Hakim there tending to the wounds of the victim, and they may come to know that there is a captive man and a baby in the surang. Some sharp questioning from Jalal to the sipahis may also reveal the hand of Maham in this whole escapade. Or who knows, maybe Jalal and Jodha will catch Maham in action, threatening the captive and torturing him once again asking for the farman?
It is the usual tactics for serial scriptwriters to make the villain spew out a full dialogue at this point that betrays his/her motives. So maybe Maham will be shown disclosing her whole story out as a dialogue, and Jodha and Jalal will not only see what she had done but why. For example, Maham may say to her captive "Give me the Humayun farman which entitles you and your wife to the Delhi takht, for my son Adham deserves the takht and not you." Even that much said may put Jalal on the scent of the whole plot!
I am looking forward to the next episode with a great deal of curiosity because I so want to know how Shehnaaz, Maham, the captive and the baby all add up - and whether we will know who Shehnaaz really is.
One outstanding thing that the precap shows (that should thrill all of us) is that Jodha and Jalal are doing this jasoosi together as a team. I am very happy with this development because it signals the closing of one chapter of their lives and the opening of another. Hitherto, Jalal and Jodha were fighting each other, but I suspect from now on they will fight together as a team against their enemies. That is real progress!
I am keeping my expectations low, Mansi. Hope you are right. But still I don't think they will wind up such an important event so quickly. It may take a few episodes to show all that you have suggested. And God, why is there no promo for such an important event in the narrative? This is ridiculous.
@underlined: Yes, this is the best part. Loved it 😳 Romance need not be just hugging and kissing. Love is also all about doing things together as a team. And what a team! Both of them are intelligent and courageous. They sure should be able to crack things easily. Let's hope Maham is banished soon, now that IPL is ending. 😃
My comments on this episode:
Since a lot of the action in the episode was rather blah, there isn't much to say till the surang bhandaphod happens. After that we may have more insights into the characters of those associated with the surang plot. But meanwhile I have a few sundry comments on the characters who were at play in the Wednesday episode ...
@bold: so many episodes are going the blah, blah black sheep way...
Ruq and Hoshiyaar
Ruq has distinguished herself as the worst plotter in Sultanate history. The evil-scented roses idea was pathetic.
- First of all it was such a silly ploy to try and get Jalal sleepy so that he can be separated from Jodha. I thought Ruq wanted Jalal to be with her rather than with Jodha. So how does it help to make Jalal sleepy so that he is with neither Ruq nor Jodha?
She is the kind who will make sure that what she can't have, no one else can have either. She knows there is no way she can get Jalal to spend his WA with her instead of Jodha. So she does the next best thing. She makes sure that he doesn't get to spend it with Jo either. As far as ideas go, this is much better than faking a preg.
- Secondly, when you make a plot like this you don't want to alert Hoshiyaar that you are trying to do something sinister, right? Telling Hohiyaar to go out of the room for a second must have instantly given Hoshiyaar the sense that he is being averted from seeing something fishy. So naturally his first instinct was to peer through the latticed screen and register all that was happening. Seeing that the ruse was to spray a rose with some sleeping agent, Hoshiyaar then also saw the "bandhi sleepiness test" being applied and succeeding. Is this the way to make sure no one knows that you are plotting something ugly, by making them extremely curious to see what you are doing?
This is typical Ruq. 🤣That's why I said she is a sweet vamp. She just cannot be a really good evil vamp, no matter how hard she tries. She will always be the bumbling vamp who never succeeds but rather helps the protagonists indirectly. I really don't think we need fear her jealousy track much; it may provide much-needed comic relief. Just the fake preg track will be too sickening to bear. I can't believe that can be her idea. May be Maham may give her the idea and then expose her to Jalal later. That is why Maham would, in fact, know that Ruq is faking it.
- Hoshiyaar was then called back into the room to take the bouquet to Jalal, when Ruq was anyway following him. What was the whole point of asking Hoshiyaar to give the bouquet to Jalal if Ruq was also going there anyway? It just gave Hoshiyaar enough time to switch roses and see that some lingering loyalty to Jodha could be exercised. Other than that what did this whole plan achieve? If Ruq wanted to make sure the scented roses reached Jalal and put him to sleep, should she not have carried that bouquet herself to Jalal?
Ruq is the BEK. She will never deliver anything herself. Earlier she would get Jalal to ocme to her hojra to collect his gift. Now at least she is getting it delivered to his room because she probably knows he won't come to her room on his WA. If she was following Hoshiyar, why didn't she notice the switch?
- Which brings me to another question: why does a wife need a khwaja sera to carry her personal gift to her husband. Is that all part of audha-consciousness that insists on such formality? What an idiot wife this must be, not knowing when to get all formal with her husband!
She will always be auda-conscious and formal with Jalal. For her, they are the SS and his BEK. Not a husband and wife. BTW, she might have scored better with Jalal if she had given a joint gift to JJ, rather than just a bouquet to him. This would never have struck her. Why didn't she try to put Jo to sleep? Because she wanted to see a despondent Jo shedding silent tears.
The only person I could respect at the end of this exercise is Hoshiyaar. His frequently changing loyalties have puzzled me of late for we do not always know if he's on Jodha's side or Ruq's side at any point of time. But at least this once he remembered Jodha's kindness in insisting on celebrating his birthday - and so he repaid her in return by determining to see that Jalal was wide awake to enjoy the anniversary with her.
Hoshiyar is generally on Ruq's side, as long as there is no harm or hurt to Jo. After all, he has been with Ruq since donkey's years. He even attempts to give her some good advice, which no one else does. But he is always ignored and insulted for this. Yesterday, he couldn't bear to see Jo's special day being spoilt in this manner and saved the day for her out of sheer gratitude. Really, even the working class has a greater sense of gratitude than a BEK. 😕
BTW, Mansi, did you notice the comment Jalal made to Hoshiyar - that he (Jalal) should have known that Hoshiyar has been with Ruq for years and is therefore an expert in paying false compliments. 😆 How much Jalal understands Ruq! And may be he also has become an expert in giving false compliments to Ruq; that's why he is able to relate to it so easily.
Shehnaaz and Maham
Although these two women are not yet confirmed as a team, there were a lot of similarities I noticed in their way of operating as villains. At the same time there are cross-purposes in their intentions which is very interesting ...
- They are both pretending to be innocents that they are not. Shehnaaz has chosen to pose as a sadma-hit poor innocent with a woman's body and a child's mind. Maham has chosen to pretend as if she is a sentimental and sad woman, yearning for pardon from Jalal and wishing to be back in his good books. Both have thus adopted postures of innocence and mock-genuineness. But while Maham has taken the tactic of "appealing to Jalal's heart" as her method to get his attention, Shehnaaz has done the opposite and is deliberately antagonising Jalal as her method to get his attention.
Shehnaz is using Jodha to get what she wants; Maham is using Jalal. Shehnaz cannot obviously get close to Jalal and Maham will never get close to Jodha.
- They are both after the farman which seems to be the crux of their whole plot. Maham is searching Hamida's room and searching the surang-captive (maybe Shehnaaz's husband) for the farman. Shehnaaz is searching Maham's room and Gulbadan's papers for the farman. From both their behaviours it is now getting clearer that the farman is some suspected entitlement document to the throne written by Humayun under his mohur. It is also clear that they are searching each other for the farman. So there is some kind of competitiveness between them even if they are a team for mutual benefit for the time being.
But how can they be a team? They seemed to be on opposite sides that day in Maham's room when she caught Shehnaz.
- They are both now after Jalal and not Jodha. Maham used to be against Jodha earlier but right now Jalal himself is her target. Shehnaaz too believes Jodha to be a stepping stone to Jalal, and Jalal is her target. Here there is again a contrast ... Maham would like to eliminate Jodha from the matrix to get at Jalal, while Shehnaaz would like to incorporate Jodha into the matrix for the advantage of climbing on Jodha's back to get at Jalal.
Ultimately, both want to eliminate both JJ.
- Applying the Diksha theory, the question arises whether Shehnaaz is really the lost sister of Jalal, or she believes she may be that person but has no proof herself, or someone (e.g. Maham) has brainwashed her to believe or act like she is. I have a feeling that Shehnaaz and Maham are like two thieves who are on the surface working together - but underneath it all they are double-crossing each other. For example, if Maham and Shehnaaz are in cahoots with each other it explains a lot of things. It could be Maham who tipped Shehnaaz off that Jodha has left the Agra Palace out of anger with Jalal, and Shehnaaz could very well have ensured that some wayside people point Jodha in the direction of the Mathura ashram where she was staying so that Jodha too would arrive there and Shehnaaz could work on Jodha's vulnerability to befriend her. But then again, why was Shehnaaz searching Maham's own room (ostensibly for the Kanha murthy but in reality perhaps for the farman)? Is it a race between Maham and Shehnaaz as to who finds the farman first? Do Maham and Shehnaaz already know each other and are just acting as if they don't - or have they really never seen each other before? Is Maham holding Shehnaaz's husband and child captive thinking Shehnaaz's husband may know where the farman is? Is Maham then planning to eliminate Shehnaaz's husband to get Shehnaaz married to Adham who can then claim the takht as her husband? Or is Shehnaaz trying to get the farman faster than Maham in order to release her husband and child from Maham's clutches and get the takht for herself and her husband? Is it because Shehnaaz is not able to yet find the farman that she feels she has to kill Jalal for the takht (because if the farman gave her entitlement directly to the Delhi takht, she needn't have to kill Jalal to get her entitlement)?
Interesting questions! While Maham is focused on the Delhi takht, Shehnaz only says takht. So Shehnaz could mean the Agra takht itself.
We can endlessly speculate all day today if we are bored - or we can just wait for the evening to see if the next episode reveals all. I have a feeling that before the weekend is out we will know exactly who Shehnaaz is, why she is here and what her connection with Maham is! Before that I have to prevent my curiosity from killing me!
Yes, we have to "wait and watch". 😆 No use running ahead when the CVs may suddenly pull the brakes. The way they showed the advances in the AK embezzlement case and then left it hanging.
Anupamaa
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