Friends, the Tuesday episode was a Shehnaaz special. She hogged at least two-thirds of screen space and time in the whole episode. I won't go into the details of each scene today due to work load and time constraints - but I want to highlight three facts that I noticed about Shehnaaz that intrigue us:
2. Shehnaaz seems to have had a "sadma" in the recent past that has stunted her mental growth or made her regress into childhood. What that "sadma" may be is the big mystery. As another lady at the ashram told Jodha about Shehnaaz, this girl-woman seems to have entered the ashram only about three or four months back. She seems to be have been the victim of a trauma that makes her reactions childish, and at the same time she is an enigma. She seems to have come to the ashram already having a twin-religion bias ... she has been seen praying Muslim style to Allah as well as Hindu style to Krishna. So one thing is clear. When she came to the ashram she already had this tendency to pray both ways. It was not something she learnt at the ashram.
Abhay has helped us yesterday get a bit more information on this girl, but so far nothing seems to suggest that this lost girl was later found, or that Todarmal somehow got in touch with this girl and brought her to the ashram.
Todarmal, it may be remembered was instructed by Sher Shah Suri with whom he worked, to accompany as an escort all the wives and children of Humayun so that they could be safely delivered back to Humayun at Agra after the war. Todarmal did a splendid job and was so trustworthy, as Hamida herself puts it, that both Sher Shah Suri and the Mughals - both sides - respected his dignity and his uprightness and reliability.
Could Todarmal have come across this girl in the last four months and suspected her to be Humayun's lost daughter and brought her to the ashram? Maybe Todarmal suspects this may be Humayun's daughter but has no concrete proof, and till then he has to keep this girl's identity under wraps? Or is it mere co-incidence that this strange girl found refuge in Todaral's ashram many years after she was lost? Is she at all the lost sister of Jalal, or some other woman not connected with the Mughals at all? How does she happen to be already praying to both Allah and Krishna even before coming to the ashram? Why is she waiting for someone and who is that someone? Is it her lost "family" or someone special - a man - presumably who has also hurt her? There are more questions than answers at this stage.
One, there was a trip that Jalal made to the Ajmer dargah. He first sent back all his soldiers excepting four as his personal bodyguards. He then went to the Ajmer dargah and after removing his royal vestments he went into the dargah as a simpleton to pray soulfully for the recovery of Jodha. "I come again to you" he prayed to God "as I did when I wanted to save Jodha's life from the snake poison. Please do not punish me with her absence from my life". He then got moved by some Sufi Qawwali dancers to join in their singing and dancing as a form of devotion to God.
While Jalal was thus engaged, Jodha too was shown at the ashram joining in with an aarti for Kanha at the ashram's mandir. The two shots - of Jalal and Jodha - praying to the Gods they deeply believed in were juxtaposed to create a lovely ambience of some common bond of divine devotion between them that could hopefully draw them closer to each other.
Other than this there was one scene of Sharif visiting Abul Mali in his "headquarters" ... his "hut"! Abul Mali looked extremely angry that Sharif has not told him about Jalal being on an Amer visit and Sharif pleaded that he could not send word for he himself felt as if he was under a cloud of suspicion after the utterings of Sujamal. But anyway Sharif then said Jalal was probably on his way back to Agra, so the question is: is there going to be another attack on Jalal as he nears Agra? We have to wait and see if these two rascals have something in store for Jalal on this trip!
I feel that the fact that Shehnaaz runs away with the Kanha murthy every now and again may have something to do with Jalal. One spoiler says that on one of these playful runs, when Shehnaaz steals the Kanha murthy yet again and bolts, she may bang into Jalal. Jalal may have seen Jodha in the Yamuna, but after that he may have lost her and not know where she lives or how to find her. But Shehnaaz may come running with the murthy of Kanha that Jalal identifies as Jodha's - and thus Shenaaz may lead Jalal to the ashram where Jodha is .
Till now we have seen no glimpses of Todarmal at the ashram. Neither have we seen whether Todarmal recognises Jodha, though she has given herself the name of Lakshmi. I expected Todarmal to make his entry yesterday, but he didn't.
Also one more thing ... a few ladies at the ashram were already gossiping about Jodha having possibly run away from her husband with the Kanha murthy and taken refuge at the ashram. In such a milieu, if Jalal makes an appearance at the ashram its quite likely that he will have a hard time talking to Jodha in private. For one, she has changed her name, and he has also worn a disguise. Unless Todarmal is there, any private talk between "Lakshmi" and this "new stranger" may lead to a lot more gossip. Jalal may have trouble convincing Jodha of his apology and asking her to go back home with him, due to the distractions of the onlooking gossipy women and the seemingly playful but intruding Shehnaaz. I suspect that till Todarmal himself makes an appearance and recognises both Jodha and Jalal, and creates space in private for them to iron out their differences, and he also counsels them, this reconciliation of Jodha and Jalal may not be achieved.
So I await Todarmal as the catalyst of the reconciliation. Until he appears though I foresee that even if Jalal gets to the ashram his attempts to get Jodha to talk to him separately will be thwarted by the presence of the other gossipy women and the childlike Shehnazz.
If she is indeed the long-lost sister of Jalal or at least suspected to be such a one, will Todarmal ask Jalal to take Shehnazz also to Agra with him in the hope that she can be reunited with the family? Will the truth suspected about Shehnaaz remain a suspicion always (for lack of proof that she is the daughter of Humayun) and will Todarmal therefore ask Jalal not to tell anybody at Agra anything about the background of this girl but to try and do some private jasoosi before declaring her a member of the family? Is there any chance that Bakshi Bano may sense that this girl could be a sibling or at least a distraction that makes the family fonder of her than of Bakshi?
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