Friends, never in my life did I think I would even believe that someone would vomit something of blue colour. I had only heard of elves and goblins and bhooths vomiting green stuff. So I was therefore suspending my disbelief and along with the whole Agra palace waiting for the "ultimate blue vomit from Jodha". Congrats, my friends, we got vomit in exactly fours hours ... and I presume it was a beautiful "royal blue"! We mortals never got to actually see it, but we saw "blue vomit" written all over Salima's face and read the happy script!
Vomit aside, the day was also a total triumph for one character above everybody else: Salima! I thought, after her talks with Jalal the other day, that she was a spectacular adviser. Today I find she is one hell of a manager. She handled Jalal, Jodha, the Hakim, Maham and the kitchen, all in her stride ... missing no detail ... making her way from one room to another with calm dignified purposeful sashaying ... managing to talk soft when needed and hard when needed ... putting things, plans and people into place. She was fabulous. And best of all she used no deputies since the matters were delicate! Bravo, lady, you earned that kiss from Jalal!
The other point to note today was the hooded lady and her antics with the herbs and arks and the Hakim. Danger lurks in this part of the story, and we are unable to say how deep the saazish runs. Over the weekend when I heard Bakshi Bano was the culprit to be unmasked, I had done posts asking for views on why Bakshi would be doing what she was doing, what her motives could be and who was she likely working for ... but today, it all looked more sinister than I first thought. So this will be a reasonably complicated tangle for Jalal, I think?
The Jalal-Jodha relationship also saw an evolution from both sides. Jodha went from anger and hurt first , to some slightly calmer but simmering feelings later, to becoming an unsuspecting guinea pig waiting to display her vomit, to finally in the precap becoming a lady resigned to her situation of having to leave Agra (while her husband with a poker face was pulling her leg). Jalal went from suspenseful anticipation of the four-hour countdown to the vomit, to sheer relief later, to the penultimate scene of talks of revenge, to walking in some harmony in the precap with Jodha (while he recited baby names for their "virtual" child)! I am happy they traversed the episode, going from the bitter stages towards the better stages of their relationship ... so I can expect a happier episode tomorrow.
Now here goes my slightly detailed analysis ...
Salima was tops: she may soon oust Ruq as the "mind" Jalal leans on!
The first scene that Salima participated in was the scene where she meets up with Jodha, presumably to check how far Jodha has come in the vomit countdown. On the terrace of the palace, amidst the chill winter winds, Salima offers Jodha something to eat first that Jodha refuses, and then offers to teach her some passages from some literature that again Jodha has no taste for. Seeing these signs of pallor and disinclination in Jodha, Salima senses that Jodha is well on the way to deliver the Hakim's intended end-result!
The dialogue between Salima and Jodha was lovely, I thought. Salima was soft and as gracious as ever and she knew how to handle the tetchy Jodha beautifully. She was anticipating Jodha to be full of indignantion at Jalal and had just the right words and thoughts to offer that would make Jodha re-think her position. She told Jodha: "I know how you feel, and if I may, I'd like to give you some advice. Jalal did irk you completely the other day before his mother, but he had to do that, he had to take the blame for your pregnancy, in order to save your honour before Hamida! Tell me what would you have done in his position? Would you too not have done the same thing?" Jodha insisted that whether he was lying or telling the truth with good intention, the scars he had left on her soul were too deep. Salima then said "Remember, its all about perspective. You could be right and he could be right too, for there can be a truth that goes beyond just what you two believe. Its like five blind men describing an elephant by its parts only to find they were all individually right but the larger picture was clear to none of them. So do please wait with an open mind and the solution will come soon!" Jodha was left there thinking of what Salima had said but not quite assimilating its import all at once.
Salima then went to the Hakim for another great discussion. This was not the soft Salima but the purposeful one. She listened to the Hakim suggesting that this whole Jodha-drugging must be a saazish and the perpetrator may even try it on Salima! That instantly brought back memories to Salima of her own stomach upset after that teaspoon of Jodha's milk in the kitchen and the suspicious scurrying of a hooded woman with payals in the kitchen that day. Salima went away from the Hakim in haste to the kitchen to take immediate control of everything there being cooked for Jodha.
There followed a hard Salima in action with Maham in the kitchen. This was Salima couching the strongest words in the most poilte but uncompromising language. She told Maham that she would take over charge of the kitchen from Maham by the decree of Jalal, and hoped Maham would not be offended by this? She then issued orders that no unauthorised personnel could enter the kitchen without her say-so.
Later Salima was back in action at Jodha's room nearer the appointed vomiting hour, in her watchful and alert mode ... when lo and behold, Jodha vomited on the hour and in a colour that matched her blue blood. Salima ran post haste to Jalal.
The final scene where Salima scored today was the scene where she tells Jalal the good news. Jalal was waiting for her and at top speed evicted everyone for a private and suspenseful moment anticipating good news from Salima. She gave him the news that Jodha was not pregnant, which he accepted with a stunned look ,and soon Salima, after a kiss, was again off to her next duty with a strand of pearls he had given her to give the Hakim. The case was not over and neither was Salima's work!
As I said in my introduction to this post, Salima today was the "manager in action" while in the last episode she was merely the "adviser". Here she showed us her complete repertoire - soft action, hard action, soft talk, hard talk, eye for detail and eye for the larger picture. She was splendid.
More than that her last scene with Jalal was ultra revealing. Jalal grabbed her hand (a familiarity gesture I've never seen between them before) and then flummoxed me by additionally kissing her on the hair to record his gratitude to her. You know what friends, I am now getting a strong, strong feeling that while Jodha will take Jalal's heart, Salima may take Jalal's mind and leave Ruqaiaya wondering which Begum is the bigger enemy! Salima's scores today were so good, that it will be very difficult for Ruq to match up to this level of competence, wisdom and manpower maangement skills! And Jalal has tasted this powerfulness in Salima. Ruq is being given a run for her money on her own strong territory!
Bakshi and Hakim: how ruthless is BB and how deep runs this saazish?
The Bakshi Bano and Hakim saga was another very important one today. I have already covered the Hakim's interaction with salima, except for one point that I kept back deliberately to write about here. The Hakim had already indicated to Salima that the potion needed to be administered every day via different foods as its needs to be a sustained periodic dosage to work properly. After Salima left the Hakim's room to run to the kitchen and take control there, the Hakim did a piece of very important self-talk. She said "This potion that makes women look pregnant with all the attendant symptoms has to be made using four different herbs bought from the bazaar separately, and some of these herbs are not even available in Agra." So the import is that miscreant must be powerful and savvy enough to be doing all this procurement and mixing it all in the right proportions!
The scene was then immediately followed by a shot of the hooded lady, the miscreant (who we all know is Bakshi Bano), accidentally dropping the whole concoction she had made on the floor, breaking the glass container as well. Having thus spilt all the potion she had, she needed to urgently get replacement herbs to keep on giving Jodha the needed doosages. So she decides then to approach the Hakim for the herbs to tide over, till she could buy more later.
She reaches the Hakim's room, and asks for the herbs with such an air of confidence and authority that the Hakim instantly becomes suspicious (and to boot she has the burqa and payals that Salima hinted at). When the Hakim however resists giving the herbs, the hooded lady instantly becomes violent and vicious, wrestlesthe Hakim for the drugs, pushes the Hakim with a mighty heavy shove to the floor, and runs from the room.
Now the Hakim then collects her wits and runs to the kitchen in search of Salima whom she doesn't find. So she leaves word there for Salima to come and meet her pronto - and returns to her room to find two soldiers hunting for her (looking ready not just to intimidate but perhaps even to execute her). When last seen, the Hakim was hiding tremulously behind a lattice, fearing for her life from the soldiers rampaging in the room with unsheathed swords.
Okay, at the end of this whole Bakshi-Hakim saga, I am forced to revise my opinion of Bakshi. I spent all of Monday afternoon on the Forum speculating if Bakshi was working for Sharif, or against Sharif, or on her own. We all discounted the fact that she may be anti-Jalal or anti-Jodha and we found excuses for her that she may be fearful of Sharif and was thus perhaps an accomplice by constraint. We even gave her benefit of doubt that she may be administering not the potion itself but the antidote.
But today I am beginning to wonder if a supposedly benign girl, whatever may be the husband's pressure, would push an old lady Hakim with such violence to the floor,wrestle with her with force for the drugs, and would then send soldiers in pursuit to eliminate the Hakim! To what lengths will Bakshi Bano go to save her husband if he is the mastermind behind all this saazish ... or if it is Bakshi's own saazish, how far will Bakshi go? Will she even go to the point of murder of the Hakim? How ruthless is she really when push comes to shove, on behalf of her husband or on her own behalf? And how deep does this saazish really run? What is all this drugging of Jodha about?
Now if we assume that there's a chance the soldiers may kill the Hakim before she talks, this fact about the herbs being available only in the bazaar etc. and the fact that the hooded lady visited her rooms will remain secret forever! The Hakim also gave some slight signs of having guessed who the culprit may be, so she will not be available to identify the culprit if she is killed. Jalal and Salima will have much less vital information to work on. Will the Hakim survive, and will she squeak to Salima or Jalal is the question that hangs for tomorrow! It may complicate things if the Hakim falls prey to the hunting soldiers ...
Jalal and Jodha: the slow route to learning to trust each other began today!
The Jalal-Jodha scenes were good, although a bit predictable too, as we seem to have seen most of it in the precap already. The first scene where they are together is the precap scene of the last episode ... Jalal comes to Jodha's room (after she has heard the advice from Salima and is thus more controlled) and brings back the ring she had placed on the tarazu. We did not hear the "ghrna" word from Jodha, thanks, I think, to Salima's advice already beginning to work on her.
When Jalal brought the ring to her he said: "You left this on the tarazu. But some things cannot be weighed and this is one of them. A king uses the tarazu for insaaf and not for weighing gifts given with sentiment." Jodha replies that she does not trust him any more. Even if he lied to his mother in good intention, the means doesn't always justify the ends. He had hurt her deeply! He had mortified her with his words.
Jalal says: "I will not regret what I did nor have I come here to offer justifications or explanations. The ring simply cannot be with anyone but you as long as you live in Agra as my Begum. It was gifted by my mother and for her sake you have to keep it safe". I thought he was again leaning on his old trusted argument ... "the mother's sake argument". (But it seems always to work on Jodha, and I suspect that's because she too wants a face-saver and this "mother's sake argument" lets her take back words or things without loss of ego!) Jalal departs with a small self-talk here that is really important. He says: "When you realise you're not pregnant you'll have to realise too that I am innocent as well."
In the precap, to my surprise, both seemed to be wallking together in some harmony, if not in happiness. We have to remember here that Salima has not told Jodha that Jalal "lied" to his mother about being the baby's father, she merely said "he took the blame in front of Hamida". This must have left Jodha with the impression still that Jalal did sleep with her on that stormy night!
I can't wait for tomorrow to see Jodha's face when he tells her there is to be no baby! You know what, I suspect there will be a mixture of relief and also a bit of a sad "what if ...". And one more thing ... I am sure many of you are keeping score now. Ruq has been kissed, Salima has been kissed. Who is left? C'mon Jalal, do it!
The villains ... and where they were left standing at the end of day's play!
Sharif and Adham seem to have lost Round 1 but won Round 2 in the stakes for greater power for themselves. Jalal seems to have given the Wazir-E-Aliya promotion to to the Kabul Munim for services rendered and Sharif was gnashing his teeth at this, but Adham reminded him that the Kabul Munim was actually his man and could be counted on to empty the Agra coffers soon and make handouts to Adham.
Regarding Maham, I thought she was told her place by Salima, and soon she was seen in her own room sequestered with Resham, speculating about why Jalal was lying through his teeth to his mother to save Jodha's honour while Salima oversaw Jodha's food with so much attention. Maham was nowhere close to an answer to her puzzles, and I found that I liked her to be kept in this mode.
In conclusion there is one point that struck me about the whole episode today: it looked like Jodha and Jalal were very washed out and tired somehow. There was no lustre on their faces, no visible energy radiating from them, none of those whole-hearted expressions ...
Jodha looked less animated and even sleepy after Salima spoke to her about Jalal's lie to his mother ... and Jalal too could have looked a little less round-eyed and more genuinely thrilled to hear that Jodha was not pregnant after all.
But I think the relentless shooting schedule and the in-between practice sessions for the Zee Rishtey Awards must have taken their toll. Lavina Tandon had tweeted two days ago that they were trying to pack in 20 scenes in 30 hours across two days non-stop ...
I felt sorry for Rajat and Paridhi because the poor things must be EXHAUSTED! Thanks a million, guys, for still turning up on our TV sets today and giving us 22 happy minutes of your time, despite being dead on your feet!
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