Folks,
As you would see from the title, after this latest episode, I am, and I am sure you are too, in a state of hesitant optimism or lucid pessimism, take you pick, about the way things are going. Given the way this tale has been yo-yoing, the mrigtrishna (mirage) term might well turn out to be the correct one, but I intend to keep my fingers and toes crossed tightly enough to qualify them for an American style pretzel contest. So should you!
My tentative optimism is largely centred on Jalal, but I have not lost sight of Jodha either. I re- read my last 2 posts, and confirmed to myself that I have been able to lavish a great deal of, for me, unusual, but well-deserved praise on her. Now, I only hope she does not start sliding backwards, for to tell the truth, I am heartily tired to having to take her apart in post after post. Even if she moves a little way towards becoming the Diana-cum-Juno that I had always wanted her to be, a feisty, strong-minded, and intelligent, but withal caring and protective young woman, who could tame a turbulent, arrogant Shahenshah by stages, instead of what she is now, I would be more than satisfied.
Let us begin then with Jalal.
Dhakoslabaazi; The precap was, for me, the highlight of the whole episode, with Jalal being informed soulfully by Jodha about her keeping the Mahashivaratri vrat for him . She does not forget to add, in her typically disastrous style, that she will be doing it because her Maasa had made her promise to do that. Now if you were Jalal, how would you have taken that statement?
So, when he retorts snappily, Jab aap hamein apna shauhar hi nahin maanti, to yeh dhakoslabaazi karne ki kya zaroorat hai? I was clapping hard. It was savagely ironic and spot on, and Jodha is left speechless.
We will undoubtedly find out tonight if she has a neat comeback line, or disarms him by dissolving into tears. Of course to the accompaniment of Mirza's mantra (about mohabbat meaning that one cannot hurt the object of one's affections even if one wants to) playing in the background, while Jalal lowers his aggressive chin and stares at her tear-filled eyes. By now, I am as tired of this corny mantra of Mirza's as I am of the overused Jalal-Jodha background theme!.
But for now, Jalal can be given a couple of brownie points for not behaving like a marshmallow left out in the sun, but putting Jodha clearly on the defensive with that irrefutable question.
As for the rest of it, some have queried his second retort that he does not believe in pooja-path for saving his life (What? Not dua? Our Shahenshah is getting rajvanshified as well!) , citing his bowing before Kali Maa and his accepting prasad from Jodha as proofs to the contrary.
But none of this, which simply marks his admirable acceptance of and respect for the faith of others, need have anything to do with his believing that prayers can save his life when it is endangered. The two are quite diferent things. Jalal has always claimed that he writes his own fate with his shamsheer ki dhaar, and while the shamsheer is not even seen in his jungi riyaaz these days, and might well be rusting, the principle presumably still holds!
Another brownie point is due to Jalal for his managing to withstand the magnetic pull that almost overwhelms him when he passes in front of Jodha's chambers.
At that moment, he is acutely irritated with Mirza Hakim for having made him face something he does not want to acknowledge at all. This is thanks in good part to Mirza's most unfortunate assertion that love can make even an emperor so weak that it can bring him to its knees. That was not only incorrect - true love makes one strong, not weak - but it was also the worst possible thing to say to a proud man who is in a state of denial about the very idea of mohabbat as applied to himself. Whence Jalal's muttering to himself, as he passes by Jodha's rooms, about the inexplicable anger, the jealousy, and the restlessness he now feels.
If he had then been forced by his obsession with Jodha to go up to her and ask for the prasad, there would have been a subsequent and strong rebound, making him shy away violently from what he perceives as a disastrous weakness. What he did was thus better for his eventual progression towards acknowledging what it is that he feels.
As for his decision to go to Ruqaiya for the night, it need not be on the rebound from Jodha at all. Why should he not spend the night with his chief queen? It must be something that he does all the time, and he does not have to have a reason for that, like not wanting to be shoved to the ground once more by Jodha! He is not in a good mood, and probably he wants a break with his Gatti. It is surely better than doing it with the khaas tohfa, even if she was not a vishkanya!
Sibling affection: The scene earlier with Mirza Hakim was warm and affectionate, as I had expected. Jalal is always very affectionate in a tactile fashion with his siblings - he hugs Bakshi Banu whenever she is sad, and his opening embrace of her in the confession scene was very touching. So he wants to personally prepare Mirza for his first battle, and hand over his shamsheer to him before he leaves. Ideally, Hamida Banu should have been there to bless Mirza, seeing that his mother is not there, but she has not even tried to come and comfort him, so that is too much to expect . If Shivani had married him, she would have handed him his sword, after the aarti.
Memory loss re: Mirza Hakim?: As for Mirza, he was talking as if he had been at Jalal's right hand all these years, noting his expressions before every jung ka eilaan (did he start at 10 years old?), instead of having been doing his manmaani in Kabul, as per Jalal himself (in episode 49).
Jalal had then mentioned Hakim for the first time in court, and said 'Kabul me Mirza Hakim ki manmaani baghawat ki had tak badh gayi hai. Kabul sultanate ki sarhad hai, Use aur Kandahar ko mehfooz rakhna sultanate ki hifazat aur uske rasookh ke liye ahem hai. Hame usse iss tarah sambhalna hai ki kisi ko khabar bhi na pade ki waha kabhi koi takleef aayi thi'"
Given this, the present whiter than white avatar of Mirza, plus Jalal's overflowing affection for him, seem illogical and puzzling. I suspect the present lot of CVs has not seen that episode,and as for standing history on its head, why, what then is the 30 second daily disclaimer for?😉
NB: No, I did not remember the episode number, Lashy my dear, only the substance of that statement of Jalal's, which I had cited in my Inconsistencies abounding post, saying " This was why, in our serial, Mirza Hakim was mentioned at one point, in a conversation between Jalal and Atgah Khan, as having become too big for his boots in Kabul. So much so that Jalal had to sent Munim Khan there to curb him and clip his wings." The credit for digging out of the episode number and the verbatim text of what Jalal said then is due solely to Shwetha (jshweta16)
Imperator resurgent: Jalal seems to crawling back to his old self, witness the terrifying mirthless smile of old with which he tells Abul Mali that he has had his eye on him ever since Abul Mali entered Agra, and that while as for his being executed, waqt hi batayega, he would make sure the traitor experienced hell on earth while still alive.
He is also beginning to resume his siyasati self.
His asking Abul Mali about his jasoos was rhetorical. He could hardly have expected to get an honest reply!
In fact, much of the ridiculing of Jalal in the forum for his 4/6 eyes claim is due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what Jalal and Atgah Khan have been up to re: Abul Mali.
The truth is that far from being a terminally ill-informed ruler who cannot spot a treasonous plot going on right under his nose (for which, I must confess, I too had taken him severely to task) , Jalal has been having a close watch kept on Abul Mali all this while, which is why they are able to reel him in at once as soon as Jalal gives the go ahead to Atgah Khan.
Earlier, Jalal's whispering to Atgah Khan was clearly about the ongoing "keep Abul Mali under strict observation" plan of his , about which we were told only later, at the Diwan-e-Khas scene. When Jalal says to Atgah, while leaving, that it is now time, he means for pulling Abul Mali out of his hidey hole and bringing him to Agra fort as a prisoner.
Please do not fail to note that this time, Jalal extends his confabulation with Atgah Khan, instead of becoming distracted by the sight of Jodha Begum and immediately dropping affairs of state to start squabbling with her. This too was an achcha lakshan!
Question: Does that mean that Jalal's spies also spotted the touching Benazir-Abul Mali embrace in the middle of the Agra Bazaar? If they had done so, Jalal would be on to the KT (khaas tohfa) already and by himself.
I hope he has figured out Benazir, just as he had Abul Mali spotted as soon as he entered Agra. I want him to get out of that trap on his own. Jodha can come running in and try to take the bite, perhaps, and thus prove her bonafides as a devoted patni, but Jalal should be smart enough to take care of himself. Let us see.
As for the criticism of Jalal for brushing Jodha off summarily when she tries once more to warn him about Benazir, it is possible, indeed likely that, just as he knew about Abu Mali being in hiding in Agra, he knows about Benazir being Abul Malis' weapon against him as well. If so, the last thing he would do would be to confabulate with Jodha about that at the entrance to the Diwan-e-Khas. Why does she not try and meet him in his rooms? He does not bar her entry the last I saw.
The zahreeli dosiza angle: We should also not forget one thing here. Even if Jalal knows that Benazir is out to get him, he will not realise till the very last moment HOW she plans to do that.
Why, even after watching Benazir writhe all over the screen today like an item dancer, and after having listened to Mirza's account of how a zahreeli dosiza gets restless and irritable when deprived of her daily fix of snake venom, our Jodha Begum has not yet managed to connect the dots. How can Jalal, who has not had the benefit to Mirza's esoteric knowhow, and has not seen his KT today, even guess that she is a vishkanya?
So, even if he is expecting her to attack him when she gets to be up close and personal with him, he will be looking out for a stab with a khanjar, not a deadly snakebite. Now he is a strong man, and he would never dream that in any such eventuality, he would not be able to overpower her physically. So her actual move will catch him unprepared, and he will have to react very quickly.
The Great Snake Famine: It is here that the emptying out of Benazir's stock of snakes comes in ( Zakira's timorous report that the pitaris are empty is exactly the sort of thing one's servants do. They always announce that the coffee or the sugar or the dals have run out after the stock has been completely used up, never a little ahead of time!😉) .
Judging from Benazir's writhing act of last night - done in full costume, such as there is of it, complete with jewellery😉 - it does not look as thought the KT is in her usual top form for poisoning Jalal.
This leaves open the possibility that even if she bites him, the poison might act far more slowly than the norm, giving some time for Jalal's rescue team, very likely headed by Jodha. I think we will have that climax only on Friday.
Question: Why would Benazir want to go ahead with her murderous plans now, with Abul Mali in prison? For this means that even if she manages to dispose of Jalal without getting caught for it - one presumes that she is a contract killer and not a suicide kisser! 😉- someone else will seize the throne. Abul Mali will not be let out of prison by the successor to Jalal, who would hardly want another contender for power, but would very likely be executed pronto. What then about Benazir's imperial ambitions (which are crazy in any case) ?
Jodha: Her tenacious campaign to protect the Shahenshah from Benazir is admirable in its persistence against all odds. It is rooted partly in a desire to make up to him for the Shivani fiasco, partly in order not to feel guilty that she did not do all that she could to stave off such a a disaster. As she says to Moti before she sets off to meet Sharifuddin for the first time, if anything bad happened and she had not done all that she could to prevent it, she would never be able to forgive herself as long as she lived.
This is not the desperate fear of a woman out to save the life of the man she loves. While Jalal will not accept to himself that he loves Jodha, Jodha has, as yet, no idea she is moving towards that most uncomfortable state of being.
It remains to be seen for how long she is safe from that. For love is rarely a bed of roses. It brings insecurity, vulnerability, and often great grief, more often that it brings roseate happiness. As I wrote earlier, when love comes, it is mostly not cock a hoop with fine feathers, but slowly, dragging itself on bleeding feet.
A major faux pas: Both Jodha and Mirza are like tubelights with a defective choke. One takes till today to decipher the code and the other has still not done it!😉
Jodha's immediately confronting Benazir and showing her hand prematurely was both very ill-advised and counter-productive. But she is always "like that only" - remember the time when she unwisely reveals to Sharifuddin that she had masqueraded as a daasi at Amer and learnt of his skulduggery in the Ratanpur fort affair; which led to his wanting to hit back at her and embarking on the false pregnancy track?
Our Jodha Begum never connects such obvious points, as she is not given to introspection, and so she never learns from her past mistakes, but repeats them conscientiously. After all, she might be a Rajvanshi princess and a Mughal Shahi Begum, but she is still an Ekta Kapoor heroine!
What she should have done instead was, as she does not have Benazir's letter, to write it out from memory and go to Jalal with the coded message she has deciphered. I live in hope, however, that Jalal has deciphered the message already before sending the "paigham" on to Kabul; his aural memory is amazing.
One significant comment Jodha made while watching Abul Mali was "It is tragic how all of Shehenshah's near and dear ones are out to betray him!' She conveniently forgot about her Sujamal Bhaisa, of course, whose treachery was no less, for even if he did have a valid reason for opposing Bharmal, for him to betray Amer to Sharifuddin was despicable.
Mahaam: I liked Mahaam's calm explanation of Jalal's decision to Adham, who will of course be reassured and more convinced than ever of his mother's siyasati skills when he gets to lead the Malwa campaign.She has brains, you have to hand it to her, and is also generally a very good judge of character. Today that included the kaabil Mansingh, though I am sure she detests him on principle.
The jung: Do not get your hopes up, folks, but with any luck, you might have a 3 minute war, if only for Mirza and Mansingh to win the Mughal equivalents of the Mahavir Chakra. Not the Param Vir Chakra, as you mostly get it only posthumously.
The Mahashivaratri climax: My bet is that it will end up like a mythological film, with Jodha deafening the helpless Kanha here with her desperate pleas, and Jalal waking up to the precise kind of danger he faces from the KT there, of course at the very last moment! There will be much intercutting between the Jodha-Kanha duo and the Jalal-Benazir duo, till we reach the fatal ending, for Benazir, that is.
Given that this is an 8 pm family show (some of the dubious recent tracks notwithstanding!), we are unlikely to get what 99% of the forum would die for: Jodha rushing in, repeating The Shove, this time on Benazir, and replacing her at the very last minute for The Kiss (of course it needs capitalisation!). But there is nothing to stop you all from dreaming of it!😉
Shyamala B.Cowsik
PS: Lashy dear, this one is for you, and you know why!
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