Relax, this is not one my 3 pagers! I am not up to that as yet, so you are all safe for a bit😉.
This is to share with you a question that has been puzzling me since last night's precap, which showed Jalal throwing away his own shahi firman, when Jodha, driven to the wall and with no other option in sight, finally swallows her ego and goes to him to demand Motibai's life as her(Jodha's) due as per the firman.
This means, at first sight, that Jalal is not going to honour the firman. He might well say : You rejected it at first, you insulted me again by sending it back thru the messenger, and you told me even more insultingly when I personally brought it back that I could give you nothing you wanted. So why do you try and use that despised firman now? It is no longer valid.
(Sending it back thru a servant was unnecessary , impolite, and ill-advised on Jodha's part, especially after her mother's parting homily about obedience to her husband, but that is Jodha all over. After all, she listened to another such homily about the danger for Amer if she did not accept Jalal's gifts, and then came out and deliberately burnt the shaadi ka joda).
If that is so, where does it leave us? I feel strongly that the choice of the means for implementing the death penalty for Motibai , being walled in alive a la the mythical Anarkali, instead of being cleanly beheaded a la Anne Boleyn (Henry VIII's second wife, who was executed for treason, as was his fifth as well) is deliberate. It is meant to offer a loophole for escape for the condemned girl, even while maintained the faade of the sentence having been duly carried out. That is to say, exactly as Akbar did for Anarkali in Mughal-e-Azam.
Jalal is looking extremely angry when Jodha approaches him, and he might be totally disinclined to let Jodha have Motibai's death sentence set aside as matter of her right., whence his rejection of the firman.
But he is also disturbed about something that he feels is wrong about the case against Motibai. It is similar to the Malwa case, where he was sure in his own mind of Adham Khan's guilt, but was unable to prove it and thus had to let him off. It is because of this sense of unease that he goes personally to meet Motibai in the prison and tries to get at the truth, but her talk of hoping that he does not commit an injustice puts his back up in an instant. The Amer women seem to have a positive talent for being undiplomatic!
So, he might want to save her life, even if he cannot backtrack on his decision re: the death penalty; this is not like the last case with the little Hindu boy, and there is no way he can justify an about turn here. If so, he would want it done as an act of grace from himself, not as something Jodha can claim from him, after repeatedly snubbing and lecturing him about the firman, as a matter of right.
So, it is likely, in fact very likely unless the precap is as misleading as is the Balaji norm in the matter of precaps, that he will turn Jodha down flat, and still get Motibai off from behind the wall, and pack her off secretly to Amer.
The other option is that he has since discovered from other sources that Adham Khan is the guilty party, and so he lets Moti off without giving Jodha the satisfaction of having rescued her. Plus getting brownie points all round, including,hopefully, from Jodha as well, for being "a Daniel come to judgement" (apologies to Shakespeare and to Shylock!) This seems unlikely, as it would necessarily lead to Adham being executed (by defenestration) and it seems too early for that. But Jalal might find out that the dead man in the kitchen was not known to Motibai.
So, here is my little quiz for today, and I would request all those who read this to respond to it, with one liners at least - indicating the choice,
I somehow doubt if the manner of Motibai's rescue (that is sure, for if she is executed, the chances of Jalal and Jodha falling in love with be less than that of a snowflake in Hell) will be clear even at the end of today's episode: it might well be the cliffhanger for this weekend, like the chess match last weekend!
So how do you think that Motibai's life will be saved?
1) Will Jalal do a Mughal-e-Azam and rescue Motibai by stealth?
2) Will Jalal ascertain thru his own sources that Adham Khan is guilty or, on a different tack, that the dead man in the kitchen was not known to Motibai, and thus set aside her sentence?
3) Will Jalal simply honour his shahi firman, despite his initial rebuff to Jodha in the heat of anger?
If you can comment on the following, it will be even better!
(a) When will Jodha will get to know of this?(b) When she doeshow will it affect her relationship with Jalal
Let us have some fun with this, and is the meantime, the Questions of the Day, and the Joke of the Day, and the Scene of the Day (in fact the last 3 days).
Questions of the Day:
-Why on earth does Jodha not tell Jalal that it is impossible for a man like the dead chap, clearly of the servant class, to be able to write, and that too so impeccably, and on such a classy piece of silken fabric? It is so ridiculous that when neither Jalal - who could not have written it himself!😉 - nor Jodha raised this point, it made me think very poorly of their IQ.
- Why does Jodha leave the terrified Motibai alone with the poisonous Mahaam Anga? If she had insisted on staying, there was nothing Mahaam could have done. It was unbelievably stupid of her.
Joke of the Day: The Shahenshah-e-Hind storming thru the harem at the dead of night, shamsheer in hand, to catch an intruder. When Jalal's short fuse explodes, he is exactly like the Energiser Bunny- all action and no sense😉.
Scene of the Day: Mahaam Anga's chillingly sadistic account of the likely manner of Motibai's death behind the wall. It made my skin crawl. She plays Jodha, who should have sent her packing after the first sentence, like a violin. But why the devil is Jodha so lost to all sense of self-respect that she actually asks that old witch why she is hurting her, Jodha, so much?
Motibai was also excellent in her blind panic. My heart went out to her.
Lastly, the proceedings of this week should, hopefully, have brought it home to Jodha that when the chips are down, the only one who can be of any help to her is her husband.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
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