Friends, okay! So we all thought they would end this Adham case in today's episode and proceed to the much-awaited "love letter track" by tomorrow ... but what did we get instead? We got one more day of events almost coming to a climax but not quite to a close!
Today we had Jalal announcing his readiness for talaaq with Ruq, and Ruq fuming away at her plight, and blaming Jodha for a lot of her misery. We had Adham and Maham trying to gloat over proceedings, but not feeling quite as confident as they should be, because Jalal is such an unknown quantity. In the end, today, we also had a highly sentimental scene of Ruq writing a letter to the dear departed Humayun, which got her one more hug from Jalal!
What can we expect tomorrow? I think Jalal has declared himself ready to apply the anti-child-marriage law retrospectively to himself just to show the whole praja how unfeasible it is in practical terms for the whole lot of them to follow his example! So the praja will probably say: "No Shahenshah, do not apply the law retrospectively or we will all suffer, let the law apply hereafter only!" With that the Jalal-Ruq divorce talk will end. As for Adham, Jalal will probably invoke the part of the Sharia Law that says "any marriage to anyone by coercion is disallowed" since Jalal has himself ascertained that Tasneem is being coerced.
(As Adham himself told Jalal in the last episode, Jalal cannot say the anti-child-marriage law will apply to Adham, since Adham's case had reached the court well before the new law was even in the works ... so Adham can be nailed only on the "coercion angle" and not by actually applying the new law in his case!)
Accha, now let me come to the heart of the episode ... I think everyone will agree with me that it was all about Ruq, Ruq, and Ruq. She was the star of the episode today, and almost every single scene was either showing her crying and bemoaning her fate in heart-rending terms, or else showing others discussing her plight in equally heart-rending terms. Let me say one thing here first. I too felt real pity for this girl - this grown up woman with a little girl's heart and mind - because it cannot be a pleasant thing at all for one like her, with no family of her own, so to speak, to be at the short end of a divorce dhamaka in open court - and that too from Jalal, the only one person she ever had, or will have, in her corner! I did feel very sorry for her, my heart goes out to her, and I don't want to take this episode away from her. She deserves this attention from us, poor thing!
But ... and here's a big BUT ... I am not ready to spare the Creatives for the unbelievability of this whole episode!!!
Tell me folks, was it believable that Jalal should keep the whole divorce "ploy" secret from Ruqaiaya and spring it on her at the court in front of everybody? No matter even if he prepared her mentally for this dhamaka in the last episode saying "Trust in me even if I seem to be going against you" ... and no matter even if it was something he knew full well was only a "ploy" and the divorce would never really happen ... even so does it make logical sense that any man who planned to divorce his wife as a ploy would not tell that wife in advance that it was not a real divorce but just a ploy?
Would any man in real life think to himself: "I have to tell no one about it, especially not Ruq herself, as she may betray her knowledge in the open court?" It may seem like a heroic thing for a Kingly character to do in a make-believe story, just to make a point to the praja. But is there not something totally unbelievable in that if we're talking of a real life story of someone?
Would any man (and especially Jalal who knew Ruq from childhood), not know how desperately torn his wife would be, how devastated, how humiliated in public ... and not only that, would he then keep up the show, till that wife actually even wrote letters to his dead father asking for justice? And even then, would he give her a consoling hug, crying along with her tear for tear, but still not tell her what he was up to? I am personally finding it a bit difficult to digest.
I know lots of people on the forum will say on this thread tomorrow that: "This is quintessential Jalal'. He did not even tell Jodha what he was up to in the miscarriage case and left her hanging in mid-air till he solved it. He did it with the Jodha pregnancy track too. He is doing the same thing with Ruq again. He just doesn't trust people to not betray their feelings in public and give the game away. He is a teda' guy so he has this way of doing things. The reason he kept silent and hugged her was because he knew he was forced to hurt her as a way to make the praja understand etc. etc." Believe me, I too know and appreciate that Jalal is portrayed like that. That's why I am not saying anything about Jalal.
I want to ask the Creatives, instead, what the whole unbelievable idea is about? Why this secret, this melodrama of the broken Ruq, this seemingly deeply affected but silent Jalal? Is it just to inject high sentimentality in the story? Or is it some bigger idea ... like making Ruq so broken that she swears enmity with Jodha - and that enmity, even after the divorce is proved a ploy, will persist and be the big story of the future tracks? Or was it to give Ruq her big screen moments today - since hereafter Ruq may go slightly into the shadows as Jodha emerges as the frontrunner in the story?
After seeing the precap, it also looks like the Creatives may have highlighted this anger of Ruq in order to make Jodha very "Ruq-conscious" and steer clear of Jalal when he starts suspecting her letter to be a love letter and starts making "advances" in the next couple of episodes (as per the spoiler).
Anyway, I have aired my piece here about my own inability to swallow this melodramatic story angle today. Nevertheless, I concede, that if you just take what happened without questioning the logic too much, it was a sentiment-dripping episode. If you like that sort of hyper-sentimentality and are ready to be moved by it, then yes, today was moving indeed!
I don't expect everyone to feel as I do, so if you all feel differently, do feel free to trash my view point! Here then is a more detailed run though of some highlights ...
Ruq was in full force ... she displayed an array of different emotions with aplomb!
I ll start with the scene between Ruq and Jodha. Ruq unleaashed a whole lot of blame on Jodha for the situation she was in. Her arguments included all of the following:
Jodha was gunning for her position and title by shooting from the shoulders of Tasneem and even the words of Adham were nothing but Jodha's own words! She was the only one capable of doing all this to undermine Ruq - for Salima did not have the reasons or motives or even position (as Bairam's widow) to dethrone Ruq! Jodha was giving everyone the impression of hating Jalal but was secretly coveting his favours, his love and the title of Marium Uz Zamani! Jodha called herself a Rajvanshi who never did "peet ke peeche se war" and yet that is exactly what she was doing! If any divorce really happened at court, Jodha would be considered by Ruq as solely responsible!
As was to be only expected Jodha too returned the tirade, unleashing a volley of counter arguments. She said she coveted nothing, and had tolerated Ruq's slaps and humiliations only out of consideration for Ruq's mental frame at that time. But she was not going to stand for disgrace of her character or her birth as a Rajvanshi. Yes, she no longer hated Jalal, but that did not mean she was in love with him either. All she wanted to do was to save Tasneem and girls like her being coerced into marriages, and she thought Ruq felt as strongly about the topic too.
To my utter dismay, Ruq then said the one sentence that I didn't want to hear from her. She said the Tasneems of the world didn't matter to her, all she cared for was Jalal and her audha! Jodha was left self-talking: "If anything separates Ruq and Jalal it would only be Ruq's audha-fixation and arrogance". I totally agree!
Another scene involving Ruq, which I though was good, was the one where she met up with Hamida, Gulbadan, JijiAnga and Salima and begged each one in turn to help convince Jalal against this divorce. Hamida tried her level best to tell Ruq that "saying he would divorce" was not the same thing as "actually divorcing". Hamida also tried to reassure Ruq that her marriage had been fixed by no less a person than Humayun himself, and she was not a daughter-in-law, she was a daughter, considering how close were the relations between Jalal's family and Ruq's parents. Hamida even said she would oppose Jalal if needed as Marium Makkani. The other ladies concurred and said if the worst happened they would all be ready to leave Agra. Salima also offered to try and convince Jalal. Ruq was reduced to pleading for her marriage to be somehow saved. It was a sad scene, with Ruq going from one person to another, desperately begging for some sort of last-minute help.
And finally we had the scene of Ruq with Jalal when he saw her holding a paigam in her hand. He asked her to read it to him but she refused saying it wasn't addressed to him anyway and she could not find the strength to read it aloud. Salima then had to be summoned as Jalal didn't want a private letter from Ruq read before anyone else. The letter was really poignant. It was from Ruq to Humayun. The letter was long and soulful and written from the depths of her heart. Maybe because she found no real solace from Hamida or any of the other ladies, nor from Jalal himself, Ruq was forced to write to Humayun spirit for the justice she wanted?
The letter told Humayun that since she had no one else to talk to you she was writing to him. His son was going to divorce her tomorrow. With that not only her own dreams but even Humayun's own dreams for the marriage of Jalal and herself would die! How she wished he were here to scold Jalal, show him the right way, make him stop what he was doing! She didn't want to trouble his soul from resting in peace, but what was she to do? Whom could she carry her troubles to? She would stand all alone in life very soon!
Salima could barely read the sad letter, Jalal looked like every sentence of the letter was tearing him to pieces, and when the letter was finished he just pulled Ruq close to him and gave her a hug as he wiped her tears. It was a very touching scene, and although the words on the paigam were those of Ruq, there was little expression on her face as Salima read the letter. But the play of emotions on Jalal's face was really worth watching. I just put my TV on silent, and kept watching that scene again and again just to see the changing expressions of Jalal without even the words being heard. You should try it ... it was super to watch like that!
Jalal's master plan! Its effects began to be felt today and may culminate tomorrow!
Jalal at the Diwan-e-Khas was as masterful as usual. I loved the way he first announced that Adham could not marry Tasneem, and then when Adham interrupted with a "Yeh na insaafi hai" he just told him to shut up and not speak in between and to wait and hear what else he had to say. He then went on to stun everybody with the declaration that since he wanted to put himself under the law, he would divorce Ruq, so that the retrospective effect of the law would take force!
As Jalal expected, the rumblings in the Sultanate began in full force. Maulvis were seen discussing why this retrospective application of the law was meaningless and would only be a recipe for widespread unrest! The harem inmates were talking about it. Atga and his men were dismayed by it. The effect that Jalal was anticipating was already beginning to happen. I expect tomorrow the praja-backlash to the law applying backwards will be fully manifested thus giving Jalal the opportunity to make it purely a forward-facing law!
An academic question hits me at this stage: what if Jalal had miscalculated the effect of this retrospective law on the public? Was he prepared in that case to risk the divorce with Ruq? No matter how confident he felt of swinging his plan, did he have any Plan B in place should the worst happen and his calculated risk go awry? It is this question that makes me ask if it was a good idea for him to hide from Ruq that he was planning to use this divorce ploy. Had the plan gone for a six, how would he have then explained it all to Ruq?
The testing of Maham by Jalal - and the slowly slipping confidence of Maham!
One very interesting scene today was the scene when Hamida was trying to convince Jalal not to go ahead with this horrible divorce idea and even Atga Khan seemed to agree. But then Jalal just turned around and said he was keen to know what Maham felt about this divorce idea!
Why did Jalal need to know that? This is exactly the kind of situation that makes me think Jalal is very shrewdly using this Adham case as a test case of Maham and her loyalties also! In the end, Maham said she agreed with Atga that Jalal should not have applied the law like this to himself to the point of coming to a divorce with Ruq, especially just to prevent Adham from marrying Tasneem!
Later in a separate scene between Maham and Hamida, there is another interesting exchange where Maham actually asks Hamida: "What is wrong with Adham wanting to marry Tasneem? Why did Jalal have to allow it all to boil over like this? And how could I have stopped him once he'd made up his mind?" After Hamida and gang leave, however Maham is seen wiping her crocodile tears and smirking with self-satisfaction at the upheaval she has helped engineer at the Agra palace.
I don't know if Maham would have agreed to Adham's plan if he had come to his mother in the first instance and asked her permission to marry Tasneem. I am sure Maham would have vetoed it. But the fact is that now that the situation has opened the Pandora's box, it suits Maham beauutifully. As she later told Adham in the subsequent scene between them , Ruq was nailed exactly as she ought to be, and Jodha would end up carrying the blame.
But even though mother and son were gloating, there was a tinge of unease in Maham that she was not getting a firm grip on Jalal's mind at this time. She showed that she was under-confident of him, because he was capable of some scheming of his own and he played with his cards close to his chest. She had some inkling that something more than she could fathom was happening on this divorce statement of Jalal's.
All this of course made no impression on the mind of the big dolt, Adham. He was his blissful self thinking of how he had rattled Jalal and his household, and except for that flash of brilliance when he first argued his case in court and tripped up Jalal, he has since gone back to being his stupid self!
Folks, let me end by saying I want this Adham case to end tomorrow. And I want no more of story lines that I find a bit hard to believe like Jalal keeping his divorce idea a secret from Ruq, and crying along with her sentimentally, all the time knowing that it was just a ploy! I want less melodramatic fictionalising of the life of Akbar by Ekta. I don't mind her fictionalising a few things here and there but giving me the melodrama of the unbelievable kind ain't my cup of tea!
Also, I want the love letter track to start pronto. Incidentally, why is everyone in Jalal's life writing a paigam to him when he is just sitting in the next room? Starting with Maham's resignation paigam, to now Ruq's paigam to Humayun via Jalal, and the impending Jodha paigam to Jalal ... why are they all wasting so much parchment paper and ink when they are all within hollering distance?
