Originally posted by: skanda12
Friends, I am so thrilled to see that about 90% of my predictions of yesterday came true in yesterday's episode.👏
But there still remain some one or two loose ends to this story - and we have to see how the Creatives will choose to tie these up.
Meanwhile, these are the three major points that I want to cover in this post:
1. I have forgiven the Creatives for the distressful elongation of the miscarriage track.
a. Continuing to show Jalal as a confused soul unable to take swift action on his own (my big peeve!) in order to create makeshift scenes between him and several others of the "conferring" type. Apparently it was always the intention to make Jalal the hero who gets to the bottom of this mystery - but the only problem was that the scenes we saw yesterday of his jasoosi-giri could not be shown about six or seven episodes back itself. Okay, I'll take that as explanation as to why the hero was made to look like a fool for two and a half weeks, but with my strict admonition to the Creatives to never try that one on me again for any reason! Exodus or no exodus, do please waste time on other fools in the script but don't tamper with Jalal or Jodha's characterisation!
Do see my posts about Episodes 67 & 68, where I have specifically mentioned you in this context.
This said, when there are major staff issues/crises, we just have to be patient. After all, if you were running Balaji, there is not much you could have done about a situation that erupts in your face without warning, thanks to the miscalculations of the subordinate in charge of that unit. I think Ekta has been remarkbly resourceful in getting things back on track so quickly.
As for me, as I have not paid anything extra for watching Jodha Akbar, I am prepared to possess my soul in patience. We are in fact spoilt here; Pavitra Rishta has been thriving on utter tripe for most of its 3 years plus, and no amount of viewer complaints seems to make any difference. And that is the norm in Tellyland, not the exception. Ekta has clearly hired special CV for Jodha Akbar, she has tackled the Karni Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and has not changed either the name or the characters. We should be appreciative of all this. What does a boring week or two matter against all this?
b. Inclusion of scenes of Maharana Pratap (total waste of time) I agree completely, but see the Question of the Day in my last Denouments? post, it will amuse you!
c. Inclusion of the scenes between Maham-Javeda (again a total waste of time)
I thought you had ferreted out some hidden links in the first of their scenes, my dear, and had made some suggestions, about the ark and so on, but of course they were, despite being very clever, not followed up. I think it was because of the temporary chaos after the mass exodus, and now it is too late, more is the pity. The second one was a pure filler.
...On the other hand, there were also some scenes that did gain a lot from the fact that they were elongated (where normally there could have been a tendency to gloss over them!) and so the staff exodus and the miscarriage track extension had some plus points as well. For example, that one scene where Mahamanga admits to her guilt in her own self-talks seemed to need scene length to fully display her mental working, which may otherwise not have been given enough opportunity to fully display itself in all its glory; and the scene between Bharmal and Jalal seemed to also benefit from some length of interaction between father-in-law and son-in-law (because we have never before seen the full dynamics of that relationship enough to gauge properly how they related to each other, so it was interesting).
I agree, though the Jalal-Bharmal segment irritated me more than anything else. 2. I am still afraid that Maham will play the humshakal card
However interesting yesterday's episode was, the story is not over. Picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost! This humshakal idea still lies tantalizingly in front of Mahamanga to try and use with Jalal to tell him: "It was not me, it was she!" and point to another lady dressed like herself. But here is where I think Mahamanga may be unable to cut ice with Jalal ...
The painting was most informative to Jalal not for any other portion of it but the EYES!
It was a fully covered lady but the eyes were a dead giveaway. And this is one big reason Jalal may not buy the humshakal story, because no matter how close a humshakal is in appearance, height, build and even facial construction to the original, the eyes are invariably the biggest give away of an impostor. Even identical twins are known not to have identical eyes or "eye-expressions". So it is my hope that Jalal will always reserve a corner a doubt on the Mahamanga humshakal story (even if he has to buy it for expedient reasons).
As for the humshakal, Mullah Beqazi angle is going to come in for sure; the only question is When?
But there can be two versions of it.
1) So long as Jalal is going only by the eyes, it would be relatively easy for Mahaam to say that it was someone else, and there might even be a lady in the harem with eyes like hers. God save her!
2) The problem for Mahaam will come when Rahim eventually speaks up, and Salima corroborates his account and confirms that it was indeed Mahaam in the toshakhana that day. It would be very difficult for Mahaam to assert that she had a complete humshakal, who could enter the palace, knew where the gifts would be kept, and poisoned the kesar.
Jyoti's point against the humshakal loophole, that Mahaam can hardly argue that the person engineered all the past miscarriages as well, is very well taken, but Mahaam will never go down that road. She will stick to only this one. As for the earlier miscarriages, well, they would not have been at all uncommon in the natural way in those days. How can Jalal now prove that they were induced by poison?
One more point. There is nothing so far to indicate that Ruqaiya has had several miscarriages. Quite the contrary; there was an episode earlier which made it clear that she had never managed to conceive before this, whence her bitter disappointment when that Farida was declared to be expecting.
Having convinced myself that Jalal will never ever fully trust Mahamanga again, and that the cosy days of his blind trust in her are gone, the question in my mind is whether there can be circumstances under which Jalal will be forced to let Maham go scot-free even if he too believes her culpable:
a. Is the painting enough evidence of someone's culpability? Can the artist not have been a trifle incompetent or inaccurate?
b. Is Rahim's word sufficient - even if Rahim screws up the courage to speak with Jalal's eyes bulging out at him?
c. Is it enough if Maham had the means and motives for the murder and Jalal gets to know her motives (i.e. Adham's upward-mobility in the hierarchy) but still the absolute evidence needed to nail Maham is not there?
d. Is Jalal ready enough himself to take any ultimate steps with Maham (the way he dressed up to go to war with Bairam)? There he was dealing with a man, against whom he himself as a man would have felt more comfortable taking a warlike attitude ... but here he is a man dealing with a woman (a mother-figure to boot) and I wonder if he will have the stomach to prosecute her, given his own "hichkichahats" and the "convenient usool" of the Mughlia Sultanate often quoted when regarding dealing with women and their punishments (but selectively applied).
I do not think that Jalal would have any hesitation in punishing Mahaam once he is sure of her guilt.
Let us take the ehsaan angle first. Jalal owed even more to Bairam Khan, and when the crunch came, and he was seen as trying to usurp the Shahenshah's authority, Jalal was finally ready to do battle against him.
But what Mahaam Anga has done is infinitely worse, it is a vile and repeated crime against the emperor and the empire, for personal gain.Bairam Khan never had any personal agenda, he simply believed that he knew better than the young and inexperienced Jalal, and was becoming too dictatorial. I am sure you see the difference.
The nature of Mahaam's crime, if it can be brought home to her irrefutably, and that is a big 'if', will completely negate everything she has ever done for him and more. Jalal cannot fail to see it as such, and his love will be curdled in that instant and will turn to hate.The film Mahaam had not done anything remotely as evil as this, and yet she was swept aside in an instant.
But Jalal will not sentence her to death. He will exile her or ostracise her, and that will break her and lead to her death. But I do not think that is coming just now.
It is my feeling that Maham will go scot free using the humshakal as her wafer-thin defence, but the trust and respect that Jalal had for her are gone for ever. Some day it was going to happen anyway that Jalal would outgrow his old props (Maham and Ruqaiya) and start leaning more towards Jodha and Hamida (both of whom already show great interest in becoming Jalal's "teachers" and "shubchintaks"), but look at the irony of life here: the people to whom it matters most to stay in power, often do the silliest things to stay in power and shoot themselves in the foot. Maham has just done that. She may not have done any harm to her "position" in the palace and the Sultanate, but she has done most harm to her reasons for staying in that position i.e. having Jalal's unquestioning trust. She herself has thus made her own position extremely tenuous!But of course her position in the palace will be destroyed of she is found guilty. Everything depends on the will of the Shahenshah, and even if he does not sentence her to death (which he will not; he will instead blame Adham for having emotionally blackmailed his mother) or even exile, she will be stripped of the Wazir-e-Aliya postion and ostracised, which will be like a living death. Once the emperor, whose regard is like the life-giving sun, turns his face away from her, Mahaam will wither away in the outer darkness. No one, not even Resham, will come near her any more.
I have no doubt also that Maham will emerge as a more desperate woman after this episode. She will renew her vigour, decide to hone her "skills' and "plans" even further, be more ruthless than ever before, and to cover her tracks with greater "finesse" than she has ever has so far. But she may also decide to trust no one else in her plans any more, not Adham, not Resham, not anyone, and may thus find herself "very isolated and very desperate" - a lethal combination. In a way the strengthening of Mahamanga's wiles will also make it necessary that both Jalal and Jodha join forces against her as they may not independently be able to outwit her, and they certainly cannot outwit her if they remain fighting with each other, which will then become an opportunity to Mahamanaga to play one against the other. So Mahamanga becoming a stronger villain can also make her a stronger Cupid! Let's see how she goes ...
Well, if an emperor is reduced to co-opting his wife to keep an ex-dayima from harming them both, he had better abdicate!😉 Once Mahaam Anga loses Jalal's trust, she will be finished, and will be a nullity. That is how an absolute monarchy, whether under Jalal or under Louis XIV or France, functions.
3. I am thrilled with the direction of progress of Jodha-Jalal love story
I like it immensely that the story so far has not shown those typical soapy ways that the hero and heroine fall in love. I am happy that while Jodha and Jalal may be remotely attracted to each other, thus also causing them to be antagonistic (as they are fighting feelings deep inside themselves as well), the love story has not become one of inane eyelocks, slip-and-catch or silly hand-holdings and finger-brushings.
I am glad that so far the Creativves have shown an interest in building the Jodha-Jalal friendship before making them objects of each other's love.
I want them to grow into love slowly, sweetly, and via the friendship route. I want them to become buddies first before lovers. I want them to find their wavelengths attuned, their thoughts aligned and their personalities pleasing to each other. I want words like "ghrina" and "guroor" to go away. I want them both to feel that in all the world's rocky places, there is one person they can count on the most (and that is the other). I want them to value each other's advice, and to seek each other out in tough situations. I want them to "gravitate" towards each other first before they think of going to others to share their thoughts, problems or even happy feelings!
At the same time I do not want them to be totally devoid of all signs of "inner tension". There have got to be signals of some "sexual tension" between them even as their friendship builds. Without this kind of sexual tension, relationships, especially on-screen, can seem very bland to watch. I do not want Jodha-Jalal to have the kind of friendship that Jalal-Ruq have, for instance, where there is every sign of bonding and friendship and mutual understanding and Ruq is the "go-to" person for Jalal, but absolutely no sign of any sexual attraction exists.
The Jalal-Ruq bonding, no matter how strong it is over years, lacks "sizzle" and "chemistry". At its best it looks like a "topical political alliance for the current management of events" and at its worst it looks like "history being sustained for the sake of history ". To artificially portray "chemistry" with eyelocks is not the way, but to show "no chemistry at all" is also not the way. And "chemistry" is not just about "friction" and "dialogue delivery" and "repartee" either. Chemistry is about subtleties, I suppose, and we need "less of the said more of the unsaid" in the Jodha and Jalal relationship. Let them both talk less and do more.
I will not presume to teach the Creatives how to bring about a feel of sexual tension between Jodha-Jalal without using the cliched approaches, but I do want to see much more thought go into how their relationship is hereafter portrayed. We have seen enough of them individually, now its time to start seeing them together: how they relate and how they bring out the facets of each other as a team.
I don't see much of what Kamal discreetly calls the primal urge making it into a 8 pm TV show.😉 I hope and believe that we will be spared an overdose of the RK Films logo type scenes, and too much of lajana sharmana, which will not suit Jodha any way.
I too would like them to become trusting friends, but there is a catch there, Mansi, that you have to take into account, and it is this. It is VERY difficult to move from friendship to love. Love thrives on an element of mystery about the state of mind of the other, and is often unhappy because of this, but the final affirmation is then that much more delightful. Friendship is frank and open and comfortable. But when friends fall in love with each other, they find it extremely awkward and difficult to confess it, and then they are not sure if the other person feels the same. One-sided love destroys the friendship as well, and then there is nothing left. Here, there is the additional complication of a pro forma marriage.
Given all this, I would prefer a straightforward love story, but one devoid of the usual cliches that you have listed.
Creatives, we are watching! This is the stage of the story we all came to the serial for! We hope your staffing problems are over and the show can go on. Do please give it more than your 200%, for this is the now the most important stage of this love story for us viewers!
Don't bully them, Mansi, for if this lot quit too, blaming the forum critics, Ekta might shut the show down, and then where will you,and I, and all of us be? 😉
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