Friends, sorry I couldn't reply most of the posts on my thread yesterday due to a mother of a power cut. But I am happy to be back with a bang today with this post, because I think a very interesting stage has been reached in the serial now.
What has happened is that through the smart thinking of Birbal, Jalal yesterday did not expose his real babies to the praja. He instead stashed his real babies in the palace in the care of his mother and Gulbadan Begum, and instead made Jodha and Ruqaiaya carry some dolls to the jashn. Jalal then presented these dolls with well hidden faces to the public as his sons Hasan and Hussein and thus ensured that not only were his sons safe but the praja were also happy to see "their princes".
Now to make things short, Zeenat had been looking for the real princes, the moment she spotted that both Ruq and Jodha were merely carrying dolls. Where could the princes be? She cleverly deciphered that all evening at the jashn Hamida had not made her appearance, and putting two and two together she knew Hamida must be looking after the real princes inside the palace somewhere. But where?
She managed to find the princes inside the palace in one of the rooms eventually, being guarded by Hamida, Gulbadan and a whole host of bandhis. Now Zeenat, bent on poisoning one or both of the kids needed to act fast to create a fracas inside the room where Hamida was, so that the princes would remain unattended for several moments while she poisoned them by allowing them to suck her poison-filled finger-glove.
With some adroit thinking, Zeenat switched to bandhi clothes and then set fire to the area just outside Hamida's room. A frantic chaos ensued when people started running hither and thither for safety from the fire, and no one was really worrying about the princes. Zeenat found one baby fast asleep and the other one awake. She quickly dipped her finger glove into some honey and then gave it to the baby that was awake to suck. And then she said the ominous words to herself "In five days you will be history, my dear boy!"
Jalal, Jodha and Ruq, hearing of the fire ran to the room where Hamida was, little knowing what had happened in their absence. Hamida also reassured them that all was okay now and under control and the babies were fine, just where they had been kept earlier! Ruq and Jodha snatched up and hugged their babies, but a frisson of suspicion kept nagging at Jalal's mind as to how a fire may have so suddenly started so close to the princes' room. He conferred with Mansingh and Birbal, and while Mansingh thought it could be an accident, the astute Birbal was also rather suspicious about the fire. Jalal charged Mansingh to get to the bottom of the matter.
But meanwhile Qasim and his wife were discussing the issue. Zeenat admitted that while she had successfully poisoned one baby, she knew not which one, because both were so identical and similarly dressed too. Qasim said "What does it matter? We wanted to blind Jalal in both eyes, we have blinded him at least in one eye now by getting at one of his sons." Zeenat said "By tomorrow, we will know which baby took in the poison because the signs will start showing!"
Now there are two things that happened thereafter ... in the precap we see Ruq carrying a baby which is frothing at the mouth and we may easily mistake that it was Ruq's baby that was poisoned. But I think the precap was deliberately misleading ... for very shortly after we have been shown the new promo where it becomes clear that it may have been Jodha's baby that Ruq was carrying in the precap which was frothing at the mouth from poison.
The promo suggests that after Jodha's baby dies, Jalal insists that Ruq return the remaining alive baby to Jodha, but Ruq refuses saying it's her baby ... and its now her ticket to the MUZ title!
What happens from here on becomes very interesting ...
What I think will happen now after seeing the promo ...
I think that Birbal will again come to the fore with an extra smart solution. When Ruq refuses to give the remaining baby back to Jodha, Birbal may say "As per the rules of the farman under which Ruq took the baby from Jodha in the first place, it was said that since Jodha was having two babies, and so long as there are two babies, the elder one will be retained by Jodha while the younger one would be given to Ruq. But this clause is contingent on there being two babies. Now that there is only one baby, the clause does not operate and thus Ruq does not get the baby, and Jodha gets back the one baby. The next time Jodha has twins, perhaps Ruq can ask for one of them!"
I think some such cleverness will be demonstrated by Birbal. All this presupposes of course that Jodha's baby dies within the next two episodes, and Jodha is left without a baby and therefore this promo scene happens by say next Tuesday?
I am not sure if for good measure Jalal also applied the reverse farman on Ruq that it was she who hired the unreliable Zeenat to care for Hussein and since Zeenat has turned out to be a murderess, Ruq also stands in violation of the reverse farman terms - whereby she has to demonstrate that she is a good mother ... and hence she also has to return the baby to Jodha under the reverse farman terms.
(If this reverse farman is also to be used by Jalal to completely force Ruq's hand, it would have to mean that Jalal and Birbal and Mansingh have discovered that it was Zeenat who poisoned the baby after lighting the fire and Zeenat and Qasim have been exposed and they have admitted to the crime and they have been caught and jailed, and only after that Jalal may be asking Ruq to give the baby back.)
One further question needs to cleared here ... there could be some 0.00001% chance that Ruq may herself have hired Zeenat to kill Jodha's baby? At least the thought will cross Jalal's mind, I am sure, if he finds that Ruq is now left with the surviving baby and is claiming he is the waaris and she is the only candidate for the MUZ title?
So I do think that Jalal will be looking at Ruq's role in all this with a lot of narrow-eyed scrutiny. At the present moment, though, it looks like Zeenat was an independent operator and she and Qasim had their own agenda to kill Jalal's babies and the poison was just given to the awake baby without clarity on whose baby it was. But if Jalal and Birbal were to study the situation closely and ask "Who benefits most from all that has happened ... the fire, the death of Hasan and the survival of Hussein ..." the motives would be there to make Ruq look like a possible conspirator with Zeenat.
So all will be clear regarding depth of Ruq's involvement, for us and for Jalal, only after Zeenat has testified that she and her husband acted together and Ruq was not in their conspiracy!
But nevertheless, Jalal's closeness to Ruq will be damaged simply because he too now wants the remaining baby back with Jodha which Ruq is not allowing to happen much to his disgust. In the promo, Jalal looks fearfully disgusted with Ruq and checkmated by her! Jalal looks like he needs the brains of Birbal working for him. Poor Jodha is wringing her hands in melancholy frustration. How must she feel after seeing one of her babies dead and the other one's return being refused by Ruq?
What will Ruq do if she has to give back the surviving baby to Jodha?
I think if Birbal uses this "two babies need to be alive for you to get one baby" clause at Ruq, and/or if Jalal uses this "reverse farman" to further force Ruq to return Hussein to Jodha, Ruq will be furious and now realise that she has to get the baby back to get the MUZ title.
This may be when Ruq decides after being checkmated by Birbal and Jalal, and having to return the baby, that Jodha needs to be slow-poisoned so that she is unable to care for the baby and thus Jalal will give the baby back to Ruq and Ruq can become the MUZ with Hussein as hers!
But I see two possible things happening here:
One, some sources said that Jodha would be "slow-poisoned" and that prediction is still ringing in my ears and I have therefore not discounted it. Now let's suppose for a moment that Ruq decides to use the slow-poisoning route to kill Jodha ... the thing that she may not factor in is that while the poison may not affect Jodha quickly and directly, if Jodha is feeding Hussein, the poison dose may be low for an adult but strong on the child that is imbibing its mother's milk. Thus we may see the death of Hussein also. When this boomerangs on Ruq and she loses Hussein (her ticket to MUZ) Ruq may herself blabber that she did not try to kill Jodha or Hussein and she did all this just to get the baby and the MUZ title. Or else, Jalal may catch Ruq at this poisoning game. And that could be the time when Ruq is caught and punished by Jalal by not speaking to her ever again.
Two, Ruq may not to use any slow-poison route, but may, in her extreme anger, directly and physically try to attack and kill Jodha out of fury when Birbal and Jalal pull the baby from her using their clever clauses of the farmans against her. If Ruq thus openly shows her greed for the MUZ title with a direct and murder-intentioned attack on Jodha in front of everyone at the DEK, again Ruq could be caught and punished right there and then.
Either way, I want to see this "return the baby via farman clause" argument happening in the open DEK. I want Ruq accosted in public in front of all at the DEK and I want to see her face when Birbal uses the farman against her or Jalal uses the reverse farman!
In a way, I was happy to see this new promo ...
During the last few episodes we were all trying to make predictions for Ruq to be caught and exposed fast (hopefully by Dussehra Day itself!) based on the Zee man's claims. That was not to be ...alas! Bbut the new promo at least shows that the route for Ruq's exit is now crystal clear and so her punishment can't be far away.
I was thus extremely gratified to see this new promo ... it shows that Ruq will be forced to return Hussein to Jodha and that leaves Ruq NO OTHER OPTION BUT TO GET BACK HUSSEIN by hook or by crook if she wants the MUZ audha.
So the path forward becomes clear that Ruq will definitely have to resort to some method now to poison or render Jodha incapable of caring for the baby, and could thus be caught for something as grave as attempted poisoning or even murder ... and therefore this time she cannot go scot-free or get pardoned by Jalal.
How long will it all take?
That's a good question to ask, I suppose, for we all want to know when we will see the new promo scene happening? I am just trying to do some possible dates here:
Does this sound right to you all? Or should we shorten or lengthen these dates?
All that happened in yesterday's episode:
Episode opens with Birbal andTansen tana maroing each other before the musical concert. Birbal jokes that Tansen may sing "raag gaddha" and bray like a donkey. Sharif and the maulvis resent Jalal cebrating the Hindu festival Dussehra, complete with the Raavan effigy and all that.
Birbal then tells Jalal to introduce his babies to the praja. Jalal takes both babies in his hands from Jodha and Ruq and tells the praja this is Hasan and Hussein. The praja shouts "zindabad" for Jalal and his wives and kids. Tansen then starts singing ... which puts Ruq to sleep and becomes a big joke with Birbal who says his name should be changed to "Neendsen". And there is also dancing. Zeenat goes near Ruq and asks to carry Hussein but Ruq refuses.
Suddenly however Zeenat looks carefully at Ruq's baby and sees its a doll. Hasan also is a doll in Jodha's hands. Zeenat realises that Jalal has done a clever trick of keeping the real princes in the palace and brought only dolls to the praja. She wonders where the kids may be hidden and realises that Hamida has not come for jashn and may have the kids safe.
Jalal meanwhile has the flashback of how he and Birbal planned to keep the real kids safe in the palace while showing only dolls before the praja to satisfy the praja. Zeenat then goes looking for Hamida and the babies in the palace. She sees Hamida and Gulbadan with the babies surrounded by many bandhis in a safe room.
Zeenat also changes to bandhi dress and is wondering how to access the kids by disturbing all the surrounding women and bandhis. Meanwhile Birbal gives the festival bow and arrow to Jalal to shoot the Raavan effigy. Jalal does it in one shot ... but Jodha gets some unpleasant sanket as if Raavan is not really dead and some bad thing may happen.
Meanwhile Zeenat gets an idea to set fire to an area outside Hamida's room. In the ensuing confusion everyone is careless about the kids. One baby is asleep but other is awake. Zeenat quickly dips her poisoned gloved finger in honey and the baby which is awake sucks it. Zeenat says "In five days you'll be dead my boy!"
Just then Ruq, Jodha and Jalal run into the room after hearing about the fire. Hamida says all are okay, even the babies. Ruq and Jodha grab their babies and hug them. But Jalal is suspicious about the fire and asks Mansingh, Todarmal and Birbal to do tafteesh on how and who started fire. Mansingh says could it could have been accidental, but Birbal is suspicious.
Meanwhile Qasim and Zeenat are discussing their plot and Qasim says Zeenat took a very big risk and may soon be caught. But Zeenat says it's impossible since she acted smartly. But she also doesn't know which baby she gave the poison to ... as both looked and were dressed identical. She says by tomorrow one baby will show signs of poisoning! Qasim says they have at least hurt one child so far and that is like blinding one eye of Jalal in revenge for the past when Humayun blinded both eyes of Qasim's father.
In the precap, Jodha is in her room hearing flashbacks of Maham's curses on her babies. Meanwhile Ruq sees that the baby she has in her hands is frothing at the mouth from poison.
Chalo, we are at the beginning of the end of Ruq at last ... thanks to the Creatives for showing us this new promo!
I know at least that Ruq's capture is not far off and I can live with the next week or ten days for that! Phew!
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
