Friends, I am likely to have a longish power cut this morning so I'll do a short post and put it up before the power goes.
Yesterday there was nothing much more to the episode than the whole anti-climax of Zeenat's stunt with the diamond and the baby. The rest of the scenes were just fillers. We had a scene of Jodha and Jalal discussing if Hussein was getting the right care that Hasan was. We had another scene of Todarmal visiting Rana Udai Singh and giving him Jalal's paigam. We had a third scene of Rahim banging into Jodha on the terrace and his mother scolding him ... mostly these scenes looked like they may have been fillers or have been woven into the episode with the future tracks in mind.
The one and only scene that was of interest to us on the Ruq-baby track was that Zeenat went scot-free after her "diamond stunt" with Hussein was found to be a major false alarm. Ruq shouted that her baby was comatose and not waking up and Javeeda insisted that she had seen Zeenat dose the baby with something. Jalal shouted "Khamosh" when Zeenat tried to talk and silenced her. Ruq said she suspected Zeenat must have given the baby a diamond to suck.
They all then rushed the baby to a hakima, who on checking declared the baby to be perfectly fine. She further said that Zeenat had done the absolute right thing by giving the baby something to take care of the sardi zhukam so that the baby was now sleeping normally and peacefully.
Naturally then, after creating such a fracas and suspicion, it was time for all, including Jalal, to profusely apologise to Zeenat for mistaking her intentions. Zeenat acted as if she held no rancour and she understood everybody's concern. But still, she said, she was not interested in being the baby's dai maa any more for trust had been shattered. It took a lot of persuasion from Ruq and others to ask Zeenat to stay on as the dai maa, and when her own husband Qasim also started persuading her to continue as the dai maa, she seemed to reluctantly agree.
Later, however, in the privacy of their own room Qasim and Zeenat were seen discussing what had happened. "I tried to kill Hussein with poison, " Zeenat said "but Javeeda's untimely arrival forced me to quickly change to some other medicine which fortunately worked and I got off the hook! But the jashn is today, and you can count on me to have another stratagem up my sleeve to finish off the baby". So saying, she brought out a thin single finger glove filled with poison and wore it on her right hand index finger to show to Qasim!
Prayers were then held for the babies when the maulvi also did rituals to ward off evil eyes, but Zeenat was standing through it all making a charade of praying but saying to herself that her own evil eyes were firmly on the children. And then we saw a small scene of the ladies returning to their hojras after prayers when Zeenat offered to carry Hussein for Ruq, but Ruq did not give her the baby and insisted she would carry Hussein herself. This seemed to checkmate some plan of Zeenat to get at the baby fast.
In the precap, the jashn was shown as being in full swing with Tansen regaling the audiences and Jalal with great music. But in the background, Zeenat had dipped her poison-filled gloved finger in honey and was giving it to the baby to suck.
There are here some three key questions that I am asking myself after the episode because it has somewhat turned the tables on our predictions of yesterday and the day before.
One, is it still possible that the Ruq bhandaphod will happen on October 3rd, Friday (as the Zee man still insists will happen!) or will it get postponed?
Even up to yesterday afternoon the Zee man was saying that Ruq bhandaphod will surely happen on October 3rd, Friday, at the jashn for Dussehra! This steadfast claim of his is throwing me into confusion. Because if I just saw the episode yesterday, I would assume that the Dussehra function would only help to catch Zeenat red handed.
If we discounted the Zee man and other sources who insist on the Ruq bhandaphod this Friday, we could get a storyline like this:
Jalal, Jodha and Birbal are together in a strategy to somehow remove Hussein from Ruq. Ever since Jodha cried her heart out to give Hussein to Ruq, and later Ruq refused to let Jodha be the dai maa of Hussein Jalal had been upset with the way Ruq was handling the child and neither did he like Qasim's wife being fixed as a dai maa in haste - for Qasim's family has had past enmity with him.
So it could be that Jalal approached Birbal and it was Birbal that gave him the idea to have the jashn on Dussehra Day (as evidenced by Birbal giving Jalal some hand signal at the DEK in the previous episode). Everybody else was seemingly against showing the kids to the praja at the jashn, but Jodha, Jalal and Birbal were for it, which seems to suggest that the three of them could be in cahoots with some strategy to remove Hussein from Ruq.
At the jashn, when Zeenat actually tries again to poison Hussein and gets finally caught, Jalal could well use this against Ruq. He could say that Ruq has failed as a mother consistently by hiring and then re-hiring Zeenat as the dai maa and exposing Hussein to danger. And thus Jalal may apply the reverse farman on Ruq and restore Hussein to Jodha. All this may happen at the jashn (which incidentally seems to be filmed across two episodes - Thursday and Friday). Maybe Thursday will be full of hits and misses as Zeennat tries many times (unsuccessfuly) to get to baby Hussein, but on Friday she finally manages to make her final attempt and gets caught, and thus on Friday Ruq is also stripped of Hussein by the reverse farman.
The next week may then see a very angry Ruq. She may be miffed beyond measure that Jodha now has both babies and is now all set to be the MUZ - and Ruq's only hope of MUZ is to now try and kill Jodha. Either by slow-poisoning or other means Ruq may thus try to eliminate Jodha so that both kids would come to her and she can be the MUZ. This is where Ruq may get caught for the attempt to murder Jodha and Jalal may eventually publicly punish her, and she may use her wish to avoid imprisonment and so Jalal may decide never to speak to her again.
This could be one possibility if we go by yesterday's episode and discount the fact that the Zee man has been saying "Ruq ki bhandaphod October 3rd ko hogi zaroor!" ... maybe he has meant that Ruq will lose Hussein by the reverse farman by October 3rd?
Accha, but there'a big "IF" in this plan. If this above plan has to work then we have to assume that Birbal, Jalal and Jodha know that Zeenat is trying to kill the kid and they can use this as a chance to tell Ruq that she is a bad mother for hiring Zeenat, and thus take the baby Hussein away from Ruq! So that begs a question: how do Birbal, Jalal and Jodha know that Zeenat may try her tricks to kill the baby so that they can then take the baby off Ruq?
This led to me to another very freaky possibility which struck me since last afternoon (which I put on my post yesterday in one of the inside pages). But I'll put it out here again just in case it makes a strange kind of sense ...
Two, a strange alternative notion has also hit me ... does it have possibilities?
I have been thinking "How is it that Jalal, Birbal and Jodha can be sure that something fishy will be done by Zeenat on the jashn day and thus they can take Hussein from Ruq? How is it that we had this very timely arrival of Qasim and his wife Zeenat just at the time when Ruq was searching for a dai maa? And where is it written that just because Qasim's father and Jalal's father were enemies, Qasim should also be Jalal's enemy? What if the equation was toppled ... what would we get?"
This train of thinking has made me question whether Jalal, Jodha and Birbal, as part of their strategy to strip Ruq of Hussein have themselves deliberately planted Zeenat in front of Ruq as a dai maa prospect, knowing Ruq would jump at it. Maybe when Qasim and Zeenat are discussing their chaal on the Dussehra jashn they are talking about the trick on Ruq they are going to do for Jalal's sake?
If there is even a remote possibility of this being the case (it's a very remote possibility), then maybe when Zeenat comes close to actually drugging Hussein and gets "caught" Jalal will do a big announcement against Ruq that he has found her to be a bad mother who didn't even care to check the antecedents of the dai maa before fixing her and thus endangered the baby. And so the reverse farman application to the case is in order and Ruq is stripped of the baby Hussein who goes back to Jodha.
After saying this Jalal could reveal that it was he and Birbal who brought Qasim and Zeenat into the fray to give Ruq a check to see if she was indeed a good mother ... and finding her erring repeatedly in the case of fixing a "dubious dai maa", he has decided to apply the reverse farman on Ruq.
Thereafter as in the first scenario above Ruq may get miffed on losing chances to be MUZ and thus try some murder attempt on Jodha and get caught and punished.
Three, is Ruq already trying to bump off Jodha to get Hasan also? Or will Ruq try to kill Jodha only after the reverse farman strips her of Hussein?
The interesting point to me in all this is the information we got from various "sources" is that Ruq may be trying to kill Jodha with slow poisoning (or indeed any form of poisoning).
Now the question is: Is Ruq already trying to kill Jodha and has Zeenat seen that she is doing something to harm Jodha? And will Zeenat, when she is unmasked on the jashn day, spill the beans on Ruq thus ensuring both bhandaphods happen on Dussehra Day ie.. Zeenat bhandaphod and Ruq bhandaphod?
Or will Ruq only begin her "kill Jodha campaign" after the Dussehra bhandaphod exposes Zeenat (or Jalal's chaal using Zeenat) and Jalal applies the reverse farman on her and strips her of the MUZ possibility?
Whatever the order in which things happen, I suppose Ruq's end-objective will be to get both kids to herself and eliminate Jodha for that is the ONLY WAY she can get the MUZ position all to herself. She loses the title if she has only one kid or she has no kid. She has already got only the second kid, who is not the waaris, so she needs to get the first kid which is with Jodha and eliminate Jodha - to get the title all to herself.
How this will pan out still waits to be seen. I wonder if during the two episode jashn festivities Ruq will also be seen doing something to kill Jodha which Zeenat sees?
We have lots of possibilities and maybe all our predictions are wrong also ... we have to wait and watch.
All that happened in yesterday's episode:
The episode opens with an angry Jalal and the whole family in a room. Ruq is distraught that Hussein is not waking up or moving at all. All blame Zeenat after Javeeda says she saw her feeding the child something bad. Jalal does not let Zeenat talk at all and shouts "khamosh". Ruq says maybe she gave a diamond to the child to suck. All are worried.
Jalal and all rush the baby to a hakima. She checks and says all is okay and gives some ark and the baby becomes fine and cries. All are relieved. The hakima says Zeenat did right and gave the child what is good for "sardi zhukam" and the child slept peacefully. Jalal calls back Zeenat to apologise. Zeenat says she understands - but she doesn't want to be dai maa anymore as there is no trust.
Ruq begs her to stay and after Qasim also convinces her Zeenat agrees to stay as dai maa. As all leave the room Ruq pounces on Javeeda and says she is after all Maham's bahu with the same evil thoughts. Jodha pacifies Javeeda not to worry about Ruq's rudeness.
Later Jodha's in her room when Jalal comes and asks why she looks worried. Jodha says she worries for Hussein if he is getting all the care that Hasan is getting. Jalal says whatever Jodha teaches him he ensures Ruq also learns so that Hussein is also cared for. Jodha hugs Jalal and says he is a good dad and a good husband.
Zeenat in her room with Qasim says "Today is the jashn and our best chance to do our chaal. Yesterday I tried to poison Hussein but when Javeeda came I quickly changed it some other medicine and it turned out okay." Then she takes out a small finger glove of poison to use in the jashn to give the baby to suck and die.
Todarmal reaches the palace of Rana Udai Singh and his son Maharana Pratap with a paigam from Jalal. Udai Singh is giving refuge to Jalal's bhagis to which Jalal objects. Todarmal reads out the paigam which says before war they should meet Jalal for talks. At first Pratap and his dad prefer war but Todarmal convinces them to talk to Jalal and finally they agree. They say we can always do war if talks fail.
The episode then shows a prayer ceremony for the babies where the whole family prays for the wellbeing of both babies and to ward off evil eyes. Zeenat self-talks that no one can stop her evil eye. Then Rahim runs on the terrace and almost bangs into Jodha. Salima scolds him that the baby could have fallen. Jodha says it's okay.
Zeenat then offers to carry Ruq's baby but Ruq says she will manage herself. Zeenat looks checkmated in some evil plan.
In the precap, Dussehra jashn is on in full swing, with Tansen singing and all guests enjoying. Zeenat dips her poison filled finger glove in honey and gives it to the baby to lick.
Today is the jashn day folks. It starts today and goes on till Friday, I guess. I expect today to be a day of many more unsuccessful trials of Zeenat to kill the baby, so let's see if all that happens! Meanwhile I would keep a watch on Ruq as well!
And if all does not go according to Zee man, it's a day for calling him names ... and asking for footnotes!
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Udne Ki Aasha
