Friends, I'm going to do a very short update today because we have no power for the first half of the day and I'm working off the inverter at a furious pace.
Yesterday's episode was so-so. It was again a build up for the war that seems imminent next week. The episode was a bit intriguing because of the hunt that was on in earnest for Chand Begum, and what do you know ... Jalal got ever so close to finding her but then Adham sidetracked him successfully, and Maham bolted with her captive.
Apart from that we had a lollipop scene of Jalal having a bath and Jodha applying lep on his back. The added plus point of this lollipop scene was that we were able to see Ruq heading for the same hamam khema, but then after hearing that Jodha is already inside with Jalal, she turned on her heel and walked off in a huff! Thank God!
And we then had another semi lollipop scene of Jodha and Jalal talking towards the very end of the episode when Jalal tells Jodha "You know, that place behind the rock slab where you thought you heard voices? I strongly feel in my bones that Chand Begum was there!"
So it's clear even if Jalal has not got hold of Chand Begum his instincts are telling him she was there in that surang! But meanwhile as per the precap, Jalal was stunned that the war is upon him. He had thought he had time to change Nigar's mind by finding her mother and then convincing her that he was not her mother's captor. But alas, Nigar seems to have joined forces with haste with the Mahchuchak army, probably now being headed by Abul Mali, and they have declared war on Jalal. Jodha was seen telling Jalal he has to now fight the war and cannot be weak about it, even if it is his sister against him, because the war has been thrust upon them!
So the only high points in the episode were the dialogues of despondency that Jalal gave to Jodha while she tried to bolster his mood ... and the way Jalal and his men fanned out in different directions but all drew blanks as far as finding Chand Begum goes. And meanwhile they Nigar-Mali camp has declared war on Jalal that he has to give priority to, and he thus may have to shelve the search for Chand Begum at least till the war is over.
One thing is for certain here. What the Zee man told me has come 100% true so far. He said Chand Begum will be found only after the war and the war will now be the first thing to happen and then they will discover Chand Begum. That mush seems to be on track as he said!
For those who need the whole episode of what happened , here is a brief gist ...
Jalal in the DEK orders Atga, Todarmal, Sharif and Adham to split up and find Chand Begum by nightfall on that same day. Maham tells Adham she will try to shift Chand Begum from the surang but Adham should stick with Jalal and be the one to show the surang to Jalal and not let Todarmal or Atga lead Jalal to the surang.
At the palace, later, Jalal in in his bath, when Jodha appears by his side and applies lep for his wounds on his back. Ruq tries to come to the hamam khema but on hearing that Jodha is already there with Jalal, she gets miffed and goes away. In the bath, Jalal tells Jodha of his great hurt at the treachery of his own sister who now wants to kill him. Jalal says Jodha has no lep unfortunately for the wounds on his dil. He asks her to pray to Kanha that Chand Begum should be found and Nigar should be talked out of her galat faimis that Jalal has kidnapped her mother. Jodha says she is sure he will be successful. He leans his head against her hand, as she caresses his head.
Shehnaz rides towards a group of soldiers who first think she is the enemy. But Abul Mali, who heads them recognises her and says "She is on our side". Mali then tells Nigar "You may have been followed by Jalal's soldiers so we had all better leave from here and go elsewhere." But Nigar protests that she cannot leave her mother behind. Mali says there is no time, and that the rest of the army that is coming from Kabull can try to rescue her mother, or one of them can come back later.
Meamwhile Jalal's band of men take different directions. Atga goes with a group of soldiers and decides to follow some footprints. Todarmal takes Hakim Mirza and some sipahis with him. Sharif has his own group of men, which includes Munim Khan. And Adham and his posse of men try to stick as close as possible to Jalal and his men. Adham hopes his mother has managed to shift Chand Begum fast from the surang, because Jalal and his men are hovering too close to the surang.
Maham meanwhile goes to the surang and checks if all preparations are ready for the shifting of Chand Begum. She then tells Chand Begum, who is still mad and childish, that she will take her to her daughter but on condition that she agrees to cover herself fully and make no noise. The guileless Chand Begum agrees to this, and goes with Maham. As this group leaves the surang and moves through the undergrowth, however, they have to pass by Jalal, who immediately turns to watch acutely when he hears sounds. Adham, who is to hand, spots his mother's gang in the nearby bushes and distracts Jalal in the opposite direction and thus Maham and gang flee safely away from Jalal.
Jalal meanwhile is almost at the mouth of the surang and sees the same stone wall blocking it, which he previously saw when he had come with Jodha. He remembered that Jodha has said she heard voices behind that wall. So he orders his men to move the wall. When the stone wall is finally moved the surang within is visible. Jalal goes in with Adham, holding a mashal, but there is nothing there.
Empty handed, Jalal returns to the palace, and double-checks with Atga, Todarmal, Sharif, Adham and Hakim about their progress, but finds that they too have drawn blanks everywhere. He tells them all not to give up, but later when he is in his room by himself, he is extremely despondent with the total lack of progress. Jodha arrives in his room, and Jalal again talks of how Shehnaaz (Nigar) is hurting them both by upholding such negativity about Jalal,yet he is not able to do anything about it.
But then, just as they are both talking of this, Jalal suddenly changes subject. He tells Jodha "You know that stone wall behind which you thought you heard voices when we last took the secret path from the jail? I got the strong feeling today somehow that Chand Begum had been in that place!"
In the precap, Jodha is seeing talking to a dumbstruck Jalal with a sense of urgency in her voice. "Shahenshah, they have declared war on us. You now have no choice but to fight. Please do not succumb to weakness".
My comments on this episode:
It was mostly a filler episode but nevertheless it had its moments of suspense when Jalal was very close to detecting Maham and her gang moving Chand Begum. Other than this one moment of intriguing action, the rest of the episode was rather blah.
The thing that struck me was that the deputies of Jalal were such a group of men that there were two loyalists (Atga and Todarmal )neutralised by two antagonists (Adham and Sharif). I was wondering how in hell Jalal could hope to have all their efforts coincide in the search for Chand Begum?
Atga and his sipahis seemed searching in earnest but following some footprints to nowhere.
Todarmal had Hakim Mirza with him in his group. Now Hakim Mirza seems not to know yet that Abul Mali has taken charge of his mother's armies that have arrived from Kabul, and he blissfully is helping Jalal trace Chand Begum, knowing only part of the story that Shehnaaz is Nigar, she is the daughter of Chand Begum and she has taken it into her head that Jalal is her enemy. All he could think of cluck-clucking over with Todarmal is that this whole Chand begum finding activity was fraught with danger for Jalal. How will Hakim Mirza's loyalties change the moment he hears that war has been declared by his brother in law and Nigar at the head of his mother's armies?
The dubious Sharf and the even more dubious Munim Khan were in one group (God bless them!) and Sharif was busy ruminating about this farman supposedly with Ngar. Did she really have proof of her entitlement and has she shown it to Jalal, seemed to be the question churning in his mind as he ostensibly aided the search for Chand Begum without any sense of urgency at all.
Adham and his band of men meanwhile had only one objective: how to distract Jalal and his men away from Maham as she shifted Chand Begum out of the surang!
With this motley group of half supportive and half-negative men Jalal was trying to conduct a search? I felt sad for him having hardly a couple of men he could trust in a situation like this even though he was the head of a huge Sultanate!
The way Maham managed to easily get Chand Begum to go with her suggested to me that Chand Begum was getting slightly better mentally already. Previously she used to hug the doll and act as if the doll was her daughter. But yesterday when Maham said "I will take you to your daughter if you stay covered and make no noise" and Chand Begum readily agreed, it was as if Chand Begum is now in some middle territory between madness and recovery. She still hugs the doll as her daughter but is also willing to "go to her daughter" who is supposed to be elsewhere. So that means "the doll being her daughter" is a myth that is slightly leaving her.
Where has Maham taken Chand Begum is still unknown to us, but I feel sure that Jalal and Jodha are going to go back into the surang again since Jalal had had doubts that Chand Begum was there at some time. Perhaps they will find clues as to where she may have gone by seeing what she has left behind in the surang?
The whole idea of Maham - that Adham should cleverly put himself in the position of escorting jalal into the surang if ever he goes there (and not let Todarmal or Atga do this Jalal-accompanyinhg) - seemed like a good idea when Maham planed it, but it was doomed for failure the moment Jalal remembered that he and Jodha had visited the jails before and taken the surang path from within, and come to that stone wall exactly from where Jodha had heard voices. Adham and Maham had not calculated for Jodha and Jalal having already been in that area once and so Maham's plans look a bit wobbly to me. I have a feeling that even if the war starts meanwhile, and Jodha and Jalal cannot find time during the war to search for the surang, some self-goal by Maham will reveal Chand Begum's whereabouts to Jodha and Jalal. Maham is certainly no longer as sharp as she was and is often betraying that she is a bit reactive these days instead of being pro-active.
Accvha, now the war is upon them, so I expect this Friday episode today to be all about Jalal being stunned by the war and having to make hasty preparations and having to decide who goes into the war, and whether Jodha will fight in his place against Nigar (because he will not fight his own sister and a lady). I guess this one Friday episode will be the last "sentiment-laden" response to the war call, and by Monday Jalal and his troops would have got reconciled to facing the war and even winning it.
I can't wait for Monday, but my interest in Friday lingers because I want to see why Salima and Ruq were seen in war dress, but no spoilers have yet come with Jodha in war dress!
