Friends, this is a short write up today, because of time constraints. Anyway the episode we had yesterday was almost all action with barely any dialogue. It was all about how Khyber targeted Jodha and carried her away from the harem much to everybody's concern. He carried her away to a place - a cave - that even Mahchuchak and Abul Mali knew nothing about. And then in a strange twist he started becoming her helper and not her enemy after she told him "Please don't hurt me, I am pregnant!"
Jalal of course didn't know that - and so when he finally caught up with Khyber he unleashed his sword and his dagger at him viciously. Khyber was in in deep pain for Jalal was at his most violent, but poor Jodha was speechless not knowing how to tell Jalal that Khyber had helped her and not harmed her! So it looks like we have the beginnings of the small Jalal-Jodha misunderstanding already brewing here ...
To me, however, it does not look like there is possibility for a "huge misunderstanding" but there sure could be a small one. Jalal after all was so scared for Jodha and her babies that he will probably not tolerate any quarter of sympathy for Khyber ... Khyber himself is unable to communicate with humans since his vocabulary consists of just grunts and groans ... and if Jodha starts arguing with Jalal that Khyber helped her and did not actually even try to harm her, she is going to be seen strangely by the violently angry Jalal. After Jalal has captured and imprisoned Khyber, I suspect Jodha will try to tell Jalal the truth about Khyber actually having a heart, but it may take Jalal a while to understand that.
And meanwhile, that other spoiler we have been hearing about may take place. Jalal may take a liking to the voice of a woman singer who enters the palace, and he may decide to play up this singer just to give Jodha back the feelings of jealousy that she is giving Jalal through her sympathy for Khyber. We may thus end with a kind of "mutual jealousy" track for a short while, till sanity is restored on all sides.
What I think WILL NOT happen is that:
One, the nasty people in the palace will not think Jodha had a liaison with Khyber and demand an agni pariksha for Jodha (a la Sita of Ramayana) which was the worry of some forum members. Jalal got to Jodha fast enough yesterday to stop tongues wagging in that direction.
Maybe all those are reserved for after the mini-leap which may skip the pregnancy of Jodha for a few months and show her ready to deliver the twins.
Regarding the leaps, here's my take, if you like the sound of it ...
I think there may be two leaps ...
We could then have the story picked up again with the delivery of the twins, the happiness all round, and then the sudden illness of the twins and the subsequent death of the twins.
We may have some Ruq downfall moments if Ruq and Maham try to harm the babies in any way or have a hand in their demise. The twin babies are due to die, as we all know, and the question is whether the CVs will use that fact to make it appear as if Ruq/Maham planned it and thus Maham got Ruq caught.
We may also to see the Chand begum revelation, the Adham downfall and the Maham banishment if all that is going to be to be played out. We may see some positive events like the gathering of the Navaratnas at the court. And finally we may also have Jalal and Jodha praying for another child and undertaking the yatra-by-foot to Ajmer etc. ... and finally the birth of Salim.
It is now almost 300 episodes since the Jodha Akbar story was started and after the consummation track, there has not been much room left to show further any escalation of the love story. So apart from giving some daily lollipop scenes, there doesn't seem much that can be shown differently about the "epic love" of Jodha and Akbar ... and so the Creatives may well decide to veer into the Salim Anarkali track to begin another love story afresh.
I have seen serials for nearly ten years now and I see the signs of attrition after the consummation in JA. It is my strong personal hunch, therefore, that the CVs may well decide to shift to the Salim-Anarkali story now rather than to try and drum out the Jodha Akbar story to the point of diminishing TRP returns.
I have been dreading - and anticipating - for nearly two months now, and ever since the consummation was over, that sooner or later the Creatives will run out of masala for their "epic love" and start having to show the politics more and the love less. Now we are already at that stage, it looks like, when already the love seems less and the other goings-on more.
It's my hunch also, based on some info that has reached me, that some other actors could be chosen for the aged Jodha and Akbar characters. If the present lead pair are willing to continue they could be considered for Salim or Anarkali. But I have the inkling that Paridhi may not choose to continue (and that's perhaps why she may have been given the new "Aashiqui" role by Ekta). Regarding Rajat, we will have to wait and see if he chooses to continue with yet another historical role as Salim (which may further lock his career into such historical roles) or whether he chooses to call it quits to try something different for a change. One thing I am sure of though, in my own mind ... I doubt the current lead pair will agree to become the aged Jodha and Akbar and actually turn semi-negative against their own son Salim and his ill-fated love for Anarkali!
If you look at things from the Creatives point of view, there probably is more TRP juice available to exploit by creating sequels to Jodha Akbar (e.g. the Salim -Anarkali sequel and then after that maybe the Shah Jahan-Mumtaz Maham sequel etc.) than to just keep milking Jodha Akbar endlessly for TRPs by bringing in repetitive separation and jealousy twists, more Meena Bazaars, daily lollipop love scenes that are restricted to eyelocks and hand holdings, and more political events. Maham needs to be closed out but the new crop of villains and vamps don't seem to be of the same calibre, and so overall the Creatives seem to have hit a potential downslide in quality, and may therefore prefer to go to fresh pastures than to flog an almost dead horse (please pardon the mixed metaphors)! This is my belief based on the years of my serial watching.
For those who want the full lowdown on what happened yesterday, here it is ...
The episode begins with Khyber entering the harem menacingly. The women scream and shout and there is total mayhem. Khyber keeps sniffing at Jodha's dupatta, and soon we realise that he is gunning straight for Jodha. Moti is alarmed for she is with Jodha in the far corner. Meanwhile Resham tries to stem Khyber's advance but gets pushed to the ground mercilessly as Khyber advances towards Jodha still sniffing the dupatta and grunting loudly every five seconds or so.
Eventually he reaches Jodha and pulls her hard by the hand. The other ladies start rallying round Jodha, and try holding her back with their collective strength, but Khyber is too strong for them. He wrenches Jodha away from the group, and tosses her over his shoulder and starts walking away with her.
Jodha is distraught and shuts "Bachao". Jalal who has by then just about heaved himself out from under the heavy pillar he was pinned down by, is just in time to see Khyber walking out of the Palace gates with Jodha thrown over his shoulder! He is aghast.
Jalal and his men all rush to the Palace gates to find Khyber walking on relentlessly with Jodha , covering ground at speed with his huge strides. Jalal immediately summons some horses, and orders Atga to stay back to look after the Palace, while Mansingh and Munim Khan are asked to go with himalong with a fairly sizeable horde of troops.
Meanwhile, as Khyber treads on Jodha tries appealing to him that she is pregnant but I doubt he hears it amidst his own groans and grunts. Jodha then does a Sita act. She strips off her jewellery pieces one by one and throws them on the ground to act as markers for Jalal should he come this way in search of her.
Meanwhile, at their encampment, a sipahi comes and tells Abul Mali and Mahchuchak about Khyber having taken Jodha away and gone off God knows where! Abul Mali is immediately peeved that Khyber has thus betrayed them all - instead of killing Jalal as he ought to have done, he has taken Jodha to some unknown place! But Mahchuchak is actually thrilled with the news. She says, it was Khyber's masterstroke. Now Jalal will run to rescue Jodha - who is his "dil" - and he will thus end up here at Mahchuchak's feet begging for Jodha's life ... and he can be easily killed!
OK, so now Khyber is trekking though thick jungle, across marshy lands, a lot of wild vegetation and even across a river. He eventually reaches a cave where he summarily drops Jodha to the ground and then starts dragging her by the hand into its dark recesses. There he plonks Jodha down. He then proceeds to grunt and groan even more as he continually gets his "josh" increased by sniffing at her blood-stained dupatta. He comes close to Jodha and startles her with his ugly face and evil looks. And then he grabs a huge rock with both hands, holds the rock aloft and seems about to drop it on Jodha to crush her to death.
This is when things suddenly take a different turn. Jodha cries out in agony "Please, please, don't kill me, I am pregnant!". The great man-mountain Khyber gets halted in his tracks. His eyes take on a speculative look and his muscles de-tense. He throws off the huge rock he is carrying and moves as far away from Jodha as he can.
Khyber then seems to notice a gap in the cave walls from where light is streaming in, and he decides to plug the gap with another smaller rock wedged into the gap. This done, he then goes and sits on the ground a good distance away from Jodha.
Jodha may have thought he was securing the gap in the wall against her escape, for her expression looks like she cannot believe she has been spared. She still looks at Khyber with alarm and deep fear that he may start some other form of belligerence ... but he is quiet and self-contained, and not in the least bit inclined to ferocity. She relaxes a bit.
Jalal, meanwhile, along with his soldiers suddenly comes to a halt when he spots the huge footprints of Khyber in the marshy lands they are riding on. Seeing that they may all be on the right path, Jalal eggs his men onward to follow the trail.
Inside the cave, again, Jodha prays hard to Ambe Ma to protect her babies from danger, and she sits restlessly wondering what her fate may be if Khyber rises from his seated position again. He, meanwhile, is trying to dress his own leg wounds with a lot of loose mud to help them heal. Suddenly as Jodha looks at her own torn and bleeding palm, Khyber also notices it and comes to her side with a lot of mud in his hand. He pulls out her hurt hand from behind her and starts applying the mud he has on her wounds. He then goes back to his previous sitting position far away from her. Jodha is startled by his "help" and at the same time still very fearful and mutters to herself "Shahenshah, please come fast!".
In a little while, Khyber then gets up and goes away and it seems as if he's left Jodha alone to pass the night in the cave. Jodha is tempted to try and escape - and the gap in the rock walls gets her attention. She clambers up the wall using every foothold she can access, and reaches the small rock wedged in by Khyber. With a herculean effort she displaces that small rock and then through the small gap that she manages to open up, she climbs out of the cave and out into the open land outside the cave.
Just then she sees sipahis approaching with mashaals in hand and at first thinks them to be Jalal's sipahis and feels elated. But her happiness is very short-lived as she sees these are Mahchuchak's sipahis, with their face masks. These sipahis mock and ring-fence her in ... and then start giving dhamkis of her capture and torture at the hands of Mahchuchak. Jodha is again in trepidation as she sees herself at the centre of a ring of uncouth sipahis closing in on her very fast. "Shahenshah!" she screams at the top of her lungs as her capture by the enemies seems imminent and scary.
Jalal in the forest, and on her trail, hears the scream and is heartened that they are all in the right direction. Further he suddenly sees her glimmering jewellery in the dark and recognises the kangans he had given her to wear for the jashn. He realises Jodha has been setting up markers for him via her discarded jewellery and he starts following them with the look of a hound on the scent. "Men, we are on the absolutely right track!" he says triumphantly, "Jodha Begum, fear not, I will not let one scratch hurt you!"
But before Jalal can get to Jodha at the centre of the ring of Mahchuchak's men, someone else comes to Jodha's rescue. It is Khyber! He suddenly appears on the scene and one by one thrashes and fells the Mahchuchak sipahis to the ground, crushing the bones of many of them with his bare hands. Jodha is utterly surprised at this turn of events. And so are the Mahchuchak men. One of them says to Khyber "Hey, you are supposed to be on our side helping us!" but that is his last thought as he too is crumpled up and his life squashed out by the huge hands of Khyber.
After Khyber has thus finished off all of Mahchuchak's men, he turns to Jodha and starts shaking her by the shoulders trying to grunt and groan at her in some form of frustrating communication. It looks as if he is trying to tell her something. Maybe something like "Why did you leave the cave where you were safe? Go back in. You should not have come out to make yourself prey to the enemy." But his vocabulary is so limited to grunts that to someone else watching them could easily think that he was shaking the life out of Jodha and grunting ferociously at her before killing her.
That's exactly what it looked like to Jalal, who by then had reached the spot where Khyber and Jodha stod. Jalal took one look at the situation, thought the worst, and with his sword blade he very savagely slashed at Khyber's back. Khyber groaned in pain. Jodha had her hand to her mouth for she did not have the words to tell Jalal that maybe Khyber was a friend and not a foe. Jalal left her no chance to do that as he launched himself on Khyber with all his might and at great speed.
In the precap we see that Jalal has climbed Khyber's shoulders - and perched there is relentlessly banging Khyber's head with his own elbow till Khyber groans in even greater pain. Eventually Khyber manages to throw Jalal off his back, but Jalal then draws a dagger and stars stabbing Khyber s foot and pinning it to the ground with the sharp edge of the dagger. Khyber lets out a long moan of pain as if Jalal has got him where it hurts most!
So much then for the events of yesterday.
Since the Khyber track now stands midway in the action, I will do a more detailed analysis of Khyber's motivations and Jodha-Jalal reactions to him in the next episode post - rather than prematurely trying to gauge them by just yesterday's episode.
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