Friends, yesterday's episode was still hovering around the subject of Ruq and her mistreatment of Jodha (something we all love to hate!), but as expected we got our lovely Jodha-Jalal moments too! I suspect this is going to be the future formula followed by the Creatives. We may get all other areas of the storyline moving forward but we will also get our daily dose of Jo-Ja moments.
Yesterday, one cute part was when Jalal saw Jodha giving "khidmat" to Ruq and started feeling bad about it ... but when Jodha explained that she was not doing all this for Ruq but for Jalal's own unborn child, he shed a tear that she was so large-hearted. But then he also twisted the whole thing to his advantage. He whispered to Jodha in Ruq's room that she should not spend all her attention on Ruq because he too was sadly in need of some TLC. He told Jodha to come as soon as her work would allow to give him also some much needed care and attention.
Then when Jodha did not still come fast enough, he sent a bandhi to request her presence immediately, and then he told Jodha, "My body is having very deep pain also ..." and he put her hand to his heart! Jodha didn't know whether to commiserate with him or give him a good smack for naughtiness. But his further dialogues completely won her over. He said "If you are not in front of me, my heart starts paining badly and stops beating!".
All told, this man is a loving rascal, and he has now learnt the fine art of getting Jodha to do whatever he wants by clutching his heart in pain! And to make matters even more difficult for her he says things like "As a Rajvanshi, have you not taken a vachan to always serve your pati?"
Somewhere deep inside him, I think Jalal suspects the truth of the pregnancy story of Ruq ... and likewise there was also a wee bit of distance between Hamida and Ruq on this subject even though overtly she gifted Ruq the khandani kangans that she herself wore when she was expecting Jalal. Ruq herself is on the verge of self-betrayal if she's hookah-smoking behind people's backs. But the day when Ruq will be unmasked and have to return the kangans to Hamida is not far away.
Even yesterday the Zee man has re-confirmed to one of our members who called him that "Maham will expose this fake pregnancy of Ruq and bring Ruq down". Now I am only waiting to see if it all happens in the mega eisode itself or slightly later. But I am dead sure they will not elongate this misery and very soon Ruq will be exposed.
That is because I feel that this Ruq pregnancy affair is just a chota-mota issue, and the larger tracks of Adham's exposure on the accounts and his death etc. are still up in the air and Todarmal has been cooling his heels since he came to Agra. I expect all those unclosed loops to be now closed on the bigger story issues, thanks to IPL ending this week, and this kind of small matter of Ruq faking pregnancy will not last beyond a couple of episodes. Still there is Shivani's wedding to be completed too!
For those who want the story of what happened yesterday, here it is:
Jodha goes to Ruq's room, when to her surprise Ruq behaves so achingly sweet to her that it feels to Jodha like there must be some sting in the tail. Jodha is tentative, but Ruq is all sweetness and light! She warmly greets Jodha and offers to straighten her earring for her which was a bit teda. She asks Jodha whether she had a good night's sleep or whether she was playing with Rahim too late? Then she starts telling Jodha how much Jalal loves her (Ruq) and how happy he now is that his childhood sweetheart Ruq is to bear his long-awaited waaris. And then Ruq comes to the point. She says she is unable to trust anybody else - any baandhis - to care for her needs at this time because of the miscarriage the last time and because enemies abound at Agra. So could Jodha undertake her full care and attention? For starters, her legs were swollen ,so could Jodha massage her feet?
Jodha, to my great anger, agrees to do all this after a small bit of doubtful hesitatation. I was at first frightfully angry with Jodha for not putting Ruq in her place. But then I remembered that there is a saying "Killing with kindness". That was what Jodha decided to do, I think. She returns Ruq's saccharine sweetness with her own brand of over-protective molly-coddling and not only massagesher feet but also starts acting as if she is in charge. She bans the hookah for Ruq, and orders the bandhis to be on the alert to Ruq's many needs. She actsin front of Ruq like she isloving giving her the heartfelt attention she needs, but after she leaves Ruq's room, she startsfeeling all the weight of this "humiliation" and goes to her own room weeping!
That is where Jalal finds her, when she had not returned to his room as promised. He is hopping mad to hear that Ruq was making Jodha do her work and he objects strongly. He is almost on the verge of going and telling off Ruq when Jodha catches him by the hand and stops him. "I cannot accept this, Jodha Begum, " he says "I cannot see tears in your eyes". Jodha then replies with steadfast eyes and a determination in her voice "I want to do this for you, for your unborn baby, that is a part of your flesh and blood. Everything that is yours is mine and I want to cherish all that is yours. It gives me great satisfaction to do this for you". Jalal's eyes shed a very telling tear as he grabs her face and gives her a kiss on the forehead ."There are so many shades of you that I love, but this is one of the best of all. What a large heart you have ,Jodha Begum!" he says.
He is about to leave the room, when he suddenly he changes tack and returns to her again and asks her the same question he had asked her the previous day "How many wives exactly did Kanha have?" Jodha tells him the exact number - 16108! And then he says "But with whom is Kanha always seen in moorthy form?" The answer is clear, he is always only with his Radha, isn't he? Jalal lets the truth sink in to Jodha's mind. Then with a softness in his voice Jalal says "Today I am going to make a big elan! I want you to be present when I do that!" She nods her agreement. He caresses her hair and face tenderly and kisses her hands. And then after giving her a last lingering look he goes out of the room.
What elan is this going to be? Folks, I have a feeling that Ruq's plans to belittle Jodha are going to get squashed out of sight with this elan. In some way Jalal is going to elevate Jodha's title and role in his life. I have a feeling it's not going to be the MUZ title or even the Begum-e-Khas kind of title, but my hunch is that he is going to give her some status as his "chosen and special one". I wait eagerly! I think Jalal knows that Ruq is taking advantage of her audha to reduce Jodha to ashes in the Begum hierarchy. Jalal is going to give Jodha the kind of specialness that Radha had to Krishna. I am so curious to know what he will do and what that special way will be whereby he elevates her to a rank equal if not slightly better-sounding that Ruq's pompous Begum-e-Khas!
Anway, Jodha continues to help Ruq with her care, and the next time Ruq asks for a head massage for her headache - which Jodha obliges her with. Just then Jalal enters the room to see Jodha giving this head maasage, as Salima and Hamida also appear there. Hamida seems entirely satisfied that Jodha is now taking full care of Ruq and she gifts the khandani kangans to Ruq which she herself got from her mother-in-law when she was carrying Jalal. Ruq shows off these kangans without an ounce of shame in the fact that she's faking this whole pregnancy and laying false claim to these khandani kangans.
Salima comments on the sweetest part of it all being how sisterly Ruq and Jodha have now become. Jalal watches the goings-on with interest ... but I suspect Jodha is still the only thing on his mind. When Jodha then goes to another part of the room to make up some sherbet for Ruq, Jalal says to Ruq that he has to go because work beckons him. But instead of directly going away, he sits on his haunches besides Jodha and starts whispering secretively to her, to Ruq's utter chagrin "You're taking too much care of everyone else, why don't you find some time to care for me also? I want to talk to you. Come over to my khwabgah." Jodha demurs, whispering to him "How can I come now?" and then he says with another whisper "Maybe a little later but please try to come fast, okay?" Then with a boyish and extremely naughty expression he walks off. This khus-phus secretive stuff gets Ruq's goat! She has sharpened her ears but is not able to get what they are talking about ... but the very fact that his face was close to Jodha's and he was murmuring private things to her was not what Ruq liked.
Hardly five minutes elapse from when Jalal goes away whereupon a bandhi comes into Ruq's room saying the Shahenshah has urgently called for Jodha Begum. Again Ruq does not like the sound of that, while Jodha senses that he is up to his tricks again. She takes leave of Ruq and goes to Jalal's room. He is standing there like a thief whose ruse had been exposed but he doesn't care so long as he gets what he wanted!
"You called me, Shahenshah?" Jodha asks silkily. "Yes Jodha Begum" he says, "last time you had left your work half done with me. I heard that you Rajvanshi princesses are always correct about serving your pati?" "Yes, that's true" says Jodha, not belieiving one word of his dialogue and knowing he has some naughtiness up his sleeve. "You see, Jodha Begum" he says, now sounding genuinely troubled "I am having these serious aches and pains and don't know what to do about them?"
For a moment Jodha iss taken in and she says "Where is it hurting?". He catches her hand in his and puts in on his heart and says "The pain is here" and she has to smile. "You see Jodha Begum," he says, "so long as you are with me all is fine, but the minute you go away from me this dil of mine starts aching and stops beating! And then only after I see you this heart gets peace." Jodha drops her hand and starts mock-scolding him "This is not OK. Are you doing jhoota-bahana to get me here when I am working there?'. He is very quick to reply "And what about your jhoota-bahana of work which you use to get away from me? Anyway I know its Ruq's time to take rest now, so how about you giving my heart some peace now?". She smiles outright. He is a loving but extremely mischievous guy!
Meanwhile in Ruq's room she is not resting, she is fretting and fuming not liking the way Jalal is showing he cannot exist without Jodha even for a few minutes. "Bring me my hookah" she scolds the baandhi suddenly forgetting that she has to keep up the act of being pregnant!
In Jalal's room however all is supremely at peace. He is sleeping with his head in Jodha's lap, getting his head massaged and saying "Are you a princess or a magician, your fingers are so good with the massage". The longer it takes for Jodha to return to her room, the greater becomes Ruq's consternation. "Hope they both aren't at it again" she says to herself.
Jalal is so enjoying the massage with his eyes closed, when a bandhi comes into the room and gets a scolding for interrupting him. But the bandhi persists "Huzur, Ruq's health is deteriorating!". Jalal and Jodha look concerned, but I think Ruq has resorted to a desperate ploy to break up the couple wiith this fake urgency.
The whole episode is thus about this cat and mouse game where Ruq does her best to separate Jodha and Jalal, but they checkmate her attempts by grabbing private moments whenever they can. It is all so sweet, but underlying the overall cuteness of the episode I sense some teda shrewdness in Jalal - as if he doesn't quite believe in the Ruq story but is going along for now. Somehow compared to the last time Ruq was pregnant, this time Jalal looksa bit lukewarm to Ruq's pregnancy. Could be my imagination, but I did sense some reserve in him that makes me wonder if he knows already that Ruq can never become a mother and that she is faking it! If Hamida has heard this from the lady hakim that Ruq can never be a mother again and she can have this doubt about the truth of this latest pregnancy, could Jalal not have this doubt also? Especially when he cannot even remember sleeping with Ruq of late?
The precap of the episode however goes completely into a different angle. The ever-aroused Adham Khan who presumably had been eyeing Shehnaaz since her arrival was seen grabbing her dupatta and saying "Give me what I want, my girl!". Shehnaaz., putting on her childish act then gives him her dupatta (and stands in just a skirt and choli in public) saying "Okay take my dupatta if you want to wear it." But then Adham goesa step too far in grabbing her hand. With a recoil as fast as a vicious snake, Shehnaaz gives a hard and sound slap across Adham's face! Jodha who is walking past is stalled in her tracks.
When will this Adham realise that he should not try to run after anything in a skirt? And when will he realise that this "girl" in her childishly innocent act is actually a calculative cobra in disguise? He had this slap coming for a long time and it became Shehnaaz's privilege to hand it to him!
My comments on this episode:
How much do Jalal and Hamida already know?
Folks, I don't know how many of you agree with me, but don't we see the glimmer of knowingness in Jalal that he suspects Ruq? Or is it just my imagination? I say so because I felt that this deliberate whispering to Jodha to come to his hojra and give him TLC was all for Ruq's benefit! I thought he was trying to make Ruq know that there was something between him and Jodha and he was trying to get back at Ruq for making a servant out his lady love!
Later, when Jodha was tearful in her room after being humiliated by Ruq, Jalal shed a tear with her when she pleaded with him not to scold Ruq as she wanted to serve the baby that was part of Jalal's flesh and blood. But after that bit of emotionality, when Jalal asked Jodha to reiterate that Radha was the most precious of consorts to Krishna, and that he was going to make an important elan which she should also come and hear, I thought I saw a determination of steel behind Jalal's eyes. He was not going to stand for any rank-pulling by Ruq on Jodha. He was going to make it plain for all to see how special and unique Jodha was to him.
How he would do this I am not sure, but I feel that after this elan, even Ruq with her story pf pregnancy and her anticipation of MUZ title will fall in a despondent heap on the floor and wish to sink into the ground. I wouldn't be surprised if Ruq thinks Jalal is going to announce her own elevation to MUZ ... but what Jalal will say at the elan, she won't have anticipated!
Again on the matter of the khandani kangans I feel sure one ugly scene will soon happen where Ruq has to return the kangans back to Hamida when she is exposed for the fake pregnancy. That will be worse humiliation for Ruq than the exposure of her lie itself! Imagine having to "give back" all that she cornered under the guise of a pregnancy? There again it looks to me like Hamida knows what she is doing. I feel she too is not 100% convinced about this pregnancy although she doesn't show it openly. I thought that kangan was one way of trapping Ruq. Maybe Hamida wanted to see if Ruq would carry this story so far that she would even accept the kangans blithely?
I know many of you may not agree with me about this reticence of Jalal and Hamida to swallow Ruq's story, but I am personally very convinced that I do not see full acceptance in them both on this story of Ruq's. There is some "lack of overflowing joy" in Jalal, or I feel he would have been so taken by the birth of this child that he may not be able to give Jodha so much attention! Agreed he has recently discovered new depths of love for Jodha, but even so would he not be more effusive about the waaris being on its way? And wouldn't Hamida gush even more? Something is lacking ...
The ultra-cuteness of Jalal's love for his beloved Jodha
Aside from this issue of doing right by his lady love, I thought the love sequences between Jalal and Jodha were ultra-cute. I like this new naughty Jalal and I like this new Jodha that pretends initially not to understand his wicked plans to get her to himself. I loved the way he then changes his naughtiness into words of genuine love. He first played pranks with her to get her to his room, but once there look at the way he said "My heart stops beating when you are not there, so you have to be around me to give my errant heart some peace!"
And then that exquisite scene where he has his head in her lap as she teases his hair with her fingers.
Ufff, ufff, ufff!
(When I am out of words, this "ufff" is a very useful way to describe my feelings and I notice many of you have started borrowing it from me! Now that the love scenes have started in full earnest I going to charge you all for using my word "Uff". Each time you also say "Uff" you have to pay me ten bucks. And then I'll become rich and get the title of Marium-Uff-Zamani!)
A comparison of the tactics of our villains
Folks, I just noticed something I wanted to share. Each of the three villains - Ruq, Maham and Shehnaaz - has her own tactics of "enemy management" which I couldn't help but notice.
Ruq has a pattern about the way she tries to overcome her enemies. She first gets unusually friendly with her adversary to the point of being sickeningly sweet. Then she decides to checkmate them by a game of "occupying their time" to prevent them from being able to go against her wishes. She is doing just that with Jodha. Saccharine sweetness, followed by total occupation of Jodha's time! But it's not a very clever idea and Ruq will never be totally successful. Because any clever person with even an ounce of smartness should get easily alerted when they see this unusually sweet behaviour in Ruq - which is so not the usual Ruq!
This technique of enemy management by Ruq is in stark contrast to Maham's technique which is quite different entirely. Maham begins to spew venom at her adversaries right from the start. And then she goes to her next step of planting "clues" to implicate her enemies in sordid doings. Maham is cleverer than Ruq because through her initial vehement and aggressive attacking style she wrong-foot's her enemies ... and when they are off-balance she quickly plants clues against them. She throws people at a disadvantage by her sudden and unanticipated attack first.
Shehnaaz's style is very different again from the above two. Shehnaaz does very little to the enemies themselves. Instead she changes her own behaviour so as not to alert the enemy by either getting sweet with them or by getting aggressive with them. She flies under the radar of suspicion, because she hardly does anything to the enemy while she controls her game entirely by just changing her own persona cleverly. But then notice how she reacts when the enemy is fully taken in by her childish appearance. She strikes back physically as she did in the Adham case. She also showed this physical strike-back in a subtler way when she took the haar from Jalal in childish innocence and then tore it apart brutally physically. She also took the dolls sweetly in her hands and then screwed the neck off the Jalal doll. She plays by disguise first and by going for the kill next.
That was just my analysis of the three villains and their styles. Of all three I think Shehnaaz is the most dangerous because her game is so unobtrusive till the moment of vicious kill. The other two betray themselves by their "foreplay" of "sweetness" or "aggressiveness" so that the clever enemy will get alerted that something else is coming!
Book Talk
Anupamaa
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