Friends, yesterday was again a wee bit of a disappointment for those who thought Jodha and Jalal would meet in the River Yamuna. My hopes got dashed as soon as I saw Jalal wiping his hair with a towel and looking at the ground as Jodha passed by him without even registering his presence. What is to be done but wait another day for the meeting between these two? What choices do we have anyway but to dance like puppets tied to the strings that the Creatives are pulling?
But anyway, let's not dwell on what DID NOT happen, and instead let's look at the POSITIVES.
a. Jalal has reached the Mahila Ashram and also visited the room where Jodha stays, although he did not get to meet her yet. He did get to see the eccentric Shehnaaz with Jodha's Kanha murthy, so now I expect Kanha to bring Jalal and Jodha together!
b. Maham has advanced the mystery enough to be talking to someone specific in the surang (who seems to be on a hunger strike) and at least we now know there is someone there ... and Maham is not shouting into thin air in the surang!
c. Atga has identified lots of financial embezzlement of a specific nature done by Adham Khan and has reported the matter to Hamida (in the absence of Jalal and also being unable to discuss the matter with Maham about her own son) ... and he has received Hamida's green signal to interrogate Adham!
d. Just prior to the evening Holi Dahen celebrations, Jodha and Shehnaaz have got themselves entangled in a case involving the public against an adultery-accused widow, and have got stones thrown on them, and Jalal has jumped to their rescue, whereupon Jodha has recognised his voice.
e. In the precap, a hurt Jodha is seen running towards a hurt Jalal, showing an empathy with him that is giving me great hopes for an emotionally loaded reunion at some point in time.
f. We got news yesterday of a mega episode on Saturday when a lot of forward movement can be expected of the main storyline of Jodha and Jalal, so we do not have to stare at a blank weekend!
So there, we have found a few positives already. Added to all this we did not see the ugly mugs of Ruqaiaya, Hoshiyaar, Javeeda and other assorted heeby-jeebies of Agra, so all in all, it was a not too bad episode, even if the Jodha-Jalal meeting is still teasing us.
For those who want a scene by scene write up its here below. After that are my comments on the whole episode. I am going to keep things a bit short today and tomorrow, because I want to keep my best writing effort for the Saturday mega episode, okay?
WHAT ALL HAPPENED YESTERDAY:
The much-vaunted Yamuna dubki becomes a disappointing tain tain fiss for us viewers!
Alas, alas, alas! Jalal got out of the Yamuna waters and started towelling his hair dry. Just then Jodha and her women's team passed by and a great chance to meet went down the drain. Right at the start of the episode, we viewers tasted mud! How sad that this was the fate of the great "deedar-e-yaar". Hmmm ... we ll wait for the next chance they can meet. What else can we do?
Maham of the "farman fame" has someone doing a "hunger strike" inside the surang!
Maham went with mashal in hand again to the surang. There she asked the guard if the "person inside" has eaten food or at least had some water, both of which drew blanks. So obviously whoever is in the surang is on an Anna Hazare style Anshan!
Maham again threw words at this person saying "Do what you will, but I won't let you die till I have reached my goal!" And then under her breath she muttered "I have to get that farman somehow!"
By now we are all wildly speculating as to who the hunger-strike person is. I thought I heard a rather ladylike shrieking voice, but I could be mistaken. Is it someone connected with the Delhi takht matter? Is it someone we know from inside the palace itself who has been gaayab for a while? Oh God, this curiosity is killing me. And this farman ... what the hell is in it and most of all, why would it be in the safe-keeping of Hamida? Does it have anything to do with some secret of Humayun's time?
And by the way where is Mirza Hakim? Is he the one in the surang? If he is, I can assure you all he can afford to lose a few killos of weight by going on a hunger-strike, so Maham can rest easy he will not die quickly ... and she can take some time over searching for the farman!
(Anyway my "Comments on this episode" is all about Maham and the surang-farman mystery, so do be sure to read that!)
Jalal gets a lead to the "mahila ashram" after a lot of roadside enquiries for Jodha!
Poor Jalal asked almost everybody on every road if they have seen a beautiful lady carrying a Kanha murthy. No one had any information to give him, till finally he met with one man who had a good idea. He said there were so many Kanha devotees in this town that hunting for one lone woman would be tough. But perhaps Jalal should look for inmates of the exclusive Mahila Ashram since women devotees congregated there. That narrowed the search for Jalal considerably! So off he went to the Mahila Ashram.
Phew! I thought more than three quarters of the episode would go with Jalal just making enquiries, but I am glad he reached the ashram where Jodha stays pretty fast. From that minute that he reached there, my breathing became easier!
Jalal comes face to face with Kanha and Shehnaaz, but misses seeing Jodha!
At the Mahila Ashram, Jalal again hit pay dirt. A kind of head priest there did seem to respond positively when he was asked about a woman who carried a Kanha murthy. He said yes, someone fitting that description did come here and was staying at a particular room here. He asked a lady ashramite to lead Jalal to that room, so again I held my breath thinking Jalal would see Jodha there.
But Jodha was not there although that was indeed her room. Jalal found two people there - one he recognised, one he didn't. The person there that he instantly recognised was Jodha's Kanha. But the murthy was being prayed to by a young saadhvi (Shehnaaz) who instantly got all rattled when Jalal asked about the Kanha murthy and its owner. Shehnaaz grabbed the murthy in her hand as if she was expecting Jalal to rob it, and became all uptight and scared.
Jalal left the room sad that he had drawn another blank. Jodha was not here too and maybe this rather similar-looking Kanha murthy belonged to that other girl, he thought.
Atga nails Adham for financial embezzlement and gets Hamida's nod for progress!
Meanwhile back in Agra, as Hamida was sitting in her room in a daze, thinking about Jodha and wishing Jalal would find her fast, she had an unexpected visitor. It was Atga Khan with a strange tale. He said "Enormous bungling has been happening on the Treasury funds and all roads are leading to Adham Khan. I need to interrogate him and I need permission for that. Jalal is not here for me to get his green signal, and obviously, I cannot approach Maham on this issue for it involves her own son ...".
Hamida stood bolt upright. She told Atga "I give you my permission to proceed with the matter. Do what you need to do, not worrying about the status or stature of the man who has been doing these wrongs. It is your duty to nail the culprit! Remember Jalal trusts you to do what's needed!"
With this mandate given, Atga then leaves the room with an air of authority and an intention to bring Adham to his knees.
Adham draws his dagger at Atga to avoid answering his interrogation. Maham weeps!
Aha! Now comes the scene where Atga actually accosts Adham and accuses him of systematic embezzlement of the funds belonging to the Treasury. He says "You have consistently eaten most of the funds from Malwa that should have been surrendered to the Treasury. I will institute an investigation and call you to account for your actions and malpractices."
Adham in his typical fashion becomes extremely belligerent and refuses to cooperate with the investigation, saying he will talk to Jalal later. Maham by then reaches the spot only to find Atga and Adham threatening each other with raised voices, but when Adham goes one step further and draws a dagger, Maham gets completely alarmed. Her pig-headed son is about to add to his blunders with a murder which she cannot stand by and watch. She drags Adham's raised hand back, and apologises to Atga ... and promises Atga that she will make Adham cooperate.
But after Adham and Atga leave the spot, the great and powerful Maham weeps with belated shock. Her son has put her in a tight spot by putting his fat hand in the till, and his unbridled temper is going to be the end of him, she thinks. I felt that for the first time I saw genuine tears in Maham's eyes, because the situation seemed to be fast getting out of hand, even for a person of her smartness!
An adultery-accused widow s public disgrace draws Shehnaaz, Jodha, Jalal together!
Shehnaaz tells Jodha that while she was away from the room a mad stranger came in to try and rob the Kanha muthy, but knowing Shehnaaz to be an eccentric of sorts, Jodha does not pay too much attention to this story. They are both then diverted to other thoughts when Shehnaaz suggests that they both attend the Holi Dahen that evening.
But when Jodha and Shehnaaz go for that celebrations they are distracted on the way by a crowd of bystanders watching a strange spectacle. A young widow is being accused by an irate man of being an adultress with an illicit relationship with another man ... and the accuser threatens to burn her along with the Holi Dahen. The woman pleads pitifully for her life, denying the story, but the irate man only gathers more and more support from other men in the crowd.
Shehnazz, whose heart seems to be soft, rushes to the defence of this poor lady whose hands are being tied, whereupon the angry crowd starts pelting stones at the two of them. Now Jodha joins in with Shehnaaz and the accused widow, and the three of them cower holding each other as more stones start hitting them. Jodha gets struck on her forehead and starts bleeding.
Just then a familiar looking male springs forward from the crowd and runs to the women and puts his arms around Jodha and the other two shielding them from the stones while shouting at the men to stop their horrendous acts of violence. Jodha, with her head still down, cannot see the face of the man who was helping them, but she sure knew that voice. It was Jalal! "Shahenshah, you are here" is all that she can say to herself, as curtains come down on the episode.
The precap: a hurt and bleeding Jodha's heart bleeds for a hurt and bleeding Jalal!
In the precap, a hurt and bleeding Jodha is standing by a tree looking at Jalal in the near distance. Shehnaaz calls Jodha - but Jodha asks her to go and says she will follow. After Shehnaaz goes Jodha continues to stare at Jalal. Unknown to him, she is there by the tree, with her eyes brimming with feelings for him.
He turns slightly towards her, when she spots that he is hurt and bleeding too, and without her own knowing, she finds herself running instinctively towards him. At that point the precap ends so we are still in doubt whether yet again she will not get to actually meet him, and whether the meeting will happen only in the mega episode.
All bets are off, folks, I refuse to play this "will he, will she" waiting game. If they don't meet even in today's episode I am going to shout at them through my TV screen! I can't possibly wait till Saturday for them to meet, because by then I'll burst my veins!
My comments on the whole episode:
I wrote a lot yesterday on the Jalal angle and the Jodha angle, so today I am going to focus exclusively on the Maham angle. There is a lot happening with Maham in this last four or five episodes we have seen, and yesterday she not only had the surang-farman mystery going on in her life, she also had to contend with this overgrown son of hers who didn't seem to have a single straight bone in his body nor a single decent brain cell in his head!
Let's take a look at all that Maham's been up to these last six episodes and see if we are all anywhere closer to knowing what's happening in this surang-farman mystery.
We first heard Maham saying something important to Adham on that day that he was cribbing that someone else had been made the Subehdar of Malwa, even after he killed off Pir Mohammed. Maham felt terrible about her son being thus constantly wronged and she promised herself and him that she would get the Delhi takht for him somehow, albeit without having to kill Jalal (which she couldn't bring herself to do for she had cared for and even fed him him as an infant).
Since that day of making this self-promise, Maham was then seen in a series of strange behaviours.
She kept telling people she was going to a dargah to pray for Jalal,but every time she would reach near the dargah in her doli, she would then cover herself with a shawl to be undetected, and make her way through a jungle to the mouth of a surang, which a door-guarding sipahi would then open for her. She would go into the surang and emerge a little later with a paigam that she read and then stashed away inside her shawl, and upon reaching her room in the palace, she would burn the paigam. We saw her reading this one paigam and burning it thus, but since she was making a weekly affair of going to the surang (under the guise of weekly trips to the dargah), many of us thought she was going there to fetch weekly paigams from someone, and it may all be connected to this Delhi takht issue.
On that occasion when she was seen burning the paigam, Javeeda, her brainless-seeming daughter-in-law seemed all curious to see what the paigam and the dargah trips were about. She first tried to retrieve the burning paigam from the embers of the fire, but I don't think she was successful. The next time she started following her mother-in-law and was amazed to see her devious jungle route to the mouth of the suran. But just as Maham got into the surang and the trap door closed, Javeeda lost the scent and couldn't seem to know where her mother-in-law had disappeared! But I think Javeeda is a tenacious girl and sooner or later her curiosity will lead her to the truth about Maham. Whether she then turns out to be an ultra-smart operator under the guise of an idiot daughter-in-law is yet to be seen!
Anyway, in the last two episodes Maham was further seen hollering threats at someone stashed away by her in that surang. Two episodes ago, we saw Maham saying to this inside person "I will not let you die, I will achieve my goal, come what may". Yesterday in that surang she asked the guard if the prisoner had eaten food or at least drunk water. The guard gave a negative reply to both questions, which made Maham even more furious that her prisoner was on a hunger strike. "Don't think I will let you die so easily without my achieiving my goal " she hollered again at the prisoner. And then in a bit of self-talk she said "I have to find that farman, somehow ... now!"
Now what was this farman all about? Two episodes ago, again we all saw Maham doing a furious search of Hamida's room when she was away. She was looking inside every box, in every nook and corner for some "farman" which presumably always was with Hamida as her important possession. In all this Resham, the trusted khwaja sera of Maham, seems to know exactly what is going on for Resham seems to aid and abet Maham's "farman search" and her "dargah trips".
What can this farma be about, and how does it impact on the Delhi takht (if that is the connection)? Who is in the surang and why? How does the surang-prisoner connect up with the farman? Why does Maham need to take this devious route to the surang (via the dargah and jungle) if the surang also opens into the palace at one end? Would it not be easier for Maham to access the surang from with her room (as we once saw in the humshakal track) or is this a different surang that does not open into the palace but is Maham's own private surang? Who is this surang-sipahi who aids and abets Maham? Could the farman itself be important to Maham, or merely the official seal or mohur on the farman that she wants to duplicate to create her own new farman giving the Delhi takht to her son?
I have two interesting theories about all this ... read on!
HERE IS MY FIRST THEORY:
1. I think there is some link to Humayun in all this. Maybe Humayun has left a farman regarding the Delhi takht , offering it to some "other child" of his when he/she grows up.
2. This farman was probably in this "other child's" possession and he/she gave it to one of Humayun's wives for safe keeping?
3. But maybe Maham has heard about this "other child" and its claim on the Delhi takht via the farman and has caught and imprisoned this other child asking "Where is that farman your father left for you, promising the Delhi takht"?
4. Maybe this prisoner does not want to tell and is doing a hunger strike after saying cryptically "It is somewhere safe with the Begum of Humayun" not saying which Begum of Humayun he/she is referring to?
5. So maybe Maham has done a thorough search of Hamida's room but drawn a blank and is pressurising the prisoner to say where exactly the farman is?
6. It may be Maham's idea that if she gets the farman, she can do a forgery of it giving the Delhi takht to Adham, and she can tell Jalal and Hamida etc that Humayun gave her this farman saying "Since you have looked after my son Jalal, I hereby offer the Delhi takht to your son Adham bythis farman of mine. Keep it safe till Adham is 23 years old" etc etc.
7. If my theory is anywere right who could this "other child" of Humauyun be who has claim to the Delhi takht after a certain age? Could it be Mirza Hakim? If it is MH, would Maham not know that he would rather give this farman for safekeeping to his own mother Hamchachuk Begum instead of Hamida?
8. So is it then some other child of Humayun whose mother is dead, or who was born illegitimately?
AND HERE'S A STRANGE EXTRA IDEA OCCURRING TO ME ...
1. Can Adham be the illegitimate son of Humayun, born to Maham who had an affair with Humayun?
2. If so did Humayun leave a farman with Maham that Adham can inherit the Delhi takht when he is some 23 years old (or some specific age)?
3. And did someone rob Maham and get their hands on the farman?
4. And is Maham keeping this person a prisoner till he/she says where the farman is?
5. And would this person have given the farman to one of the trustworthy wives of Humayun (like Hamida) to prevent Maham getting her hands on it and getting the Delhi takht for her son Adham?
6. If this theory is correct, then the prisoner of Maham need not be "another child" of Humayun, it can be anyone who knew that Maham has a secret farman from Humayun giving the Delhi takht to her son Adham.
One thing I am certain about so far.
This farman dates back to Humayun and is probably a farman giving the Delhi takht to someone (Adham or another child) which Maham wants to get hold of ... to either present as proof or do forgery on to make Adham owner of the Delhi takht.
The prisoner could be an unknown "other child" of Humayun, or even anybody at the palace who knew of the existence of this farman apart from Maham?
So let's do some tehkikaat ... who has been missing from the Agra Palace lately? Could that person be imprisoned in the surang?
Anupamaa
381