Friends, all of this week my posts need to be a bit short because of very heavy workload, But anyway there was not much that culminated in yesterday's episode (a few interesting tracks started opening up), and so we are okay with a short update I guess.
I thought there were three very important issues that came up for analysis during yesterday's episode:
The story took the expected mini-leap ... but of four months not five months!
All along these last three or four weeks, there was talk in various inside circles of the Channel and the Production House (which leaked out to us) that there would be a mini-leap of five months so - and that from Maham's death the Creatives could go directly to the date when Jodha is due for delivery, without having to show the intervening period. This cast a gloom on some members of our forum, because people so wanted to see Jodha go through the evolution of the pregnancy bit by bit as Jalal showed a lot of TLC for her.
Alas, that was not to be shown! And the slight surprise was that the leap was of four months and not five months, because the Creatives, it appears, want to show that Jodha prematurely delivered the babies by about a month!
The folly of Ruq taking Jodha to the hakima with "high pahunch" was in itself rather silly I thought because in those days when a Queen is to deliver, I would have expected the hakima (of whatever pahunch-level) to come to the Palace to attend the Queen and the Queen would not have to go on a palki expedition to the hakima. But nevertheless, it seems that Ruq had covered her bases well for this journey by getting permission from Jalal for this trek, so we cannot later say that Ruq endangered Jodha.
Anyway, the hakima took a good look at Jodha and said the babies were fine but Jodha would need to eat well, take her medicines on time and stay pleasantly rested for a heathy delivery. Some more medicine was given to Ruq to administer to Jodha, one drop a day with milk. All looked hunky-dory at the hakima's place as the entourage left for the journey back to Agra.
But suddenly thereafter a rainstorm hit them - and in the jostling and jolting of the palki, Jodha started getting labour pains. The precap showed Jodha ready to deliver the babies with Moti and Ruq (predominantly) officiating as midwives. Ruq who seems to have little or no idea of what to do was seen aghast at the sight of so much blood on her hands!
The events that happened do not worry me so much as the alignment of the storyline with our expectations. A lot of us (with Maddy and me at the helm!) had hoped for the negativity of Ruq to surface so that this baby kaand would see her caught and exposed. We did not want Ruq to get that one baby even for a second. We thought she would do something stupid before the delivery itself, and thus Jalal would be able to deny her any baby upon delivery. The last thing we all wanted was for the leap of four months to deny us the opportunity to see Ruq do something saazishy and lose the baby. And what we certainly didn't want to see, I am sure, was for Ruq to be the midwife at the delivery and thus later get kudos for doing a good job!
But the fact that the Creatives are showing the birth of the babies in the palki itself en route to Agra, with Ruq in attendance on Jodha, now seems to suggest three things:
One, the death of the babies eventually may be put down to the fact that they were born prematurely and hence did not have a good chance of survival. Ruq did not have any hand in killing the babies, nor can she lay the blame on Jodha for endangering one or both of the babies. Maybe Maham's duas (declared by Shaguni as un-erasable) will be given as the reason for the premature birth causing the early death of the twins.
Two, Ruq seems to be given a major role to play in the birth of the babies such that her idea to take Jodha to the hakima of pahunch (with Jalal's permission) and her later success with delivering the babies (doing the midwife role) en route would be praised sky high by Jalal and Hamida!
Three, articles and spoilers have said that the babies are born healthy enough and Jodha gives one baby to Ruq - and Jalal, Jodha and Ruq are very happy with the state of affairs. In fact the latest promo seems to suggest a bonhomie between the threesome, all enjoying the arrival of the babies together with common glee.
I must admit, that all of these sounds like things some of us don't want to hear! Some of us so wanted to hear that Ruq would be blamed for the journey, or for the premature birth of the babies or for the messing up of the birth , or some such thing ... anything that would make her look like Enemy Number One, in the absence of Maham. But the Creatives are not doing any such negativising of Ruq yet or making her any shade of grey even. Those of us hoping for Ruq getting caught and punished have had to see our hopes also washed away by the rains yesterday! But anyway let's see ... hope still lives in me of Ruq getting caught somewhere down the line!
The "friendship" between Ruq and Jodha seems to portend Ruq's negativity!
When I look at the extreme friendship between Ruq and Jodha shown yesterday, that in itself seems to portend impending negativity down the line. Yesterday the voiceover talking about the four month leap made it a point to mention that in the intervening four months the friendship between Ruq and Jodha has also flourished - and indeed on the way to the hakima, both Ruq and Jodha were singing each other's praises! Jodha was thanking Ruq for being such a constant companion, steadfast in her care, and Ruq replied "Yes, I am doing all this not just for you, but also for my baby in you!" ... which rather than making Jodha feel miffed saw her actually laughing at the joke!
But the thing that still hangs as an open loop for me is the fact that Jalal took the "reverse farman" from Ruq. There has to be some value for that in the story. There has to be also some value for Ruq having looked at the chessboard and said "Why can there not be two MUZs". So I still have hopes that the more they show this "extreme bonding" between Jodha and Ruq, the more the stage is being set for the "ugly fallout" of the Ruq-Jodha friendship pretty soon. I mean, all it may take is for Jalal to say "OK now that the waaris baby is born and is with Jodha, Jodha becomes MUZ." Ruq may venture her "two MUZs theory" but get beaten down saying there's no law that allows two MUZs. That should then make Ruq jealous as hell.
I can't say exactly what Ruq will or will not do, but I think that all this cozy friendship between her and Jodha is slated to change to the opposite extreme pretty fast. So my tail is still up and I hope to see Ruq lose the baby, get caught and exposed for her "saazish" and then get punished in whatever way by Jalal - maybe by sidelining her and never talking to her again for years.
I live in hope folks, so those of you who feel the way Maddy and I do about Ruq are welcome to join our spirit of eager anticipation of the downfall of Ruq! We are a mean bunch of girls, I know, nursing such evil hopes for Ruq, but hey, what can we do, we don't want a cozy threesome in this story!
There was a medley of other interesting developments at both Agra and Amer!
Aside from this journey to the hakima and back, the life of Jalal was shown separately where three key events took place:
One, he had his usual swordfight practise when groups of sipahis came forward to fight him together and he vanquished them in groups. In the last group alone, one of the sipahis stood upright and told Jalal he wanted to fight him one-to-one if he could. Jalal agreed although the temerity of the question surprised him. But the sipahi fought Jalal valiantly, first with a sword and then even with hand-to-hand combat. He gave a good fight till eventually Jalal overcame him. When he was finally beaten, the sipahi instead of wearing a downbeat expression was actually looking at Jalal with a lot of hero worship in his eyes. He explained that he was a Rajvanshi - Surjit Singh - who had always had a shine to join Jalal's force, and on his part Jalal also seemed mighty impressed with his skills and instructed Mansingh to induct him into his troops. Both Mansingh and Todarmal also seemed to enjoy watching a Rajvanshi thus crediting himself nobly before Jalal and causing Jalal to say many good words about Rajvanshis. So thus Surjit Singh entered Jalal's ranks.
Two, Jalal had a political discussion with his courtiers when Todarmal told him that there was still a lot of hera pheri in the food markets whereby neither was the money from sale of foodgrains reaching the Royal Treasury nor were the praja gaining from the purchases as they should be. It appeared that a lot of middlemen had formed an exploitative network and were manipulating the prices. Jalal decided to go in disguise to the markets when a few enquiries confirmed the fact that though Adham Khan was dead some of his henchmen were still carrying on his dirty work of price-jacking and the merchants and praja were both being squeezed. Jalal came away from the market with a better eye-view of the goings on in the aftermath of the Adham death.
Three, when it started raining at Agra (around the same time that Jodha and Ruq were also caught in the storm) Jalal and Todarmal took refuge in a nearby sarai. There they were initially entertained to find a group of drunkards indulging in silly behaviour. One of the men in the group wore a rope and noose around his neck and was trying to throw the rope above himself to the rafters of the sarai in a vain and rather comic attempt to hang himself for the ills of his life. The whole event seemed like he was not only tipsy but keeping the raucous crowd quite absorbed in his doings. Twice or thrice he tried to get the rope to latch itself to the roof of the sarai but in vain. Jalal who was watching must have thought this was the first time he had seen someone tie the rope around his own neck first and then try to latch the other end of the rope to the ceiling. This was a strange suicide indeed! At one point, as this man started again ranting out his life woes, Jalal got up to ask him a question or offer some advice. But the man totally surprised Jalal by recognising him despite his disguise calling him "Shahenshah!" This, folks, seems to be the slightly comical entry of Birbal. No doubt it will be shown later that neither was he drunk nor was he trying to commit suicide. In typical Birbal fashion, he may have been trying to give someone some advice via a dire-looking analogy of the repeatedly failed suicide attempts!
In addition to these three instances that Jalal went through in the episode, (that showed that his political life as a King was chugging along on expected lines while his wife was in the throes of delivery) there were these two extra developments - one at Amer, and one at Agra.
Mainavati continues to be gaayab in the serial, but at least Dadisa was shown with Bharmal at Amer, discussing how scared they were since Jodha was in the last stages of pregnancy and Maham had given bad duas. Dadisa decided to visit Shaguni for a prophecy and advice, whereupon Shaguni said that unfortunately bad duas, once given, could not be changed, not even by the goodness of Jodha! What had to happen would happen and the news was not good! Soon after Shaguni had said this, the thunderstorm at Agra broke, and so we audiences got the message that despite the babies being born somehow healthy in spite of the bumpy palki ride, their stars were not bright for them to live long!
I don't know what to think of Ekta as she fosters along this bad dua business. For a while I had hopes that she has squashed such superstitious junk when Maham was made to retract her bad duas. But yesterday with Shaguni saying "bad duas once given can never be taken back", I must say I am heartily embarassed to be the viewer of this serial. Just for the TRP effect of the death of the babies, are we all 21st century citizens being made to swallow this "irrevocable curses" crap? Maybe Ekta wants to show how strong was the belief back then of all this kind of stuff. But still I feel ... shame, shame!
What all happened in the episode yesterday:
Jodha cones to Hamida's room where Hamida is praying. Jodha tells her Jalal is making Maham's room a memorial for Maham. Just then a hakima says "Good news ... Javeeda is really pregnant with Adham's child." Jodha and Hamida are very happy for her.
The voiceover then says its 4 months later ... but JJalal while being happy that his kids will soon be here is still worried about Maham's bad duas. He takes succour and strength from his mother as he lies in her lap and hears her words of courage . Meanwhile Ruq with Jalal's permission takes Jodha by palki to a specialist hakima.
Jodha is in the eight month of pregnancy and very uncomfortable but the voiceover says Ruq looks after her so much like best friend. Ruq says in the palki to Jodha "I have to see to your health for my baby's sake also." Both women seem friendly and Jodha does seems to take Ruq's comment amiss. They manage to reach the hakima and she examines Jodha. She says the babies are fine, but Jodha will have to eat well, take all the given medicines and take plenty of pleasant rest. She also gives another medicine that Ruq has to administer to Jodha, one drop each day with milk.
Meanwhile Jalal during sword practise meets a very bahadur Rajvanshi who wants to fight Jalal one-to-one. He fights hard but in the end Jalal defeats him ... but Jalal is impressed and asks Mansingh to take into the army. The man says he is Surjit Singh Rajvanshi. That guy seems to hero worship jalal.
Meanwhile Todarmal tells Jalal some hera pheri is happening to food prices in the market by which neither does money come to treasury nor is there any benefit to the praja as middlemen are eating the profits. Jalal decides to check the market himself to see what's going on. He goes in disguise. He discovers during the market trip that Adham's henchmen are continuing Adham's dirty profiteering work even after Adham's death.
At Amer, meanwhile Dadisa and Bharmal are very afraid that jodha is in advanced pregnancy but Maham has given bad duas. Dadisa visits Shaguni. But Shaguni says nothing can be done to cancel bad duas. Dadisa is very afraid.
Meanwhile in Agra heavy rains start. Jalal and Todarmal take shelter in a sarai. Jalal is very worried what may be the plight of Ruq and Jodha. At the sarai where Jalal and Todu are waiting out the rain one man amidst a group of drunks is trying very hard to commit suicide, but making a big joke of not even being nable to hang his rope correctly first! When Jalal tries to intervene and address that man, the man recognises the Shahenshah! (This man is none other than Birbal who will soon be joining Abbar's court.)
Jodha and Ruq returning from the hakim's place are stuck en route in the extremely rough weather. Ruq is distraught as Jodha gets labour pains in the palki, though the hakima had said she had one more month to deliver! At one point in the palki Jodha has a huge jolt and her pains get severe. Ruq doesn't know what to do.
In the precap Jodha seems ready to deliver right there in the palki itself ... and Moti and Ruq are trying to help. But Ruq is shocked that her hands are full of fresh blood.
Okay so the babies are to be born in today's evening's episode. God forbid that Jodha right there in the palki gives one to Ruq and they arrive at the Palace with a baby each in hand! If I didn't have a prior commitment to send SMS updates to many of my friends, I wouldn't watch this.
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