Friends, yesterday's episode was neither better nor worse, I guess, from the one previous to it. We had that horrendous and unnecessary malyudh where Jalal fielded two of his most physically-challenged sipahis to take on the pehelwan - and was left with no option but to succumb to Maham's wiles to get Adham out of the jail and into the fighting arena.
At the same time, Sharif seems to have also written his own release from jail by sending a paigam to Jodha (in the precap) promising information on the plot against Jalal (which he no doubt knows of from the days of his association with Abul Mali?). Anyway Jodha is now twice trapped - once she takes Sharif's help, she is in Sharif's lechereous sights again, and will also be behoolden to him for Jalal's life, and at the same timme Sharif will be a free man again. So will Adham be!
Overall I thought the episode was no great shakes in and of its own, except that the story went forward a bit more albeit getting entangled also a bit more. Hakim seemed hell-bent on his own sleuthery and will hopefully decipher the Ben paigam fast thanks to the Rahim-Jodha clues. Ben seemed in a haste to eliminate Jalal although Ruq spoilt her party and delayed it all by a day. And meanwhile Jodha seems to get time to check out Sharif's story on the Jalal assassination plot.
Why this one simple letter of Jodha to Jalal (that caused this misunderstanding) has now become a six-in-one track I haven't the faintest idea. Maybe Ekta likes her plots to be so thick that even she forgets where the story began and gooes meandering down new alleys of intrigue every day. I am still waiting like a simpleton, folks, for the Jodha paigam to Jalal to be truly unraveled. Meanwhile I am being led down a path that containns Hakim Mirza, Ben, the snake, the small baandhi, the sipahi, the pehelwan, Adham, Sharif, Maham, and Rahim, Ruq ... and of course Jodha looking like she is part of the decoration and not yet achieiving much - and Jalal looking like he is a dumb male falling for the "bait" and "bite" of a snakey temptress, and enjoying it with a sheepish look plastered on his face!
What am I watching this crap for? I need my head examined! Will this now be the beginning of the end, or is there more? Is there still the worst to come before it all starts to get better? I have lost hopes for this week bringing anything for us other than more hype and hoopla. I live in hope for next week at least bringing some unraveling trend. But even that seems a bit remote since the plot is now so tangled that it may take more than a few days to sort it all out. The Creatives now have to open up everything and get to the last thing at the bottom of the heap: the Jodha letter to Jalal!
Also spoilers say Hakim will help Jodha-Jalal patch up, but even in that I have my own continuing doubts on Hakim''s own veracity (given the history). So I am prepared for a last-minute sting-in-the-tail by Hakim doing his own treachery just at the last moment when Jodha and Jalal are about to patch up. Maybe Mansingh will at that time help move Hakim out of Jodha-Jalal's way. So when will all this happen? When my grreat-grandchild is about 70 years old?
Anyway's here's my analysis of the three topics I thought seemed to be important yesterday ...
The Hakim-Jodha combination and the paigam paheli!
In the opening scene of the episode Hakim Mirza is seen searching the room of the dead sipahi who had died of snake bite, to see if some clue could be found. He found a locked box and then fortuitously also found its key and unlocked the box. Inside were several unsent paigams, testimony to the fact that the sipahi was indeed a despatch clerk. But in the midst of all those piagmas was also the strangely worded paigam of Benazir ... which Hakim seemed to recognise was in the Awadhi language, addressed to her "Ammaji". Seeing it was all written like a riddle, Hakim remembered he was to meet Jodha and Rahim to play riddles with them and arrived late into the night at Jodha's room, where Jodha and Rahim were both almost half asleep.
Rahim then insisted that Hakim should hear his own riddle from Jodha, and when Jodha recited it Hakim didn't have a clue about the answer! Jodha then explained that one has to take just the first letters of each sentence and string it into another code sentence! I almost thought Hakim would do that with the Ben paigam he had in hand, but he did not apply his brains then and there, and instead asked Jodha "Is Ben really a Muslim? Why is she writing letters to her mother in Awadhi?" Jodha seemed at a loss to answer that. Then the discussion went to the relationship of Jodha and Ben and Jalal, when Hakim seemed to sense that Jodha did not like Ben but was actually angry with Jalal for favouring her. Hakim smiled knowlinngly at Jodha and made Jodha wonder if the whole world sensed her jealousy of Ben and anger with Jalal!
Now, when exactly is Hakim going to read and decipher the code on Ben's paigam - that's my question? I suspect everything is just going to happen in the nick of time - maybe on Friday (as usual) - so that Ben will be just about to bite Jalal, Jodha will arrive there with her own anti-Ben information, and Hakim will arrive too with his deciphered code! But the foundations of all the anti-Ben forces are gathering steam, so to speak, so I expect more build up of this storyline today in readiness for unraveling on Friday!
Jalal in bed awaiting and enjoying in glee the lethal Ben!
Friends, I hated the scene where Jalal is in bed, and Ben comes to seduce him. Before that Ben is seen testing her poisonous tongue on a white rose and turning it blue-green and feeling satisfied that she is carrying sufficient poison in herself to kill Jalal. She tells her bandhi that she cannot wait one more night to do the diirty job on Jalal as she would like to have it done and dusted and return with Imtiaz back to her homeland by tomorrow - just when all of Agra is mourning the demise of Jalal.
With this plan in mind, and reminding her bandhi to keep ready the snake (so that she can get back the poison she injects into Jalal), Ben then goes to Jalal's bedroom. I hate writing about this scene, folks, because I thought the way Jalal was shown enjoying Ben's overtures was despicable. He not only welcomed Ben but also seemed terribly seduced by her nearing his face for a kiss. In fact he even looked amused (was he expecting her, I wonder?).
Anyway to cut an ugly story short, Ruq arrived just in the nick of time to see Jalal thus gearing up for a kiss from Benazir. Ruq was already upset that Jalal had belittled her also in the harem when he tried to get his aim on Jodha and silence Jodha from speaking on political matters. Ruq did not like being bracketed with those women who were not allowed to get political. She wanted to be a political adviser to Jalal (as part of her audha), so she had come to rant to Jalal about his behaviour.
It said a lot to me about how tolerant Ruq was of Jalal's affairs with other women, when she didn't turn a hair to see him thus lying ready for Benazir's seduction. Instead she said "Takhliya", got rid of Benazir, looked at the sheepishly smiling Jalal and started raving and ranting about his treatment of her in the harem. Jalal immediately said it was all done to hit at Jodha and henceforth he would give Ruq her audha and be more careful.
That brought that scene to a close somewhat, but I can't help remembering the absolute ass-like expression on Jalal's face as he got caught red-handed by Ruq waitiing for Ben's kiss. It was a disgusting scene for me to watch. Neither did he try to explian himself nor did Ruq ask him to! He had a silly grin and she looked miffed with her audha issue and not his state of seduction-readiness!
Thank God Jodha wasn't there and it was only Ruq, but even then to see a man getting ready to receive the ministrations of a seductive temptress while he ill-treated his own wives was awful! (Whether he deliberately allowed Ben to act seductive knoowing who she really was - or he was without a clue as to her being a vishkanya is anoother matter entirely!)
Sharif and Adham out of jail soon? What is this track?
Next day all are assembled in the grand fighting arena awaiting the malyudh with the pehelwan, when Jalal is announced. The pehelwan lives up to his word and vanquishes one after another the first two weaklings that Jalal's team fields against him. Now comes a major fracas ... Maham tries hard to calm down an agitated Jalal, who is almost ready to take the field himself. She asks for time alone with Jalal and argues that Jalal should never stoop to fight with a mere sipahi. He needs to fiels another sipahi against this pehelwan. And then out comes her suggestion: let it be the robust Adham Khan. She is saying this not as his mother but as the Wazir-e-Aliyah!
Jalal says it has to be Ruq's decision to free Adham from jail as he wronged Ruq's marriage and had to be llocked in! But lo, Ruq argues in favour of Maham's position and says "If Adham is needed to save the face of the Sultanate now, let me forgive him!". Did Jalal want that response from Ruq? Is that why he told her he himself would otherwise fight the pehelwan?
Simultaneoulsy in the precap, Jodha gets a paigam from none less than Sharif himself from inside the same jail. Having earlier served with Abul Mali, Sharif no doubt knows that Ben must be a vishkanya from Mali ... and especially after he has heard of this pehelwan, the malyudh, the wandering snake, the snake-bit sipahi etc. Sharif must have got wind of the fact that Abul Mali has started all his games against Jalal, which he had kept in abeyance for so long.
So Sharif must have sent that paigam to Jodha with a double intention: one, to get Jodha on his side by appearing to be her friend in distress.; and two, to get himself out of jail, like Adham, by being of service to Jalal and uncovering the vishkanya plot to Jodha so that she could save Jalal.
Okay, so now I see that this track will likely culminate with both Adham and Sharif back under the open skies, both free birds, ready to make their next plots. What's worse, both will come out like saviours of Jalal and Jodha - and therefore will again become the least suspected people in the next fracas. So much for us all gloating that they were both in jail. We were sad they were in the same prison, but now that jail-matey-ness seems preferable to them both being out in the open together! What bad kismet we viewers have!
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