Friends I am a bit pushed for time today and so will make my post shorter.
I think yesterday's episode was extremely interesting and this whole storyline now has become gripping. We now have a clear team of two (Jodha and Jalal) on one side while we have Ruq on the other side. Taking their cues from the chess analogy, both sides are playing for high stakes - and both sides have played some strong moves yesterday. Ruq made a seemingly clever move nailing the child and its exclusive rights as hers for life, she thought ... till Jalal made a countermove that has put her in a very precarious position whereby every day of her future life she would have to be on the defensive that she is a "good mother" to her snatched child!
But in all this one thing sticks out: Jalal has lost all respect, affection or goodwill towards Ruq. As far as he is concerned she is now Enemy Number One and he can barely force himself to look at her. His face is wearing a permanent scowl whenever he deigns to glance in her direction - and every word she utters to him, or even to others around him, makes him sneer and smirk openly.
She has reduced herself to an object of unbridled hate in his eyes, and as far as I am concerned the battle has already been lost for Ruq. If she thinks that by somehow now becoming the Marium Uz Zamani she can claim back lost ground with Jalal she is mistaken. In fact I do not know how he would even countenance having her sit by his side in future as his Marium Uz Zamani.
She has won the battle, she feels - but we can see she is all set to lose the war. Jalal has made sure that she will have to fight every day to prove that she deserves to keep the child. How she believes she is on the way to victory, God only knows. She just has to take a good look at Jalal's face, when he looks at her, to know deep hate, distrust, loathing and disdain when she sees it!
There were two key parts to yesterday's episode ... the first part saw Ruq forcing Jalal to give her a farman exactly as she wanted. The second part saw Jalal mount a rearguard action. He extracted a farman from her by force that had everything he wanted. The strange thing was that in both farmans, Ruq was totally on the back foot.
In Jalal's farman to her she wanted him to not only give the baby, but to guarantee that neither he nor Jodha would ever have any rights on the child they gave her for life! Ruq admitted she was on the defensive for the future, and was covering all her bases. Sensing this defensiveness in her, Jalal the Shrewd then pushed her even further back with insistence on a farman that said that even if she faltered one day as a good parent to the child, the other farman would be void and the baby would revert to Jodha.
Can you imagine this situation if it should happen exactly as both parties intended? Jalal and Jodha will be watching Ruq every day to see if they can spot her slightest slip up - so that they can claim the child back. One hookah smuggled into her room would be enough to strip her of the baby and the slippery MUZ title on her head!
Let me just try to recount here what happened during the farman exchange ...
Jalal's decision and Ruq's force on the farman
When the episode opened, Jalal took his seat on the throne and summoned both Ruq and Jodha before him. He was straightforward and to the point with Ruq. After giving her a look of pure undiluted hatred he said "Since the decision involves Jodha also, I have insisted she too should be here. I personally don't want to give you the child and want to refuse you, but Jodha Begum has decided to give you her second child. But mind you, it is Jodha's first child alone who will inherit the throne." Ruq looked very happy and thanked Jalal profusely and hugged Jodha and Jodha tried to look happy for Ruq. But Jalal was baleful and glaring heavily at Ruq all the time with eyes of fire. Seeing that all formalities were then complete, Jalal told Todarmal to make a farman to this effect and give it to him for his seal before giving it to Ruq.
It was at this moment that Ruq piped up again and said "There's something more I want added to the farman." "What the hell do you want now? " Jalal shouted at her, his revulsion deepening. Quite without an ounce of hesitation Ruq said "I want it mentioned explicitly that neither you Jalal nor Jodha shall ever have any residual rights over the child once it is given to me, and for life I shall be the exclusive right holder on the child." Ruq explained to the gasping sabha "I want to ensure that that the child I bring up with care and love is not snatched away from me in the future."
The gasps in the sabha were not just because she added a clause, but because the clause even removed all rights of Jalal as a parent to the child! She was axing not just Jodha but also Jalal from any hold on the child, and making the child her exclusive object of ownership! That one sentence alone should have rung alarm bells in Jalal as to why she needed to negate both of the child's parents from having rights over the child and why she should want to arrogate that full right. The alarm bells did ring for Jalal - for later when he was in his room it was exactly this point that then made him react the way he did with Ruq.
Having then got her farman worded and signed and sealed to her satisfaction Ruq later crowed over it to Hoshiyaar and was busy reading it aloud to herself in her room - when she suddenly saw Hamida in her room, watching her display of self-congratulation. "Why did you need that extra clause, when Jodha and Jalal are giving that baby to you from free will?" Hamida asked her again to which Ruq again said "I want no future sentimentality or legality to let anyone snatch away my child from me again!" But the real reason that Ruq later spoke to herself was obvious. "My route to the MUZ is hereby made!" she told herself! No doubt her next move would be to kill Jodha's child leaving "her child" as the waaris and herself as the MUZ?
Jalal's second decision and his reverse farman on Ruq
After the events of the DEK were over, Jalal was sitting in his room with his head in his hands. He was deeply drained and upset, as any father would be, I suppose, who had to sign off his child to one of his greedy and insecure wives who wanted exclusive rights on the child (where even he was eliminated from his child's life)! Jodha, who came in, saw him very distraught, and encouraged him to lie in her lap for a head massage that he willingly settled for. A very interesting dialogue then ensued between Jodha and Jalal.
Jalal told Jodha the crux of the issue that was troubling him "Believe me, she will not be satisfied. She will want more!" he said. How correct he was! Jodha then decided to show Jalal the crazy logic behind what Ruq was doing. And Jodha made a good point here.
She said "Think about it. Did Ruq really need to take a child for her own self if she loved children so much? She would anyway naturally have been the Badi Ammi to all our children and would have had a mother's rights over any of our children as one of your wives. So why then did she need to name that one child as exclusively her own child? She could have just stayed the Badi Ammi of the child and had almost the same rights as the child's own mother? The thing that seems to matter to her is that she is insecure about having those mother's rights. She wants to secure it with a farman, and by the same farman she wants to secure long-term rights in case she loses the baby. She is operating from insecurity and possessiveness."
Jalal didn't have to be told all this of course. These were the import of Jodha's words, but she said far less to Jalal and he understood far more. "I know what you are driving at" he said, but it didn't give him any satisfaction delving into Ruq's motivations for securing the baby so tightly via that farman. At this point my whole angst was that neither of them of course, suspected the MUZ audha to be the moot point and the one thing underlying the "insecurity of Ruq". But even without knowing that, Jalal was not too happy with the way things were.
Suddenly then, as if an idea struck him, he told Jodha abruptly, "Excuse me for a while. I have important things to finish!" He then made his way to Ruq's room and with him was an empty farman. He brandished it at Ruq and said "Now that you have a farman to your taste, I suppose you won't mind giving me a farman to my taste? A deal is a deal from both sides. I need guarantees from you just as you needed guarantees from me." Ruq looked shaken for she had not envisaged this twist in the tale. And even after so many years with Jalal she did not see the "teda Jalal" who had now started operating in this issue as of this moment!
Jalal said "Here is an empty farman. Now get yourself to write on it that if even for a moment you fail to be a "good mother" to the child we hand over to you, the farman you took from me in the DEK this morning is void, and the child will be summarily taken back from you and will revert to Jodha!" It took Jalal at least three times of repeating this before Ruq agreed to put pen to paper. Hamida was in the room as a witness to all this.
Ruq at first did a half-job with the farman. She merely wrote "I hereby agree to be a good mother to the baby given to me by Jalal and Jodha." Jalal made her read it aloud and found it deficient. He ticked her off and said "Where's the rest of it?" So then Ruq wrote the words "If I should fail to be a good mother at any point to the adopted child, I agree that the farman I got from the Shahenshah this morning should be void and the child will be taken away from me and will revert to Jodha Begum". After making her read this aloud, he made her sign it, and then rolled it up, tucked it under his arm and marched out of the room having won this round of the game with aplomb.
I think Ruq missed a trick in all this for she should have asked him to define what a "good mother" is. Now unfortunately she will find that one hookah or one tantrum or one screech in the child's presence is all that it will take to send the baby back to Jodha, for the term "good mother" can be interpreted by Jalal as any act of Ruq towards the child that doesn't satisfy him! No wonder then that after signing the farman, Ruq told herself with drummed up resolution "I will make sure they both never have a chance to take the baby away from me!"
All said and done folks, this serial is now getting very deeply interesting because we have this "chess playing" by both sides where we are sure to see more moves and countermoves with every passing day. What will Ruq do next and what will "teda Jalal" do to curb her moves will become an absorbing part of every episode from here on till Ruq plays a wrong hand and loses it all. How exactly Ruq will ultimately lose is also full of suspense - and I am sure we are all going to enjoy this journey towards Ruq's downfall, which Jalal may ensure is probably engineered by her own hand. The good thing is that "teda Jalal" has started operating so it should all be a wonderful watch day after day!
BigBeard lands a forehand crosscourt across Sharif's cheek!
In addition to all this we had one small interlude of Sharif and his maulvi father. The old bearded man, who looked at first to me as a bit of a ninny, suddenly surprised me and Sharif by landing a hard blow across Sharif's face yesterday. "You are a man and have every right to hit your wife. The way you buckled to Jalal and his shaming of you was a disgrace", the father said with a jeer. (A lot of the force in his voice was lost to me as his voice was getting muffled by his wrongly positioned beard!).
Anyway, he then told Sharif that Jalal needs to be eliminated and they both need a good plan so that they don't slip and fall on their backsides as Adham did! There was a wicked gleam in Sharif's eye ... which signals to me that soon that spoiler about an attack on Jalal is going to come true. It seems Jalal was attacked thrice in his lifetime, but all three times Jodha saved him. So the stage is now set for the doubles match between BigBeard and Sharif versus Jalal and Jodha!
What all happened in yesterday's episode:
All ladies including Hamida, Gulbadan and Salima go to the DEK wondering what decision Jalal has taken. Hamida prays for Jalal. Ruq tells Hoshiyaar the time for result has come. Jalal enters the DEK and calls Ruq and Jodha to come before him. He looks at Ruq with utter disgust and then starts talking.
He says since his decision involves Jodha she too is here now. Then he says "Though I dont want to give you the child, Jodha has decided to give you the second child. But mind you, it is Jodha's first child who will be the waaris and inherit the throne. Ruq acts very happy and Jodha looks happy for her ... but Jalal does not trust Ruq. He looks at her throughout with venom. Ruq thanks Jalal and hugs Jodha .
Jalal then tells Todarmal to prepare a farman to this effect to give to Ruq. But Ruq says :"I want to add something in the farman ". Jalal shouts "What more do you want?" Ruq says she wants it added that "Jalal and Jodha will lose all huq on this child forever and only Ruq will ever have any huq on this child." Ruq says she needs insurance for the future that she will not lose the child that she has brought up.
Jalal is very, very angry but has no choice ... so he applies his mohur on the farman and ruq grabs the farman. She thinks "Here is my route to MUZ title."
Jalal is later in his room with his head in his hands. He is tired and upset as Jodha comes in and she makes him lie on her lap and massages his head. She asks why he is upset. He says the extra additions to farman by Ruq are very indecent. Jodha says "Think about it. Ruq actually needn't have even asked for a child at all - for she is naturally the Badi Ammi of our kids. She wanted the kid exclusively by a farman to ensure her personal right as mother. In the same way she has taken insurance for the future also. Don't think about it and worry!" But Jalal is very uneasy about Ruq's possible plans. He feels that this she will not be satisfied with what she has got so far. Suddenly then Jalal gets an idea and jumps out of the bed saying he has some urgent work.
Meanwhile Sharif's dad (the old maulvi) slaps him hard for being a henpecked guy. He says "You have a right to hit your wife and Jalal has insulted you for that. Take revenge by killing Jalal. You and i should make a careful plot ... unlike the stupid Adham who couldn't save himself." Sharif's eyes gleam.
Jalal goes straight towards Ruq's room. There, before he reaches, Ruq is reading the farman to Hoshiyar with great joy - but sees Hamida there watching her. Hamida asks "Why this additional clause in the farman?" Ruq says she wanted to ensure no hanky panky in the future regarding ownership of the child.
Jalal comes there just then, and gives Ruq an empty farman and tells her to write a guarantee that if she is not a good mom to this child, the other farman she has will be void, and the baby will revert to Jodha. He forces Ruq to write it. She agrees and writes only that "she has to be a good mom" - and Jalal makes her read it aloud.
Jalal then insists that she should also write the extra bit that "if she is not a good mom the other farman is void and the child will revert to Jodha". Ruq writes that also under duress, and reads it aloud before Hamida as a witness ... and Jalal goes away angrily with that farman. Ruq swears to herself that she will never give a chance to Jodha and Jalal to get the baby back.
In the precap, the same mega episode promo is shown. Jodha takes a plate of food for Maham to jail - but Maham throws it in her face. Later Jalal asks Jodha "Who did this to you?"
Okay here we go towards the mega episode at 7 pm this evening. Any guesses anyone about exactly what all will be shown?
Ye Hai Mohabbatein
Anupamaa
Dr Aarambhi
