Friends, I was expecting to have another filler episode yesterday and we had one. But this filler had some emotional scenes and some action scenes and so we thankfully didn't notice time passing. Storywise there was some little movement forward, but not very much.
Anyway here's my recap of what happened and my comments on the scene. I still believe Maharana Pratap may the one to save Jalal and bring him to Amer as my first choice ... but today in my prediction I have also included a second choice of how Jalal may be rescued. So read on ...
What happened in the episode yesterday:
We started the episode with a small bit of continuity from the previous episode. Jalal was sauntering along listlessly in the jungle, with his very small troop of just four men, when he started seeing visions of Jodha and thought she had changed her mind and come to him. But very soon the bubble burst and her realised he had been hallucinating. His face filled with sorrow as he realised yet again (as he had many times already) that he has lost Jodha because of his own overplaying of his hand with her, and his head fell, his shoulders drooped ... but still he steeled himself to somehow get her back.
At Amer, the whole family virtually was at the gate as Jodha arrived home to some fanfare. Bharmal dismounted and Jodha peeped out of her doli to see her whole clan waiting for her. Dadisa and her aunt did the honours of the welcome aarti, but as soon as Jodha had time to look around, she found her mother missing. Dadisa covered up the issue by saying Mainavati was inside waiting for Jodha's arrival. Meanwhile as Shehnaaz also alighted from the doli she naturally raised a question mark in everybody's eyes. Jodha explained that she and Shehnaaz had met at the ashram and she would be staying with Jodha here. Some daasis were exhorted by Jodha to take Shehnaaz to her room, when Shehnaaz looked very reluctant, but when Jodha explained that everyone here was helped by daasis, Shehnaaz relented and went. Jodha ran in to see her mother.
Mainavati, guilt written all over her face was in Jodha's old room, with Jodha's old toys strewn around her. She was facing the wall as Jodha walked in, for she was unable to make eye contact with Jodha. But then motherly instincts took over, and thankful that her daughter had been found, the mother and daughter embraced. Within seconds, both Jodha and Mainavati had said all that needed to be said to mutually accept that the past needs to be put in the past - and Jodha had no resideual anger about her mother's harshness at Agra and neither did Mainavati do more than mildly scold Jodha for going to the ashram instead of right-royally coming home. Dadisa came into the room just in time to see mother and daughter again hugging on happy terms, and all seemed well. Dadisa also told Jodha that the Gangaur festival was on presently and Jodha should participate.
Jalal meanwhile was tired from riding and decided to rest under a tree. He dismounted and sat himself down, allowing his soldiers to go and do their own thing for a while. As Jalal sat there however, reviewing so many fleeting and endless flashbacks of his good and bad times with Jodha, a wizened old man - a seemingly poor one - came up to him suddenly offering to share half of his meagre lunch with Jalal. Jalal was very moved by this gesture and accepted the food to not hurt than giver's feelings.
As they both ate the simple meal, the old man raised a topic that made Jalal sit up. The old man said "You know, the Shahenshsh of this Sultanate says he's a man without heart, but by now he must have not only discovered his heart, he must have already given it to somebody!" Jalal was amazed that the man had hit the right notes as far as his life was concerned. He remembered how he himself used to boast not long ago (even to Ruq) that he had no heart. A rueful smile broke on Jalal's face as he realised the old man was right and he had given his newly discovered heart to Jodha, but to what avail?
After the lunch Jalal offered to pay the man some money, but the man said "I gave you what was precious to me - my lunch - now you give me something precious to you". Jalal then remembered he had a special coin- a sikka - given to him by Jodha once not long ago when she had said "Whenever anyone says you have a heart, give this coin to them as a gift!". Jalal got up to give the man the sikka saying "This is not payment for the food, it is thanks for telling me I have a heart!". Hearing this the old man got the shock of his life. "Oh my God, you are the Shahenshah? Pardon me, I cannot take this coin from you, it must be frightfully precious" he said. Jalal and the man bonded instantly and then the man disappeared into the undergrowth, leaving Jalal with his sikka, and his thoughts of Jodha, to rest for a while.
Back at the Amer palace, Mainavati showed Jodha a special necklace - a traditionally rare one - to wear for the Gangaur celebrations. "This necklace is special. You wear it and it protects your suhaag!" said Mainavati. Jodha took the necklace in her hands gingerly, but suddenly a s if to symbolise an ill-omen, the necklace slipped from her hands to the floor and even broke a bit. Jodha was aghast. Mainavati offered her another necklace to wear instead but Jodha wanted only this one, which somehow seemed to symbolise protection for Jalal's life. She decided to see if she could herself repair it.
Almost as if on cue with the necklace breaking at Amer, Jalal was dozing off a bit in the forest, alone and weaponless when he heard a faint rustle behind him. His war-training made him sense an attacker and soon Jalal had overcome asilently talking man by holding his own sword at his neck. But then Jalal had miscalculated his enemy. For along with his arch rival Abul Mali, who came forth slashing his sword wildly was a whole ring of at least 25 men all with swords who encircled Jalal, dropping down from the tree tops where they had stayed hidden for so long!
Jalal, weaponless, was fully encircled and his wits alone could help him out of danger, it seemed. So Jalal first began by asking the backward facing Mali to reveal his face if he was not a coward. Mali did so and Jalal came eye to eye with his nemesis. He then cleverly asked Mali for a last wish - to make a prayer to God. This was a terrific ruse, for when Jalal lifted his hands in prayer (Mughal style) all the henchmen of Mali were forced to drop their weapons and join the prayer. Sensing his moment, Jalal then pounced on the lone weapon-carrier Abul Mali, and bending him back he held Mali's own sword against Mali's neck and challenged Mali's men.
The men came one after another lunging at Jalal, but the great fighter that Jalal was he vanquished man after man, slashing at them and killing them. Finally just he and Mali stood face to face intimidating each other with their swords. Mali made a hasty swish of his sword at Jalal, which cut Jalal and made him bleed ...
At Amer just at the same moment, Jodha who was desperately trying to repair the broken necklace pricked her finger from awkward sharp edge of the necklace. The sankets to Jodha seemed ominous. She prayed to Ambe Ma to protect Jalal, for she was getting increasingly alarmed at his safety even as the necklace was remaining difficult to repair! The episode ended on this note.
Now in the precap was an even more alarming scene. Abul Mali had managed to get Jalal sprawled on the ground, defenceless and unarmed, and he was lifting and bringing down his sword with a huge heave as if to deal the last fatal blow to Jalal. We saw just that much and it looked as if Jalal would be finished. But heroes never are finished so when we see the next episode we can expect a saviour for Jalal to arrive in the nick of time to checkmate or trip up Abul Mali. But who can this stranger/saviour be?
My predictions of yesterday have a slight change:
Yesterday I predicted that maybe Maharana Pratap (whose spoiler pic had come on the forum in "pilgrimage clothes and a horse") may be the one who suddenly spots Jalal and saves him by taking him to Amer. This still remains my first option for the prediction. If this happens , I will be very happy that a great Rajvanshi warrior and the great Mughal showed their calibre in helping each other despite being enemies. Also it would be fantastic since I know Pratap will never take Jalal back to Agra ... so the prospects of Pratap taking Jalal to Amer would be high.
Later yesterday afternoon, Diksha mentioned another new spoiler that said "Todarmal will save Jalal and take him to Amer. There despite Jodha's care of Jalal, it will be seen that Jalal is not recovering because he has lost the will to live". So that option could mean that Todarmal somehow gets into the picture and saves Jalal and deems it fit to take Jalal to Amer rather than Agra. That too was a good option for me. So long as Jalal went to Amer and not Agra, I didn't mind who saved Jalal. The part that interested me about this spoiler was that it said Jalal will show poor recovery because without the motivation of Jodha's love he will not show signs of wanting to fight to live and may be creating an alarm by deteriorating in front of Jodha's eyes. That too sounded great because it meant that a love declaration would be needed from Jodha to revive Jalal (hopefully in sync with the Gangaur festival when Jodha will wear the necklace) .
But now one additional thought has come to mind since last night's episode. This poor old man who shared food with Jalal must be in some way involved, otherwise that scene of him may be meaningless. Maybe he never really went too far away from Jalal after the lunch they shared, so this man became witness to Abul Mali's attack on Jalal? And maybe just as Abul Mali was about to deal the fallen Jalal a death blow, this poor man may distract or trip up Abul mali and thus give Jalal the advantage and when Jalal has the Mali sword in hand, Mali may then flee for his life? Maybe after Mali flees, Jalal will collapse fromhis wounds and from sheer fatigue. Jalal's scattered men may also come running to him and find him badly wounded on his back and chest from Mali's sword-work and the poor man may then say to the sipahis "Let me run and fetch help" and he may run to Todarmal at the ashram. It may be thus that Todarmal comes to Jalal's aid, and takes him back to the ashram for first aid ... and then Todarmal may decide that Jalal needs prolonged care from Jodha and he may decide to ferry the wounded Jalal to Amer for Jodha's care? This could also be one possibility arising out of that poor man befriending Jalal over lunch yesterday?
So my prediction stands amended. It could be either Pratap or Todarmal, alerted by this poor man, who may help Jalal get to Amer!
My comments on the episode:
Overall I got a feeling that the episode was covering the key issues but also rushing through them a bit. For example, we had at least two episodes earlier where Mainavati was all full of guilt about barring Jodha from Amer. Yesterday also I expected that this issue may be slowly bridged over a certain lapse of time between mother and daughter. To my surprise, the whole issue got blown over in the space of seconds as Jodha and Mainavati gave each other mutually pardoning remarks and then hugged twice and much of the expected melodrama never really happened. It was an okay scene, but considering the long preamble we had over two and a half episodes with all the remorse that Mainavati felt, I found the recovery scene to be rather quick and easy after all!
One other thing that I could not swallow again was this "contrived flashback" of Jodha giving Jalal the sikka, ostensibly when they were last on good terms saying "Give this to anyone who accepts that you have a heart!". Now when the hell did Jodha ever come to that stage to be thus giving a sikka to Jalal, beats me. It was such a last-minute inclusion scene of a flashback that never really happened, that it looked odd. But still, I suppose, if that poor man was to befriend Jalal and later help him when he was wounded (as per my prediction) I suppose we have to give the Creatives the poetic license to pretend there was really a scene when Jodha gave Jalal the "dil ka sanket ka sikka".
Apart from these two strange items in the episode, the third thing that I took with a pinch of salt was this Maianavati's "suhaag protection" necklace. Suddenly a symbol of suhaag protection appears that the mother asks the daughter to wear for gangaur for her suhaag to be protected. It also seemed strange that "suhaag protection" was on Mainavati's mind when her daughter had come home for a separation track after a huge fight with her husband!
Anyway, the necklace falls and breaks just as Jalal gets into the evil and dangerous clutches of Abul Mali and his men. Jodha insists that she will wear this necklace only for inside her heart, we are to believe, she still carried thoughts of Jalal and his safety only, despite her anger with Jalal. The necklace repair then becomes a crucial thing for Jodha for she equates its fall and breakage as some danger to Jalal's life, and when Jalal actually gets a nasty blow from Abul Mali's sword, the necklace itself pokes Jodha''s finger sharply as if to heighten the scare for Jalal's life. "Hey Ambe Ma," Jodha is seen praying, "please keep the Shahenshah safe!"
And true enough the Shahenshah will be safe, I expect ,when he gets help to escape Mali and be ferried to Amer ... and in sync with that Jodha too would have repaired the necklace and may well be ready to wear the necklace for Gangaur. When Jalal then shows very low motivation for recovery, Jodha may be wearing the necklace and refusing to remove it till he is genuinely fully healed?
Oh for God's sake, how pathetic is this kind of obvious symbolism, reducing the drama to the level of the third-grade TV serials of 1999! But anyway, if the Creatives are going to insist on such blatant and ill-masked symbolisms, we had better be prepared to swallow it. That's why I am going to watch today's episode onwards with a jar of salt next to me so that I can take a big pinch during every ridiculous scene!
The absence of Bhagwan Das from the whole family continues to irk me. I thought we would see at least the three remaining brothers of Jodha, but yesterday there were just two of them? What happened to the third? He's also left the show?
And one more thing, yesterday there was a spoiler pic (an offscreen one no doubt, but interesting) of Maan Singh with Shehnaaz. So should I expect some connection in that direction? I don't know! If it happens all I can say is that they look cute together, and she does not look too much older than him as someone had told me she would ... and most important of all, Shehnaaz will be occupied with Maan Singh and away from Jodha so that will be good, provided, that is, that Maan Singh also comes to Amer on a vacation from his duties at Agra!
The action scenes of Jalal doing his swordwork were good for I always like to see him cutting up hordes of sipahis single handedly with some elegant swishes and some rolling and ducking body movements, so I enjoyed the diishum-dishum. Abul Mali's wig came in handy when he was standing backward facing to Jalal first and Jalal had to ask him to turn and show his face. Those who had always wanted to see Abul Mali's terrific haystack wig from close quarters got some dashing close-ups!
Apart from all this, what else was there yesterday? Nothing much! Shehnaaz went quietly to her quarters without too much fuss. Bharmal was wearing his beatific smile throughout, and no one asked Jodha what she had done with Jalal. They seemed thankful they had got her back from wherever she had gone into hiding. Maybe when Jalal comes to Amer, bleeding and wounded and wearing a sad and cute puppy dog face, all attention will go away from Jodha to Jalal.
So brace yourselves folks for some rescue action in this evening's episode. I hope the suspense of who will save Jalal will be over by today!
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