Friends, what was that heavily advertised MahaGuruvaar episode all about? Not only did the much-hyped Jalal-Maham DEK confrontation not take place, but even what we saw on screen was a bunch of preparatory filler scenes, reasonable in patches and bad in others! Now what are we all going to do ... well, we can wait for MahaShukravaar, what else?
I can take one filler episode per week, but two in a row tests even my patience ( when you all know what a patient person I am)! Anyway what's happened has happened ... and instead of cribbing all that was not so okay let's look at the few good spots in yesterday's episode:
2. Jalal slept in Jodha's hojra, amidst her things, to be closer to her. His mother returned the painting of Jodha that he could stare at for comfort as he slept. Jalal thus happened to inadvertently ditch Ruq who had set up her room with all manner of happy distractions to pull him out of the blues (which he knew nothing about). When Ruq didn't see him turn up and heard he was sleeping in Jodha's room instead, she threw a shameful tantrum. Jalal then had an interesting conversation with Moti Bai. After that he whispered the call of his heart ... which Jodha heard in her dream far way in Amer. Folks, I am now expecting that suddenly after the DEK session in the Friday episode - or at the tail end of it - Jodha may appear in Agra (don't ask me how but characters can travel at lightning speed between Amer and Agra if the Creatives wish it).
I can scratch my head, but beyond these two points noted above, there was nothing else to the episode. For those who want a running script of what happened, here it is (followed by some comments I want to make).
What all happened yesterday:
Jalal was pacing up and down on the terrace of the palace, reliving flashbacks of when he had specifically asked Maham if the man Jodha was secretly meeting could be her brother Sujamal. Maham had then told Jalal very cleverly "If it was Sujamal, why would Jodha hide it from you?!". Jalal started berating himself for listening to that, for heeding that explanation from Maham. "You deliberately led me astray. Why didn't I ask Jodha immediately about all this? Why didn't I follow up on my own instincts that Jodha could never do anything wrong? Why, why, why?" Jalal endlessly chastised himself.
At Amer, Jodha and her group of bandhis were meanwhile deep in prayer at the Kali temple, their bhajans reaching a crescendo. Presumably this scene was inserted specifically to kill time? It sure killed me! Who needs a scene with nothing else but a feverishly high-pitched bhajan in it?
On the Agra palace terrace, Maham approached Jalal to try and speak to him, only to find a sipahi saying Jalal had given instructions that he did not wish to be disturbed. Maham tried to pull rank as Jalal's "Badi Ammi", but suddenly remembered she was no longer the Badi Ammi.. She called herself the Wazir-e-Aliyah, and threatened the sipahi to carry her wish to speak to Jalal.
Jalal did not even deign to look back at her, but said to the sipahi, "Tell her to go, I do not want to see her". What followed was an utter disgrace ... Maham pleaded and begged for some time with Jalal. "Jalal Beta, I need to talk ... please ... please ...please ..." she said. But Jalal would not bend. Eventually Maham had to beat a retreat and her self-pitying thoughts were all on how "Everything is gone. It's all over for me now!" The scene was neither long nor terribly absorbing, but, as I said, it was disgraceful to see yesterday's most powerful woman reduced to a pleading, begging "piece of nothing" in Jalal's eyes.
In a later scene, Maham is seen in her room as Resham sits beside her and cries her eyes out. Maham tries to look stoic as she realises that her fate is up for judgement the next morning at the DEK. But the remarkable thing is that when Resham asks if she is not afraid of what is to befall her, she says "I know that when someone once falls from another's eyes, that person can never again really reach back to her original status. Yet I have done nothing wrong. This is not a test for me, it is a test for Jalal!" What a woman!
Hamida was in her room when Salima visited. Hamida asked Salima how she found Jalal ... to which Salima said "He's really broken and distressed. I have never seen him so beaten by sadma". Hamida agreed that Jalal trusted but a few people in life and it must be a mighty blow to him to find one of those he trusted betraying him. Suddenly, Hamida started also remembering following Maham to that surang, and as thoughts of it came, she started discussing that suspicious behaviour of Maham's with Salima. "Why don't you tell Jalal about it?" said Salima. But Hamida took a decision not to burden Jalal with this additional tale about Maham at a time when he was already having enough of Maham to handle. (I suppose this is the Creatives way of making this incident pop up just after the DEK decision of Jalal - as the next part of the Maham's downfall?)
In another part of the palace, the completely stupid Ruq was in a different world altogether. She was preparing her room for an evening to be spent with Jalal, and was aiming to fill his evening with chausar and jaam to help lift his flagging spirits. I was astounded to see this display of complete non-attunement with Jalal's wave-length. Here was a wife who persisted in completely misreading Jalal's state of mind every time, and trying to convert his every down time into an opportunity to corner him all to herself! She was doomed for failure as we saw a little later in the episode.
An interesting scene followed. Hamida was in her room when Jalal came up to her and asked politely first if he could enter. When she nodded he stepped in. "I know you must be still angry with me Ammi Jaan," said Jalal, "for I have not brought your daughter back with me. Your anger is justified too, for I have not been a good son, nor a good husband, nor even a good King or a good man". Jalal's voice was down and self-derisive.
"No don't say that Jalal" Hamida said to him with softness. "You may not have been a good son and husband, but your people believe in the fact that you are indeed a good Shahehshah. Have faith in yourself. The blood the great Babur and Humayun run in your veins. Don't ever see yourself as having lost and in shame. I still believe that you will never be an unsuccessful Shahenshah. In fact, I am sure that tomorrow morning whatever decision you take on Maham, it will not be as an unsuccessful son or husband but as a successful Shahenshah. Make sure you dispense "insaaf" and know that the person who dispenses "insaaf" should never give credence to relationships."
"But there's one thing you must remember, my son. Maham has done a lot for you. I know Maham's role in your life was huge. You too have always heeded her as your mother. But that was not a mistake you made in valuing her, for you were then young and under her care. But now you are all grown up and your own man. And you are a Shahenshah no less. It is the hallmark of a Shahenshsh that he trusts no one, not even his own shadow. When you dispense insaaf you have to gauge both sides of a tarazu. On one side are Maham's sins. On the other side you must remember that she never let even a scratch hurt you. She loved you more than she loved her own son. And then of course there is the "doodh ka karz" for which you are indebted to her. This is no mean thing, this "doodh ki karz" ... and it must weigh heavily in Maham's favour".
Jalal listened patiently but argued the other side of this "insaaf". "I understand all this Ammi Jaan, but on the other plate of the tarazu is Maham's unjust hurting of Jodha, her insinuations of the characterlessness of Jodha. Before such negatives all her positives look small indeed. I will remember all you just said to me, Ammi Jaan, but I cannot also forget that she took my love away from me. She cleverly got me to cast aspersions on Jodha's spotless character. Hardly had I realised what a heart was - and that even I had a heart -than she played havoc with my heart. The negatives seem to outweigh the positives, Ammi Jaan. This tarazu plate of Maham's sins seems heavier!" Hamida listens to all of this ... but I have some scathing comments on her facial expressions that I have made in my "comments" section!)
Jalal is then seen in another lovely scene, entering Jodha's room, which bare though it is, seems to remind him of her at every turn. He imagines her doing her pujas, and practising her music. He stares at the bare tables and beds, and then at Kanha's little mandir where Kanha is missing. He then kneels before the mandir and touches it and folds his hands dutifully in prayer, even if Kanha isn't there.
Moti enters the room to find Jalal there and is surprised. "I am going to stay here for tonight" says Jalal and Moti hastens to make the room habitable for him. Just then a bandhi brings him something from Hamida ... it's the painting of Jodha that she had angrily snatched from his room. "Place it before me" says Jalal, and after the bandhi goes, he stares at it for a long while, his eyes moist.
Moti returns with a drink for him when he says to her "You too knew, didn't you, that Dilawar Khan was actually Sujamal?". Moti drops to her knees begging forgiveness for keeping the secret from him. "I can't blame you" says Jalal, "for Jodha must have ordered you not to tell. But had you told me, then all this separation need not have happened."
"I beg forgiveness Shahenshah" cries Moti, "but we Rajvanshis live by our code of honouring our vachans ... "praan jaaye par vachan na jaaye" is what we are brought up on". "Yes, Jalal agrees" "but then among Rajvanshis, a wife doesn't leave her husband ever either, isn't it?" Moti Bai has no answer to that one.
"I hope Jodha will return soon" he says. Moti says "I am sure she will return Shahenshah because she ..." The sentence stops midway but Jalal knows what Moti was about to say . She was about to say "...because she loves you". "How I wish you had completed that sentence for it would have given me endless peace" Jalal says.
But all this talk with Moti is still poor solace for Jalal. After Moti leaves, he saunters towards the bed and rests on it, leaning his head heavily against the bedhead as sheer loneliness and despair overtake him. He whispers to himself "Please for God's sake, Jodha Begum, come back soon. I am terribly lonely without you". Back in Amer, Jodha awakens in shock as if from a near-real dream. Her aunt runs to her side as she tries to clear her mind but feels very agitated. "I thought I had a dream that the Shahenshah was calling for me because he was feeling utterly lonely" she said to her aunt. Her aunt understood. She replied "Maybe you have to ask yourself what to do about it?" Jodha's eyes widen as she realises that something must be amiss at Agra for her to have had such a jolting dream!
Meanwhile Ruq waiting anxiously in her room for Jalal finds he hasn't come and she wants to know where he is. She rants at her bandhis to go find him. When they return to say that Jalal is staying over at Jodha's room, Ruq's anger breaks its limits. To have him run after Jodha was bad enough, but to have him run after Jodha when she wasn't even there was unbearable. Ruq throws one of her famous tantrums and overturns everything in the room, screaming blue murder! Yesterday a lot of us made positive comments on her telling Jalal her truth on the Sujamal issue. I am sure most of us today will want to eat our words. Ruq cannot seem to sustain brains for more than one episode!
The precap is again the same promo scene, where Jalal is about to announce his decision on Maham. We wait yet another day - for MahaShukravaar!
My comments on this episode:
I have just a few comments to make today for there was not much to this episode - and in any case I said a lot yesterday that still holds good today. But I promised Maddy last night over WhatsApp to say my sharp piece on Ruq so I'll start with that.
All about Ruq ...
This Ruq, folks, is a strange creature. Just when you think you know how beastly she can be to Jodha, she turns around and surprises you with some sudden fairness traits that you didn't expect to see in her. Just the daybefore yesterday she did a character-palat when near the tarazu she outright admitted to Jalal that she too had partially abetted Maham's chaal with respect to Sujamal. She had known that this Dilawar Khan was an impostor, a Rajvanshi man, implanted into the harem ... but had gone along with Maham out of jealousy for Jodha. Some of us then wrote in our posts that often we are forced to give Ruq some brownie points at least for fairness in certain situations especially when she tells the truth almost instinctively.
But then just after that, when we think "Okay, this girl seems to have more than slightly redeemed herself", there comes the next episode when all we get to see is her utter selfishness, her blinding rage and her sheer stupidity in thinking of Jalal as her "possession".
Yesterday, what on earth gave her the impression that a game of chausar and some jaam would be able to lift Jalal from the morass of sadness and self-pity he was in ... and what on earth made her think he would be all agog to spend the night with anyone, let alone her? She spent the better part of the evening doing up her room for this night's date with Jalal (which he knew nothing about), and then finding him not arriving, screamed at a bandhi to check on him. When she then heard that Jalal had decided to spend the night in Jodha's room, even when Jodha was not present in person, that was beyond what she could bear. She screamed, she ranted and raved - and she threw things and upturned tables and chairs in her room in a display of unbridled disgust and jealousy.
Did she think before she planned this "date" with Jalal? Did she have any idea what his real feelings were? Was she on the same wavelength with him and his sorrow. Jalal had clearly said in so many words, near the tarazu, with racking sobs, that he couldn't forgive Maham for the huge loss of his love Jodha in his life. Was Ruq even listening to the words he used? It beats me how she thought
a. That he was ready for a night of romps, games and drinks
b. That even if he missed Jodha, he would take her instead
c. That some chausar and jaam could easily change his mood
d. That if Jodha was not there, she would be "out of sight and out of mind"
e. That his love for Jodha could be switched on and switched off
f. That he would easily forgive Ruq for her part in hiding her role in the Sujamal affair
g. That things would just return to normal after Jodha's departure and life with Jalal would just go on as it used to before Jodha came into the picture.
That's a lot of assumptions to make, and it takes an incredibly stupid, selfish person to make them. Especially for a person who has spent all of her life virtually with Jalal, and has had years and years of time to try and understand his moods and his feelings, this behaviour of Ruq is mystifying.
The only thing I can think of in her favour is that Jalal himself has never lived a life of "feelings and heart" before - so this side of him may be as new to her as it is to him. Maybe Ruq doesn't even have the mental equipment to handle a Jalal with feelings and so she blithely goes on as if he has none . I am not able to say whether she chooses not to sense his feelings or she just doesn't have the bandwidth to understand that he does have feelings.
I'll stop with this decsrription of Ruq, for this much venting is enough for me. But I know for sure that Maddy (who is in full form these days) will have no less than at least another 20,000 words on this subject. Go for it, Maddy!
All about Hamida ...
Other than the Ruq scene which disgusted me, I thought the Hamida-Jalal scene was okayish, but I must admit I was surprised that she argued in favour of the "doodh ka karz" being a very important consideration, while she left it to Jalal to take the contrary tack that even so, it was as nothing compared to the sins Maham had committed in separating Jalal from his love.
I found Hamida's facial expressions very strange in this scene. When Jalal was arguing his own side of the matter, what was that look Hamida was giving him? Was it agreement with his stance? Pride that her son was favouring "love" and "Jodha"? Or what?
That facial expression of Hamida's was non-specific, weak, blank and blah ... and somehow detracting from the seriousness of Jalal's dialogue. She was listening as if she was hearing someone read out a grocery list ... the expressions didn't match the import of what she was listening to!
Creatives and dear Santram Verma Ji, do something to animate Hamida's face, or at least see that the camera is not on her when she is supposed to be listening to something serious and grave but looks like she is in a deer caught in the headlights of an approaching vehicle!
All about Jalal and Moti Bai ...
I thought the Jalal-Moti Bai scene was lovely, the best part of yesterday's episode. In fact I like this quasi-informality that exists between Moti Bai and Jalal.
It dates back to the time when she was about to get plastered into the wall thanks to Adham leching at her and then blaming her, and how Jalal then tried to help her by coming in person to meet her in prison, asking her to speak on her own behalf if she could.
Then again there was this lovely interlude after Jodha tried to commit suicide and ran away when Moti Bai almost admonished Jalal to find her himself, and then when he returned with Jodha and saw Moti all distraught, he spared a moment to personally bring her up to speed with Jodha's recovery!
Jalal knows that Jodha uses Moti more as a confidante and friend than a daasi. He too happily treats Moti as someone he can trust on matters pertaining to Jodha. I loved the way he set her to her feet by holding her shoulders, when she fell to her knees before him yesterday ... and I loved the way he talked to her about Rajvanshis and their vachans and runaway wives, and her loyalty to Jodha.
I also loved the way Moti Bai took it in her stride when he said he wanted to sleep in Jodha's room and she hastened to make it comfortable for him. Most of all, I loved it when she left the sentence half-finished when she said "Jodha will return because she ..." and Jalal knew that she was about to say " ... because Jodha loves you". He says "If only you had finished that sentence, I would have had a lot more peace".
It is so sweet to see this Jalal-Moti Bai tandem, because it feels to Jalal - and to us - like Moti is more often on Jalal's side rather than Jodha's in this matter of their love! Moti, I am sure believes that Jodha needs to declare her heart and put poor Jalal out of his misery. So do we!
