Friends, it was a very, very sad day yesterday. An episode that started with a lot of mirth and laughter at the DEK, seeing the antics of Birbal and Tansen vying with each other to showcase their "swapped talents", turned out in the second half of the story to become such a deep misery as Jodha and Jalal saw the death of their child by poisoning!
Let me talk first about that heart-rending scene when Jodha was sitting in the DEK with her child in her lap, and it suddenly started vomiting. Ruq, who was seated near her, saw this too and rang the alarm bells. Something was wrong with the child and Jalal stopped all the frolic at the DEK with a sharply bitten out call for the hakima.
Next thing you knew, the hakima was examining the child. Everyone thought the prognosis would be simple and this child too, like Ruq's child, was just vomiting because it had been overfed. As the hakima looked over the child in detail, Jodha started getting the typical pangs of motherly self-doubt. "What have I done wrong? Have I fed the child wrongly? Why is he vomiting so continuously? Why is he not opening his eyes to my voice? Why is he not responding?"
The hakima looked grave and gave them the bad news. This was not a simple sickness, the child seemed to be internally very ill and the vomiting was ceaseless. The most frightening thing of all was that the child seemed comatose. It was simply lying with eyes closed, regurgitating stuff from its stomach but was otherwise totally unresponsive.
Jalal got angry for that was his only way of throwing out pent up frustration. "Bring in the best hakims in the land, I want my child alive and okay" he shouted and soon a battalion of trained male hakims descended upon them all, but they could give Jodha and Jalal no further good news. This was too serious, they said collectively, and the child was not responding to any treatment.
Jodha grabbed the child from the hakims. "Let me talk to him, let me sing to him, he knows my voice, he will hear and respond to me" she said with a voice choked with desperation. But the child lay in her arms cold and motionless. Jodha placed him in the cradle and rocked the cradle, saying "My baby, my baby, look at me, I am your mother here" ... but by now there were even not those signs of vomiting that showed the presence of life. The child had given up the ghost and was at peace!
Jalal and Hamida saw that the baby had died. Jalal was so filled with anger and frustration and pain himself ... but it was as nothing to the bleak despair of having to see Jodha accept the harsh truth and feel the intenseand searing pain he was already feeling. He seemed to be dreading her moment of realisation. But she had not yet realised that all was lost.
She ran to Kanha and prayed in racking sobs for her child to show signs of life. Then she clung to Jalal saying "Tell me it's going to be okay." He held her close but he could not give her the comfort she needed. She again sat down beside the baby and kept talking to it hoping to wake the lifeless form with her voice, her pleas, her heart's feelings ... Jalal tried to come to her and say to her that it was all over, but something in Jodha made her not want to hear what Jalal had to say. "No don't say anything, please", she said, as she stared at the baby and continued to hope for some movement, some life, something.
Hamida could take things no longer. She could not watch Jodha languishing in such deep denial begging the dead child to come to life. She said with the abruptness that the moment demanded "Jodha, my dear, the child has left us forever."
Jodha heard the words and as if in slow motion she slipped to the ground in shock and grief. "No, no, no, no ..." she said over and over again, unable to come to terms with the huge catastrophe that had consumed her world. She clung to everyone around her as Salima, Ruq, Hamida, Jalal and everyone there watched a mother unable to let go of her child that had died.
It was such a sad scene folks, and the episode ended on that very, very sad tableau of them all grieving for the grieving Jodha. Jalal's face was a picture of disbelief and despair all at once. And the worst part of it all was that he was feeling all the pain that he saw Jodha going through, for he could not bear her being in such pain.
Friends, I thought the acting of both Paridhi and Rajat was top notch. Many people had said they would not see the episode yesterday because they did not want to see babies die, but I sent them messages saying they should not miss this episode for the sheer acting perfection of both Rajat and Paridhi. We felt their pain and anguish, we felt their grief, we cried with them and in the end it was like we had all lost something precious from our lives!
As that baby lay lifeless in the cot, it was like someone had pulled out my teeth, because though the babies have been on our screens only for a short while, we as audiences had also started loving them with their cute bald heads and sweet chubby faces. They had felt like they had been part of our 300-episode journey and we had seen them in our lives for ages. All of us knew that they were to die, and that made the moments when they were on the screen bitter-sweet.
We have lived so long with Jodha and Jalal that what happens to them happens to us. Yesterday we lost something precious, and it was as difficult for me to watch Jalal and Jodha go through it, as it must have been for Jalal to watch Jodha go through it. Jodha had the advantage that she could pour out her distress and wail and wallow in the sadness of it to expunge her grief, but Jalal did not have that luxury - as a man of the family, and the protector of his wife and children, he had to summon all the stoicism at his command to live through the miserable moments with a strong shoulder to give Jodha to lean on. Perhaps he will later let himself cry in private!
Anyway, so much said for the sadness ... but how many of you noticed that in all that I have written here I have always referred to the child as "Jodha's baby" but not by his apparent name "Hasan"? There's a good reason for that which I touched upon in a post last afternoon also ...
I think the babies got swapped!
Folks, for those of you who never saw my post yesterday, I wanted to explain something that struck Diksha and me over the weekend.
See this whole charade that Jalal played on Birbal and Tansen, by making them swap their talents, Diksha and I felt, must have had a reason. Somehow, it was not a random joke played on the great artists by Jalal, but it must have some bearing on the story especially of the babies. Later Jalal also had gone to Jodha's room and told her "Seeing this Birbal and Tansen sparring with each other reminds me of the tu tu mein mein of you and Ruq". Was all this just a random part of the story or was "swapping places" going to become important as a concept relating to the babies?
Already there was confusion as to which baby Zeenat had poisoned. What if the babies had been swapped accidentally by Hamida before the fire broke out outside the room in which she was caring for the kids during the jashn?
When you go with this theory that maybe Hamida accidentally swapped the babies in their cradles before the fire, it could well have happened, that after the fire, Ruq naturally took the baby which was in the cradle she had made for her baby (and she may have picked up Hasan and not Husein). Jodha must have picked up the other baby in her cradle (and that must have been Husein and not Hasan).
Now Ruq's baby did have a bout of vomiting which the hakima declared as just overfeeding and the child then was okay. So that means nothing happened to Hasan. But Jodha's baby had this extended bout of vomiting and then went into a coma, and was declared dead (and that must have been Husein).
Why this theory of the swapped babies is fascinating is because all of us know that historically Husein was the one that died first. If we accept the baby swap theory, then it does mean that the story of Ekta is going as per history and the child that has died is the child Jodha picked up i.e. Husein!
Now let's also look at this via the promo. In the latest promo Ruq is left with a child which Jalal wants her to give back to Jodha as its rightfully Jodha's. Jalal and Jodha do not look like parents who would grab back a child from Ruq just because Jodha's child died. There must be a reason why Jalal insists it is Jodha's child and it is returnable ... and there must also be a reason for Ruq's subsequent self-talks in the promo. She says to Jalal that she will not return the child and then self-talks that now that she has the waaris with her, her route to the MUZ title is made! So again we have the situation that may fit the promo.
If the children were indeed swapped, Jalal would have good reason to insist that Ruq should return Jodha's child to her, and there would be good reason why Ruq will not give up that child knowing she now has the waaris with her -and her title of MUZ is ensured if she keeps that child!
But the important thing going forward is that Jalal can't just say "That Birbal/Tansen swap gave me the idea that maybe the babies are swapped too. So Ruq has to return the baby". That will not do as proof or pucca subooth that the babies have been interchanged! I think now Jalal (and possibly Birbal) have to uncover this swap with some real backing to their beliefs.
Maybe they could look for some distinguishing marks on the insides of the babies bodies ... some hidden birthmarks, some scars, some tell-tale signs of difference? Many people yesterday told me this swap theory may not be true since the pictures of Hasan and Husein looked slightly different and further there was a kala tikka on one of the babies. But I feel that's not good enough reason to discard the swap theory. This kala tikka has been rubbed off in many a scene from the head of the baby concerned, and besides the CVs may also use the twin babies interchangeably in the scenes when shooting (just for convenience of shooting with whichever baby is easier to handle for the shot at any given time). Since the logic of Husein dying first historically matches this swap theory, and Ruq's dialogue in the promo also matches this theory, I am feeling personally 100% confirmed about this theory of the baby swapping having taken place.
Now I want to see how Jalal and Birbal and Jodha establish the proof that it was indeed Husein who died and Ruq has to return Hasan to Jodha. Will this eliciting of proof involve the capture and interrogation of Zeenat? When and how will Zeenat get caught? Has someone seen her drugging the baby during that fire? Also Zeenat seemed dead sure that no one could find out what poison she gave the baby? Would that be the route to breaking her conspiracy? Would Jalal and Co. be able to decipher that poison as belonging to Zeenat and Qasim's Lahore territory?
Or would Zeenat now decide to poison the other kid and get caught in that attempt? And would she then cough up exactly what she did the first time round when she poisoned the other baby that died? Even so how would the "swapping" theory be proved?
I have no answers for all this folks, but I have the confidence that this swapping theory must be right because it matches history and the promo and because this parallel of Birbal and Tansen swapping places may give Jalal a clue and cannot be just a random joke. How Jalal will prove the theory of swapped babies is something I don't yet have a clue about. But I think more than catching Zeenat, this unravelling of which baby died has wider political ramifications. It can make all the difference to who becomes MUZ and has the waaris that's left.
And if its proved that Ruq has Hasan not Husein, and Ruq is indeed stripped of the waaris baby and title, who knows, she may start trying to drug Jodha to make her look like a bad mother to the waaris and try nab her place as MUZ and mother of the waaris. And that may lead to Ruq's downfall. (Maddy already has a feeling that Ruq has started drugging Jodha becaiuse in Friday's episode Jodha seemed to have some mild chakkars!)
Anyway, with the death of the first baby yesterday, the countdown to Ruq's downfall has now begun.
What all happened in the episode yesterday ...
The episode starts with Jalal and Birbal. Jalal asks Birbal if he is afraid of swapping places and talents with Tansen. But Birbal jokes that once when Tansen was with a Raja he was asked again and again to sing the same song. Tansen thought he was very popular ... but it was actually because the Raja never understood the song. Jalal smiles at the joke.
Birbal then goes to practise his music by gargling salt water like Tansen but he hates it and spits it out. Meanwhile Tansen has no jokes to tell so he asks one sidekick lady to tell him a joketo give to the audience. The DEK then starts and all are ready to have a fun time. Birbal and Tansen are both hoping the other one will be asked to perform first. Jalal asks Tansen to start as Birbal says he is more senior.
Tansen tells the same joke that Birbal told Jalal earlier (about the Raja asking a singer to sing again and again not because he was popular, but because the Raja didn't understand the song). Birbal gets miffed that Tansen pinched his joke. Jalal also knew it was Birbal's joke but pretended to like it. Then Birbal sang an absolutely gibberish song with rhymes and at end of each line and exhorted people at the DEK to sing the chorus for his lines.
The chorus was "arre main phas gaya" and so the song was set to "phas gaya raag". Everyone got all excited to shout the chorus after each line that Birbal sang and even Jalal joined in singing "arre main phasgaya". At the end Jalal said both were good and since Tansen also admitted he pinched Birbal's joke so all was okay - if they praise each other - which they did.
Suddenly Jodha looked down at the baby she had in her lap and he was vomiting. All got alarmed and called the hakima. The hakima said it was not the same problem as Ruq's child had of over-feeding and it was very serious. Jalal shouted to bring the best hakims - but they also said child was very serious internally and not responding to their treatment. Jodha was desperate to make the child open its eyes but it was vomiting more and then went into coma.
Meanwhile since it was Ruq's baby's feed time Ruq was in her room with Zeenat feeding the baby. Hoshiyar brought news that Jodha 's baby was sinking. Ruq took her child from Zeenat and ran to Jodha's room ... but Zeenat stayed back giving evil looks, and was sure they would all never find out what poison she gave.
A very very heartbreaking scene followed as Jodha prayed to Kanha - and Jalal, deeply in sorrow, hugged her ... but Jalal and Hamida knew the baby was silent because it had died. Jalal tried hard to control his feelings but he couldn't bear to see Jodha in denial. She said "Let me talk and sing to him. He will wake up." Jalal tried to tell Jodha the truth but she shut him up from uttering the news of death.
Finally Hamida could bear Jodha's plight no longer and she said "Jodha the baby has gone from us". Jodha just fell down in deep denial ... and became a heartbroken wreck as Jalal tried to console her with his own face looking very ashen. Everybody was aghast. They didn't know what caused the problem but dark death hung over them.
In the precap, Jodha sees her baby's shroud-covered body ready for burial. Jalal is with her as she utters the child's name "Hasan" with the grief of a soul-shattered mother.
What will happen today in the episode?
The precap scene of Jodha seeing the shrouded body of the dead child may cause her to want to see the child one last time before its buried. Could she uncover the shroud and discover that it's Husein and not Hasan before the baby is buried? Let's wait and see ...
If Jalal does indeed suspect the swap has taken place, how does he go about proving it? That should be interesting to watch too.
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