Friends, I thought yesterday's episode was quite good. When I thought about it, after seeing it for the third time from start to finish, there were four things I noticed that I liked ...
One, every single actor acted well yesterday, without exception. Even the characters we love to hate (like Maham and Mahchuchak and Shehnaaz) did their roles well in a relatively controlled way. As for Zakira, Todarmal, Todarmal's wife, Moti Bai and Hamida ...they too were not OTT in their roles. Todarmal's wife was forceful but never lost her dignity. Hamida was just right for a sage Queen. And coming to Jalal and Jodha, I thought they both were spectacular, especially in the toofan scenes and then their fleeting talks on the windblown terrace.
Two, the movement of events in the episode kept up a good pace - and the cuts between shots were perfect. No shot extended too long and no shot was over-exaggerated. The Director could have overdone the toofan, but he didn't. It was just right to create that right amount of tension in the atmosphere and it did enough to give its ashubh sanket - as it reflected the turmoil in Jalal and Jodha's minds. Even the Kabul shots were over as quickly as they could be - and the direction, sequencing and delivery of the pace of the cuts between shots was wonderful. All in all, it was a great piece of direction and scene to scene editing, and I enjoyed the episode for its overall quality and momentum.
Three, I thought the use of the toofan and the "bhuj gaya diyas" was used nicely yesterday in the serial to give indications of ill-omen and to show Jodha and Jalal that something was terribly amiss with their decisions on the Shehnaaz versus Todarmal issue. Actually speaking, toofans and diyas going off are very cliched items in serials when it comes to giving apshagun sankets. But even though it was a cliche, it felt natural somehow yesterday, and I did not get that over-cinematic feeling when I saw it. Maybe it's because of good direction, good acting and just the right amount of the hint of inauspiciousness that was created. (Actually the first toofan came earlier when Todarmal's wife gave that sensational speech to Jodha that rattled her by the sheer trust that lady had in her husband and the valour she showed. So when later a real toofan came on the heels of the toofan Todarmal's wife had started to fan up in Jodha's mind, the whole situation gathered a head. Additionally when Jodha saw Jalal talk to her in such despondency that he wished he had no "dil" to suffer so much - and then he walked away from Jodha - the third toofan seemed to blow at Jodha, and the full sanket of "something being horribly wrong" came through brilliantly.)
Four, the story is now progressing leaps and bounds, judging by the precap. The first indicator that things were hotting up was the death sentence that Jalal gave to Todarmal to be executed the very next day. That showed the speed at which the story was progressing. Then we had Mahchuchak saying the army will march out to Agra that night itself. And finally we have Shehnaaz telling Maham that she was expecting any moment that the forces of Mahchuchak would arrive for the final takht battle with Jalal. But by far the best sanket of speedy solution of the Shehnaaz unmasking came in the precap, when Jodha, for some reason, slapped Shehnaaz hard. The first time she did this Shehnaaz reacted in her usual childish way. Jodha then shaped up to give her another slap, which Shehnaaz averted by holding off Jodha's hand. But in that moment she lost her childishness and betrayed her true identity. The scales seemed to fall from Jodha's eyes.
When could this precap scene happen? Jaya last night sent me an SMS and I loved her theory of how this "slap" scene may happen. Jaya's idea was that Todarmal may be asked by Atga to name his last wish, and he may say he wants to talk to Shehnaaz one more time. During this talk, Shehnaaz may show her evil adult side which Jodha may clearly notice. So when Shehnaaz returns from that talk with Todarmal, Jodha may resort to exposing her by slapping her, perhaps knowing that Shehnaaz may react to the sudden unexpected slaps in an adult way and betray herself. Immediately after she thus gets betrayed (and before the cannon shots can go off to kill Todarmal), the desperate Shehnaaz knowing she has been exposed by Jodha may hold a knife at Jodha to keep Jalal at bay from coming to Jodha's help.
Two of the many spoilers that have come out last night (from Fuzion, I think) suggest two things: one spoiler suggests that Shehnaz may kidnap Jodha at knife point and asks whether Jalal will be able to save Jodha; and the second spoiler suggests that Jodha and Jalal as a team will investigate this Shehnaaz and in the process of uncovering her hand in the crown poisoning and Todarmal rape charges, they may additionally also uncover the fact that Shehnaaz's mother Chand Begum has been actually kept in incarceration for a long while by Maham. (I personally think Jalal and Jodha will come to know this but as yet Shehnaaz may not know that it was Maham that kidnapped and jailed her mother, and hence when Mahchuchak's army comes, Shehnaaz may fight with that army still thinking Jalal to be her mother's kidnapper.)
I wonder if all this unmasking of Shehnaaz and Shenaaz's knife-giri will happen this week, leading Shehnaaz to become a cornered rat by the end of Friday, so that by Monday we start having the war scenes. Additionally there are one or two spoilers of Salima in war dress and we have also seen Ruq in war dress with bow and arrow etc. So does that mean that the war begins inside the palace, perhaps in the harem to start with? We have no clue, except that we are trying to make sense of all the spoilers and see if they form any picture when they are all seen together as possible directions of this week and the immediate next week.
Things are really poised beautifully by now, and I am also looking forward to the war scenes, because I like seeing Jalal and Jodha in action. I also want to see poor forlorn Zakira out of jail, and I want to see Todarmal stand upright again with his head held high rather than as a stooped figure under the weight of accusation!
For those who'd like a full exposition of what happened yesterday, here it in brief:
The episode opens with Jalal standing near the tarazu, the spot he always goes to when in uljhan. He clearly was in two minds - all the evidence and witnesses seemed to be supporting Shehnaaz in her rape claims against Todarmal, and yet Jalal could not but help believing that Todarmal was too upright a man to ever do something as heinous as molesting Shehnaaz and then casting aspersions that it was she who poisoned the crown. Yesterday, though, at the the tarazu, Jalal did not have the benefit of Jodha's advice for she was neck-deep in the midst of the issue herself, having pleaded on behalf of Shehnaaz. So instead Hamida came to the tarazu to talk to Jalal,and that shows us that when Jodha is not available, the person Jalal turns most to these days is probably Hamida!
Hamida told Jalal that there was only one person who could help him make the right decision and that was the Shahenshah inside him. Whenever that Shahenshah in him had made decisions they had turned out right. "Ask the King in you" said Hamida as she left Jlalal there to think through what she had said. He stood for a long while pondering.
In subsequent scenes we could see that the whole palace was now agog with this issue. Ruq and her harem friends were all discussing it while in Hamida's room, Salima, Hamida, Gulbadan and JijiAnga were also discussing this. "I hope Jalal makes a right decision" said Hamida "I am so worried for him."
The next morning dawned bright and it was the day when Jalal was to deliver his verdict. He was seen in the DEK looking visibly perturbed and very ill at ease. But he did his duty without flaking. He asked the maulvis their opinion. The maulvis said they believed Todarmal to be the culprit for the eye witnesses had all favoured Shehnaaz's version of the story. (Whether the maulvis already had some antipathy towards the Hindu Todarmal and therefore said this, we can't say.) Jalal was asked by the maulvis to decide the ultimate punishment for Todarmal and with a heavy heart Jalal pronounced it ..."Let Todarmal be stood in front of a cannon and shot tomorrow!".
Stunned silence marked the DEK. Jodha was especially uneasy despite having had this dubious victory for Shehnaaz. But most moved of all was Todarmal's wife who with great dignity bore her husband's immense pain on her face and shed but a teardrop or two in public. Jalal left the DEK immediately after the pronouncement as if he could not bear to stand there a moment longer and he never raised his eyes to Todarmal. He merely told Atga to uphold Todarmal's last wishes and left.
Shehnaaz alone had a look of triumph in her eyes, and in that moment, folks, I felt like squeezing her neck myself. I just could not stand that look of evil glee that flitted across her face. How wrong life goes sometimes and yet no one is able to do anything about it! Shehnaaz also had flashbacks of the moment when in the quiet of her room Todarmal had unmasked her truth and threatened to tell all to JalaI, and in that split second she had decided to pre-empt Todarmal with this rape charge to prevent him carrying out his threat!
In the next scene Maham was seen congratulating Shehnaaz for her chaal in fulsome words. She flattered and praised her acumen. But Maham also said "Shehnaaz, it is now better if you leave Agra quietly, for your chaal is sure to come out sooner or later." But Shehnaaz totally stumped Maham with her answer. She said "Oh, no problem about that, I have already summoned Mahchuchak's army and it may already be closing in on Agra, for my final takht battle with Jalal". Maham looked a bit shaken by the speed of Shehnaaz's mind.
At Kabul, Mahchuchak was talking to Fazal about her alliance of convenience with Haider, when Fazal gifted her something in anticipation of her impending victory in war against Jalal. Clearly Mahchuchak intended to pretend to help Shehnaaz but wanted the takht that Jalal occupied for her own self and planned to double cross Shehnaaz at the very end of the war. Fazal gifted her a special mohur she could use in her new capacity as Queen of the Sultanate and Mahchuchak was so inspired that she gave orders for the army (of Haider) to march to Agra that night itself!
In her hojra, Jodha was looking very downcast - for the sentence on Todarmal tasted like mud in her mouth. Moti was saying to Jodha "How brave Todarmal's wife looked in the DEK as the sentence was pronounced" and Jodha agreed she too had seen that. But just then Todarmal's wife barged into the room and with controlled aggression told Jodha "What has happened isn't right. You've known Shehnaaz only for a little while, but I've known my husband for a really long time. I know he would not have done all this. You are unable to see through Shehnaaz's chaal. But when you get to know the truth it will be too late and you will rue it all your life that an innocent was shot down by a cannon by your acts of complicity with Shehnaaz! All I ask is that I can be present at the execution of my husband tomorrow so that I can see him go to his end as the upright and honest man he always was, and I can be proud of him in his last moments" Jodha was rattled beyond measure by these words. What a woman this lady was, and what complete faith in her husband, and what powerful parting words those were where she said she wanted to witness the end of that great man as his proud wife!
In jail poor Zakira was also shell-shocked to see Todarmal returning there in chains. He had gone from his previous visit promising the exposure of Shehnaaz. "She has absolved herself of the crown poisoning and also implicated me in a rape charge" he told Zakira, "but my real worry is now not for myself, but for Jalal's safety!" Zakira put her hand to her mouth in utter disbelief!
And then came the real signs of turmoil reaching a crescendo. A sudden unexpected toofan hit the palace, rattling the window panes and blowing gusts of air through the rooms of the palace. The skies were growing dark and ominous and the toofan threatened to carry away everything in its wake. In their respective hojras Jodha and Jalal felt it to be a very ill-omen, and somehow their unease about the "horribly wrong decision they may have made" started troubling their souls. In Jodha's hojra, twice the eternal diya placed before Kanha went off. It jjust wouldn't flicker on. Jodha was alarmed at this sanket of apshagun. Meanwhile Jalal was thinking "Here comes the storm, and I fear that after that will be that eerie silence in which my decisions will starkly stand before me, taunting me that I had been totally wrong. I feel it in my bones, that Todarmal could not have done this, but what could I do before all these witnesses testifying against him?"
Jodha and Jalal walked towards each other on the terrace till they met midway between their hojras. "You should not have come out in this weather" Jodha tried to tell Jalal, but his mind was in a vexatious place. "I hope you are happy, Jodha Begum" he said, "for I am not. How I wish I had no "dil" and I was back in my old ruthless days when I could feel nothing. I am unable to bear these feelings in me now, racking me about the big mistake I seem to be making." And with that he just turned away from Jodha and walked away, leaving her alone to face the relentless toofan in her own heart.
In the precap, we see an entirely different Jodha. She is so determined that she is shooting daggers at Shehnaaz even just looking at her. She raises her hand and slaps Shehnaaz on her cheek with a loud rap. Shehnaaz immediately reverts to her childish self, asking what she had done. But the fiery Jodha then shapes for a second resounding slap when Shehnaaz's face drops all childishness and reveals its evil quality as she holds back Jodha's hand. In that moment of revelation Jodha sees Shehnaaz for who she really is!
My comments on this episode:
There's a beautiful quote by Voltaire that says: "It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one." There's another quotation that even more poignant by Cassandra Clare : "No one blames me, but that doesn't matter when I blame myself."
This whole episode yesterday made me think of a King's life when so much is at stake on his decisions. A mistake here and there can be so costly that the King could easily lose his peaceful sleep for the rest of his life. Jodha and Jalal here, in this story, get a chance to change their decisions while there is still time, and we know that the decision on Todarmal is sure to be reversed when the truth about Shehnaaz comes out just in the nick of time. But what of those countless decisions, small and big, that someone in Jalal's position has to take every day, that can make or break lives, grow or erase faith in his judgment, or give him personal peace or eternal restlessness?
I think this story is now nicely poised for us to really feel the feelings of a King. It can't be easy being the one man the whole kingdom depends on to make the right decisions all the time every time. And for Jodha it cannot be easy too, for unlike other Queens who normally stay away from such cases of right and wrong, Jodha has a tendency to try and be in the thick of things, supporting the underdog ... and she is yet to realise that sometimes the underdog is actually an undeserving recipient of her largesse.
The beautiful part of yesterday's episode for me is that not just one of them, but both of them - Jodha and Jalal - are shown independently already having misgivings about the decision against Todarmal. Thus we cannot afterwards feel bad that one of them was callous and the other one had to convince the first one to see the wrongness of the decision. I am so glad that the Creatives showed that neither Jodha nor Jalal was privately happy. Both were in the throes of guilt and doubt and the general atmospherics of the toofan were adding to their sense of imminent moments of deep remorse. Later they came together to share their private feelings, but ended up feeling even more miserable together.
I would have hated it if Jodha were shown so thoroughly sure of herself and Jalal alone was shown in guilt and unhappiness, which could have easily been the natural follow up of the great "Nari Shakti" dialogues yesterday of Jodha. Thankfully that mega episode and its belligerent display of Jodha was forgotten fast and we had a Jodha who herself was questioning why her own mind was so anguished when she knew she had supported a girl incapable of arguing her own case.
There is another angle to this whole rape charge and its sentence that strikes me. It's the relative behaviours of Todarmal and Shehnaaz. Here again I am reminded of a quote by Criss Jami that seems so apt : "In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent."
I keep thinking "Was it Todarmal's nature to be self-effacing and introverted and not defend himself more vociferously? Was it Shehnaaz's pushy nature to be more aggressive even in the guise of childishness? What made even the witnesses see a "poor sad Shehnaaz" who was actually the one making all the moves as agressor ... while they saw the "following predatory Todarmal" wrongly as the aggressor and not the victim? Was it that women naturally are assumed to be more introverted and helpless and men seen as more extravert and agrressive - and hence the benefit of doubt goes always to the woman in such cases of molestation?"
I am finding myself wondering if Todarmal will - after this near brush with death - ever see that his natural reticence, his natural introvertedness, will always be a handicap - because the people that say less to defend themselves could easily be mistaken for guilty. How many times Todarmal got the chance to explain himself and yet how many times he went away without trying to explain what he was doing. He said it was all because he wanted proof to nail the culprit with and couln't be open till he had caught the culprit red-handed. But should he not have seen that his self-restraint could be read as guilt?
I am also sure that Shehnaaz is going to be due for some harsh lessons. Her extravertedness, no matter how well couched under a disguise of childish exuberance or childish vehemence, is going to be punctured by the truth when it hits her. All this fracas has come about from the blind belief she has in her premise that Jalal is hiding her mother and withholding her inheritance. From there comes aggression against Jalal, the attempt to poison him, the unmasking of her by Todarmal and the subsequent false charge against Todarmal resulting in a unfair death before her very eyes. When she sees that her original prejudice against Jalal was all built on false premises what is to happen to the extravertedness that makes her currently look less guilty at this time, but may eventually completely desert her?
I think four people are going to get lessons from this whole situation and it will be interesting to see if they learn these lessons or continue being what they are.
Jalal needs to follow his heart more and not less. The "dil" he says he should not have had should be heard more and he has to act with even more dil even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He will learn when it is appropriate to do that, and he will not always decide by his mind overruling his heart. In this case his heart was right, and his mind should not have been allowed to stomp out his heart. His heart was not his enemy or troublemaker - it was his guide to being a better and fairer decision maker.
Jodha will have to learn that all decisions from the heart are not the right ones, for the heart can be led astray by too much overload in favour of the seemingly "helpless". She has to learn that even the so-called "helpless" ones don't automatically deserve help until the mind operates on their case and judges if that helplessness is genuine or not. Jodha is too quick to favour her heart and needs to let the mind apply some brakes now and then before she runs to the defence of the seemingly needy.
Todarmal has to learn that silence is not always golden and it can be mistaken for guilt. He has to be as forthright in his speech and as self-protective as he is upright in his integrity. All the good in you can be wasted if you cannot defend the good in you when it's needed and do so with combativeness. Despite the evidence to the contrary it could have helped a lot if there was more conviction in Todarmal's voice - not just with Jalal, but in the open court.
And Shehnaaz has to realise that being too arrogantly sure of yourself and then acting blindly and even diabolically to defend that belief, without any application of cautious thought of the situation, is terribly counterproductive. She can not only lose ground on the issue at hand but she can be so set back in life that she can never ever recover ground again.
Anyway, all this is just my own soul-searching on behalf of the four key players in this issue. Let's see how many of them introspect or change after the storm has blown over. I sure want at least Jodha and Jalal to change, even if Todarmal and Shehnaaz won't.
Bade Achhe Lagte Hain
Anupamaa
CID
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
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