Friends, when I sent my word update by SMS last night to many friends who didn't want to watch this horrible episode, I got back return SMS-es saying "If the word update itself makes me want to puke so badly, thank God I didn't watch the episode!"
Truly, at first glance, the episode yesterday was more than puke worthy. It was DISGUSTING especially the scenes of Jalal and Atifa.
Firstly that shikar trip and Jalal's over-fondling of Atifa's hands and his eyelocks and the way he was standing too close to her and constantly rubbing shoulders with her were HORRIBLE. Add to that, his words then to Atga, when Atga was warning him against such licentious behaviour with Atifa. Jalal said "I know what I am doing is very wrong. But what can I do, Atifa has conquered my senses. I know I am cheating on Jodha but I cannot seem to help it! I never thought I could love anyone but Jodha but Atifa has ensnared me." YECH, BLECH, I felt awful to hear that admission. The words kept banging in my head like a bad migraine. And then over and above all this was that GODAWFUL scene of Atifa undressing in her khema - and Jalal standing just outside staring through the flimsy purdah. The b****y shameless hussy! How much more do we need to see before this track ends? This Atifa in this last undressing scene looked as if she knew he was there staring at her unashamedly and indeed only a jezebel like her would even undress without adequate closing of the her room with decently thicker curtains!!!!!!
I was ready for technicolor vomit myself, folks, I don't know how I lived through it all.
Then I saw an SMS from Diksha saying "Watch the scenes again ... for Jalal looks as if he knows fully well what he is doing. He knows what Atifa is up to. He is in fact following her every move with shrewdness. Watch his words to her with double meanings in the shikar scene and later watch his exact smile in the Atifa undressing scene. His smile looks like he knows she is trying to trap him!"
True enough yesterday afternoon itself we had all seen a spoiler that said that Atifa was a plant of Mahchuchak in the same possible mould of a Benazir, perhaps, and Jalal was fully aware of what Atifa was up to and was being very crafty in his handling of her, but we forgot that spoiler in the distaste of watching Jalal with Atifa in the less-than-savoury scenes.
So, as Diksha advised, I watched the episode again and again a few times more ... and guess what, Diksha was 100% right. If you watch Jalal very, very closely - and register his expressions and not just his words - they are very revealing that he is on top of this game that Atifa is playing. He clearly seems to know that she is a "honey trap", so to speak, and he is doing everything very calculatedly to outplay her at her own game, it seems.
Here are just some of the moments when we can clearly see that Jalal is fully aware of what is happening to him a la Atifa ... and that he is playing his own game in the process with her, trying perhaps to ensnare her in her own trap ...
But if any of you have the stomach for it I would highly recommend that you see the episode for yourself because the word update is not able to bring out the little nuances of Jalal's expressions and his look of knowingness. I am not able to fully bring out the cues that Jalal is giving out that he is on top of the situation and engaging in his own charades.
Anyway, here's what all happened in the episode yesterday ...
Jodha is in Jalal's hojra asking him why he is not taking her for the shikar trip. "You know I usually don't like these trips and the killing of innocent animals. But still you used to take me along for the company. This time you yourself don't seem to want me to go with you?" she asks. Jalal looks shifty-eyed, and he stares everywhere - at the walls, the floor, everywhere - except at her. He goes to sit on the bed and she follows him there. He briefly looks at the painting of Atifa and then hums and haws and says "You see, Jodha Begum, if I take you alone, the other Begums will feel upset. And it's impossible to take the whole lot. You wanted me to be a good husband to all the wives, didn't you?"
Jodha has to reluctantly accept the point. "Okay" she says ... but as she gets up to go she lingers a while longer looking at the painting of Atifa with a question in her eyes. He sees her looking at it, and bows his head so as to not reveal his thoughts.
In the jail cell of Khyber, his handler (who is disguised as a sipahi) finds a small gaping hole in the corner of the cell and matches it to the map in his hand. "How strange that neither the Shahenshah nor his wafaadaars know that there is a direct surang from this very cell to the inside rooms of the Palace. And yet begum Mahchuchak knew this and has put it on the map. Now all her plans are to come to fruition", the handler thinks.
Meanwhile some sipahis guarding the cell from outside are talking about the lucky sipahis going on shikar with the Shahenshah. "They will first do shikar and then have a jashn, no doubt" they say to each other wistfully. "Wish we could take their place some time," another sipahi says. "It's all in Sharifuddin Sahib's hands, and he won't let us switch places" says a third sipahi. Just then they hear a noise and go into the cell of Khyber to investigate. But there is just Khyber there making his graons and grunts ... and no one else.
The soldiers are relieved that the noises are only from Khyber and leave the cell. But then one of them notices that the handler of Khyber (the other inside-sipahi) was missing. They go to look inside the cell again ... but now that sipahi inside has returned and is standing there! They go away.
In the jungle, Jalal and Atga followed by the whole troupe of Tansen are seen riding on horses on the shikar trip. Jalal tells Atga to set up a khema for them all at the next clearing and Atga agrees and leaves the group to go ahead. Jalal is now riding alongside Atifa who is wearing her dupatta as a purdah on her face. "Is the weather so bad as to require a purdah?" Jalal asks her. "No Huzoor, but my husband wants me to always keep my face covered," she replies. "But your husband is not here. What I mean is, you are safe in the protection of the sipahis of the Mughal Sultanate. So why don't you lift your purdah off your face and take in the beauty of Nature while we can all take in the beauty of your face?" Jalal says. Atifa removes the purdah off her face and Jalal is seen shamelessly looking at her all the time they are riding forward.
Suddenly it looks like rain. "All of you please take shelter from the rains in the encampment," Jalal says to the group. "What? Can we not go on to do some shikar?" asks Atifa as if she is hell-bent on shikar, to which Tansen replies "No the Shahenshah wishes to rest. And until the weather clears shikar won't be possible either."Atifa to the contrary says "Oh God, how much peace there is in the open air that we won't get in the khema" and Jalal notices this and decides to give in to her wishes.
Jalal then shouts out to Tansen "I too am ready for more shikar, so Tansen Saab, you and the rest of the troupe please rest in the khemas and I will proceed for shikar." Tansen is too glad of the rest. Jalal and Atifa are thus left alone to enjoy the weather and the shikar, as they keep glancing at each other.
In Salima's room, Jodha is buying more toys for Rahim from the same toy seller. Jodha demurs when Salima asks why. "The other days some toys broke, so Rahim gets some more!" she says. "When you have your own kids, I don't know how you are going to manage them?" says Salima to Jodha - when suddenly Salima has to go in answer to a summons by Hamida. As soon as Salima goes, the toy seller asks Jodha "What is your reply Jodha Begum for my Rajkumari? Willl you help her?" Jodha fishes out a paigam she has written for the Rajkumari, and gives it to the toy seller and says "Tell your Rajkumari to keep patience. And not worry either. I will keep my word to help her." "Thanks Ma'am" says the toy seller stashing away the paigam as she takes leave of Jodha and Rahim. Jodha then thinks to herself "I am sure that when I tell Jalal that the Champavati Rajkumari is not ready for marriage with Atga's son, Jalal will cancel this marriage."
At a particular spot in the jungle, Jalal is then seen telling Atifa "Come, give me your hand", as he helps her clamber onto a wooden lookout structure suited for spying the animals from. They both are alone, but for a few sipahis standing at the base of the lookout. As Atifa gets onto the lookout with Jalal he holds her shoulders to steady her. "From here we can get a good panoramic view of the jungle" he says when they hear the sounds of some wild animals. "Some noise there?" she says. He replies "It sounds like a bear!" He then removes his overcoat and asks her to hold it. He takes a lance into his hand and proceeds to throw it javelin style in the direction of the bear. It seems on target as the bear gives a wounded sound. "Oh God," says a very impressed Atifa, batting her eyelashes at him, "You can throw this far?" "Why have you never seen this kind of prowess before?" he asks her. "No" she replies "I thought killing animals from so far needed a bow and arrows." "Oh that's because till today you have not seen Jalaluddin Mohammed doing shikar!" he says with double meaning.
Jalal then tells his men to go and check if the bear there is still alive or not. The men run. "Huzoor, the bear is dead" they say. "Allah" says Atifa, "Its unbelievable." "Well you better believe it" says Jalal again with double meanings. "Huzoor, should we collect the bear to take back?" one of the sipahis asks . "No let it lie there," says Jalal. "Okay let's do another shikar of another animal" says Jalal drawing another lance into his hand. The sipahis at the base of the lookout talk to each other "What is this shikar that the Shahenshah is doing where he's not interested in taking back the dead animals?" The other sipahi replies "Looks like he is less interested in the shikar itself and more interested in showing off his skills!"
"Can you see any more wild animals hereabouts?" Jalal asks Atifa as he throws the lance one more time. She continues to be very impressed and their nearness to each other is growing closer. Atga riding back towards them sees them both on the lookout and is very uncomfortable with what he sees. Jalal's behaviour with Atifa troubles him a great deal!
After the shikar, at the khema, Tansen and his troupe are engaging the whole shikar group with their music. Jalal watches mesmerised as Tansen sings but is more interested in hearing Atifa as she sings a couple of lines here and there between Tansen's lines. Jalal s eyes wear the look of a man drunk on the singing of Atifa. Suddenly when Atifa completes her two lines and Tansen starts singing his part of the melody, Jalal signals to Tansen to stop singing. Atga is very miffed. "What is the Shahenshah doing, this is apmaan' on Tansen!" he thinks to himself.
"I want only Atifa to sing" says Jalal openly. A downbeat Tansen then leaves the stage with his veena, and Atifa begins singing again - whereby we and Atga have to suffer Jalal looking at her like a besotted fool. At the end of the singing, Jalal goes up to Atifa saying "Subanallah!" and gives her his ring as a gift. As she turns to go along with everyone else in the room, Atga lingers to have a word with Jalal.
"Huzoor, if I have your permission, I want to say a few words to you." Atga says hesitantly. "Sure" says Jalal. "What you are doing these days is very wrong, Huzoor, it's a gunah!" Atga says. " What is the gunah?" asks Jalal. "To bring a married lady with you, to keep looking at her and getting close enough to be touching her is all a gunah not only according to the laws of the Sultanate but even according the Shariat Law. And you know all this better than I do, but as your atalik and bearing in mind my own position in the Mughal Sultanate it's my duty to warn you." Atga says.
Jalal looks shrewdly at Atga for a second and then suddenly wears a docile tone. "You are right, Atga Sahib, you are my atalik and always interested in my welfare. But when I hear Atifa sing, I lose control of my senses. I know it is wrong what I am doing, especially to my wives .. and most especially to Jodha Begum, to whom I am doing "na insaafi'. I know I should have been with Jodha Begum at this time and should not have come on this shikar trip. But to tell you the truth, not only Atifa's face but even thoughts of her are pulling at me. Truly speaking, I never thought I would love anybody but Jodha Begum. Atifa has made me her slave. And further, my own mind has done gaddhari' with me." Jalal gives a feeble smile of resignation as if to indicate submission to the pull of fate" ... Atga nods his dissent but keeps quiet.
In the next scene, Khyber's handler is seen releasing him from his chains in the jail cell. "Khyber, come this way, follow me" says the handler leading him to the surang opening in a corner of the cell. The restless Khyber follows.
Sharif suddenly decides to visit the jail cell of Khyber for he is the jail in-charge. He orders his sipahis to open the cell door, but when he enters there's no sign of Khyber or the sipahi in charge of him! Sharif is alarmed. "Where are these two?" he asks his other sipahis and slaps one of them in disgust. Then he realises what has happened. Khyber has bolted with the sipahi guarding him. "Go find this darinda, he is faraar'" shouts Sharif in a fiery wash of anger. "How can such a huge darinda hide himself from public eyes, unless he has got wind of some secret passage?" he wonders privately. Sharif looks around the cell in detail, as he suddenly spots the surang aperture in a corner of the cell. He is filled with dread and alarm!
In her hojra, Jodha is asleep at night, when she has pleasant dreams of Jalal sitting on the bed beside her, caressing her face and telling her how much he loves her. They touch foreheads together and Jodha is enjoying this dream - when suddenly the dream takes a different turn. Jodha sees herself as standing and watching Jalal and Atifa together, where Jalal is caressing Atifa's hair and locking foreheads with her. Jodha awakens from her dream with a great fear in her heart. "Oh Kanha," she prays "why am I getting such dreams? Thinking about him wrongly like this isn't okay, " she tells herself. She tries to calm herself down, but her eyes and face are very troubled.
In the jungle meanwhile, Jalal is walking along as he passes the khema of Atifa. To his pleasant surprise through the sheer purdah of her khema he can see her undressing inside. He is fixated. He keeps shamelessly watching her undress, and gives a smile as if he is ready to go inside for the kill. Inside the khema, Atifa looks mighty pleased with herself as if she almost knows she is being watched by him. (Shameless trollop!)
In the palace we follow Khyber as he passes Ruq's room and then Salima's. Then he finally lands in Jodha's hojra. He nears her bed and then through the flimsy curtains of her bed's purdah he stops to stare at Jodha, with animal passion in his eyes. The episode ends here.
In the precap, we see Jodha and Jalal exchanging heated words. "Jodha is shouting at Jalal "Don't forget that you got the title of Akbar' for showing compassion and not for killing people with your sword." Jalal shouts back "That doesn't mean, Jodha Begum, that anyone can enter my harem and I will forgive them. Khyber will die, and his death will be so gruesome that no one will dare enter my harem again".
My comments on this episode:
Judging from the many spoilers that hit our forum yesterday, it looks like the whole of this week will go on this Atifa track. Spoilers also suggest that Atifa is a plant of Mahchuchak and that Jalal knows she is here to trap him and he is playing cleverer games than she to entrap her at her own games.
To all those refusing to watch the serial for fear of having to bear watching Jalal romancing Atifa, I have just one word to say. Fear not, guys, for if it's true that Jalal is smarter than Atifa in this game she is playing with him, then every forthcoming episode will give us many hints of "teda Jalal" being cleverer than Atifa and outsmarting her. Just because we are scared to watch Jalal romancing Atifa we should not avoid watching the perspicacity of Jalal ... for we will miss the thrill of seeing Jalal outmanoeuvring her. We all wanted to see "teda Jalal" in action, and here it looks like we have the chance to see him like that finally, so why lose the opportunity to see him at his best just because the scenes between him and Atifa are a bit too close for comfort?
Accha, coming to what might happen now in today's episode, I think Jalal may be in a state of readiness to enter the khema of Atifa where she is undressing (God help us!) but he will be saved from really entering ... because they may all get sudden word sent by Sharif that Khyber has escaped from jail along with his dubious handler, and that a surang was detected in the cell leading into the harem.
I think Jalal will run back to the palace with the entire shikar group, and start himself searching the rooms of his Begums for signs of Khyber. (If Jalal is really distraught that Jodha may be in danger from Khyber then we can deduce who Jalal still loves from the bottom of his heart!).
According to another spoiler that came, Khyber will be actually caught red-handed caressing a wisp of hair from Jodha's forehead as she sleeps blissfully. Jalal will then probably overpower Khyber and have him chains very soon and declare a "saza-e-maut" for Khyber. That is when perhaps when we will see this precap scene of the altercation between Jodha and Jalal. She will tell him he didn't get the title of "Akbar" for killing people, he got it for compassion ... and Khyber did not do anything harmful to her and he therefore needn't be killed. But Jalal will fire off at Jodha that no one, but no one, can get away from a death sentence after entering his harem with such impunity.
Normally I would expect that this week would be just full of Khyber and his saza-e-maut ... and Jodha maybe will be using her "wish" to save Khyber from death. This week I would also expect that Jalal will continue his outplaying of Atifa while giving the impression of coochey-cooing with her ...
... but yesterday SBS dropped another twist into the works and said something else is also going to happen this week or next. They said Ruq will now try to kill Jodha. Oh my God, what a tangled web this is all turning out to be! For if Ruq is trying to kill Jodha, and we are to take that old spoiler we once got that Maham will expose Ruq, then perhaps Maham is also going to be seen more this week, as Ruq tries to kill Jodha. Maham may even be seen encouraging Ruq to do so ... just so that she can then trip up Ruq, maybe, as the culprit to Jalal?
Over and above all this during this week, I am inclined to believe this sanket we are all getting that by October there will be a leap of fifteen years, whereby Salim will be shown as a grown up boy.
My hunch is that now the tracks that are all open will start getting closure one by one at high speed between now and October. We have the Khyber issue, the Atifa issue, the Chand Begum issue, the Nigar identity issue, the Adham fraud issue and the death of Atga, Adham and even maybe Maham.We have the birth of the twins and the death of the twins to go through (and maybe also the stillborn child of Bakshi to witness?) And then we have to also go through Jalal and Jodha taking a mannat for the birth of Salim and the actual birth of Salim.
I would seriously say to all of you folks who read my posts, don't stop watching just out of fear of seeing Jalal with Atifa. This is by far the best time we may have had - for in the immediate present we may be able to see "teda Jalal" at his best ... and in the longer run too, it's going to be an action-packed two and half months before the leap!
Sampoorna
Bindi
