Friends, yesterday we finally came to the end of the cameos of Zeenat and Qasim. Both were killed rather than captured and neither got a chance to make a dying statement confirming their misdeeds or implicating others. At the end of the episode I should have had the satisfaction of seeing the culprits dead and the saga of the baby murders over ... but strangely there was nothing to make me feel as if I had seen a satisfactory ending to the track because both the culprits were given no defence and were summarily killed leaving all sorts of questions unanswered.
Rahim had seen the finger glove of Zeenat in the garden - and taken it to his mother and the other ladies mourning the death of Husein. The hakima added her two bits about the glove being a poison glove and Salima remembered Zeenat's ark-burnt index finger. All suspicion then turned against Zeeenat and her husband. Jalal exhorted the men to catch the culprits and give them no exits to flee the Palace, while Ruq got the harem sipahis and ladies to scour the harem for Zeenat.
In the end Zeenat who was indeed hiding in the harem got betrayed by her baby crying inopportunely, thus giving away her location. Ruq's sipahis sneaked up and captured her with her baby. Ruq then grabbed her baby as hostage and said "An eye for an eye" and threatened to kill that baby with poison. Salima prevented that baby from being poisoned which seemed to give Ruq just the chance she needed to silence Zeenat herself by stuffing the poison into her mouth. That was so swift an operation that it made me sit up and ask "Now why the hell did Ruq do that?"
Elsewhere, Qasim realised that all exits were closed to him and he decided to make a fight of it for his life. Bharmal told Todarmal and Mansingh that Qasim was his prey and after some fierce fighting killed Qasim.
Jalal then came upon the scene with the newborn disgust of one who had caught himself making love with Jodha when his baby died. Out of sheer self-flagellation he cut up Qasim's body to ribbons and then next day declared that he no longer has faith in God or mohabbat or dil. He was going back to being a jallad. Jodha likewise blamed herself for making love to her husband instead of watching over Husein and sank into a self-pitying morass.
In all this folks, my mind is asking how two culprits were thus slayed before they could talk and what was the advantage and for whom, that the culprits were killed before they could talk? It feels a bit too suspicious to me that Zeenat in particular was never allowed by Ruq to open her mouth. When Salima said Ruq should not poison Zeenat's baby in revenge, was it not looking too damn quick when Ruq just readily stuffed Zeenat's own mouth with poison so that she died on the spot? Granted that Ruq was supposedly angry that her baby was killed (along with her more important ambition to become MUZ!) but even so why that extreme speed and alacrity with which Zeenat's mouth was shut forever?
You know folks it all reminded me of the John Kennedy assassination, when the man who shot Kennedy (Lee Harvey Oswald) was swiftly bumped off by another man (Jack Ruby) just before he was to testify! Someone wanted the culprit of the assassination silenced before he could speak too much! Yesterday the rather expeditious killing of Zeenat by Ruq somehow reminded me of that Kennedy trial.
I don't think Qasim would have had a lot to say before he died other than to declare his revenge on behalf of his blinded father complete. He was the mastermind behind the show but he would not have had finer details to divulge, so his killing by Bharmal was not so full of intrigue for me.
But Zeenat's swift killing was an entirely different proposition. She was dai maa of Husein and forever in the vicinity of both the babies. She executed her husband's plans and apparently used two different methods to kill the two babies - all of which was not even cursorily examined and explained by Zeenat or by the ones that accused her, for the fair determination and proper closure of the case. And god knows if there were sub-plots and sub-plans made by her with Ruq for the killing of Hasan.
The way that Hasan died is still a bit of a deep mystery to me. First Ruq's baby vomits and is declared as having over-eaten. Then Jodha's Hasan exhibits the same vomiting symptoms but is declared dead within minutes of it. Ruq gives some dubious dialogue that she wouldn't wish things had gone so far with the child. At least up to that point Ruq's own role looks fishy as far as Hasan's death goes.
And then in a twist unexpected by Ruq herself, I suspect, Zeenat gives her ark to make her ill, separates Husein from her and Husein comes to Jodha, and then Husein is killed by some other powder that leaves no traces of poisoning on the child. When I saw Ruq in the last but one episode she looked angry that her child had died ... but more than angry she looked surprised that Husein too had been killed. Her oratory after the death of Husein was loud and belligerent but it was not very convincing that she was oh-so grief stricken.
To my mind, folks, something doesn't fit still on the babies' deaths, and I am not prepared to exonerate Ruq of the babies' deaths yet ... I have questions to ask of her rather rushed killing of Zeenat yesterday, and I feel as if the MUZ ambition of Ruq is yet to pop out and implicate her. The track is definitely not over for me. I continue to wait for all the loops to be closed, and even if a lot of people suggest to me that I am in denial, that Ruq will never get caught and the CVs love her too much etc etc. I will continue to believe that Ruq's real involvement in the babies' saga will get aired at some point soon ... which is when this track will really end!
Meanwhile, here's what I think will happen. I think there won't be an MU as such between Jodha and Jalal, but since both of them are feeling separately that they made a big mistake in making love when their child was dying, they may drift apart for a while, like a mutual distancing from each other, which may be a good thing for their marriage.
It's possible that Bharmal will take Jodha to Amer for her to recoup herself and work off her guilt and distress, while Jalal will immerse himself in the war with the Rajvanshis and unleash some barbarism to slough off his own guilt. But we may get lots of moments of longing for each other in the midst of self-remorse. (I also think this seperation phase will help the CVs adjust Rajat's availability and schedules while he takes a marriage break!)
While Jodha is away, it is possible that Ruq may let slip this "audha-loss grievance" against Jodha and the babies' deaths - and that may make Jalal wiser to the role she played in the footballing of the babies between Jodha and Ruq, the fake love she showed for Husein, and the eventual loss of the babies. Maybe Jalal will thus get even more devastated that Ruq had taken Husein from Jodha not for the love of the child but from audha-competition and he may well sideline Ruq from his life even before Jodha can come back from Amer. This may tie in with his slow realisation that he cannot really live without Jodha at his side. So if Ruq thinks she can make hay with Jalal while Jodha is away and she has got back her old jallad Jalal, she may be very mistaken!
The track going forward may be about how Jodha and Jalal nurse their own guilt about letting their love neglect their child in distress, they will then have to overcome this feeling and the separation will again swing towards reunion (and the TRP aunties will be thrilled and reward the upswing with more TRPs) and the war will have been won ruthlessly enough to make the Rajvanshis think twice about attacking Jalal again.
We may then either get another pregnancy of Jodha (if that is how the CVs want to show their night spent together as ultimately "healing") and we may simultaneously get on to the Sharif antics track as well. That part of the Creatives' plan remains in the shadows as to what happens in the next track.
But all I want to say today is that for me the "babies death and the Ruq pardaphash" track is still NOT OVER with just the death of Zeenat and Qasim, because silencing the culprits is NOT TANTAMOUNT to solving the core issue of Ruq's audha-fixation and baby snatching plans! So even if Jodha and Jalal are temporarily separated from mutual distancing and there's an Amer trip for Jodha and a war for Jalal to finish, I am looking at the end of this track as being that time when Ruq is unmasked and sidelined, and Jodha and Jalal are re-united by both deciding that self-anger is no compensation for loss of love. I fully expect Shaguni and Salim Chisti to have something worthwhile to say to Jodha and Jalal to give them hope for more children in the future and more love.
The war and the Amer trip, if they materialise, are still very much part of this current ongoing track for me, which has just seen the execution of the superficial culprits yesterday but not gone far enough to unmask the real motives behind the baby snatching of Ruq. I am also keen to see if Ruq did have a hand at least in Hasan's death which still remains a bit of a mystery in the way it happened. Let's see if the Creatives satisfy my craving for the deep truth and real justice to Jodha via the unmasking of Ruq.
Without Ruq's role coming out in the open at least for her audha-related baby snatching from Jodha, the sense of justice to Jodha will not be complete for me!
All that happened in yesterday's episode:
Rahim, playing in the garden, finds the finger glove of Zeenat. Meanwhile Ruq, Hamida, Salima and Jodha are all crying with the dead Husein in Ruq's hands. Jalal shouts at Moti and Zakira but they say Zeenat was in charge at time of poisoning the child. Hoshiyar says Zeenat and Qasim and their things are missing from their room.
Jalal shouts at Mansingh and Tpdarmal to block all exits and catch them. Zeenat and Qasim meanwhile are in hiding and say there seems to be no way to go out now. Ruq shouts at Jodha againfor negligence of the child and Jodha willingly says she is to blame.
Rahim runs in with finger glove which Zakira recognises as a poison tool. It has a blue poison tip. Salima says she saw Zeenat's red finger and it must have been lost by Zeenat in the garden when she faked her finger ring loss.
The hakima also says she suspected Zeenat of giving ark to Ruq to make her sick to separate her from Husein. She dips the glove finger in water and it turns the water blue as proof of strong poison. Meanwhile Qasim tells Zeenat to try exiting via the harem with their baby - while he tries another route out. Zeenat has to quieten her baby to stay safe.
Qasim however sees that Mansingh has totally closed all exits. Ruq, in the harem, meanwhile instructs all begums and guards to find Zeenat. Elsewhere Bharmal, Todearmal and Mansingh search together for Qasim who is hiding from them in a room.
Meanwhile in the harem Ruq hears Zeenat's baby crying and spots her location. Ruq's sipahis silently sneak up to Zeenat and capture Zeenat. Ruq shouts at her for her murder of her child. She snatches her baby from Zeenat and says "An eye for an eye. I will poison your baby now" and asks for poison to be brought. Salima however says Ruq should not stoop to the same level of Zeenat and grabs the baby away from Ruq and prevents the baby being poisoned ... but meanwhile Ruq pushes the poison into Zeenat's mouth and kills her.
Meanwhiile Qasim sees no exit and decides to battle his way out. Bharmal tells Mansingh and Todarmal to leave Qasim to him - and after fierce battle he stabs and kills Qasim. Jalal and Hamida come there to see Qasim dead. Jalal in anger slashes Qasim's body to bits till Hamida tells him to please stop.
Next morning the maulvis are doing last rites for Husein. Jodha blames herself for making love with Jalal as her baby died. Jalal shouts that he no longer believes in God or in mohabbat or his dil. He says he will again become that old jallad. Jodha looks distraught and Ruq too looks upset.
In the precap, Hamida tells Jodha that Jalal has become heartless again and worries for him. Meanwhile Jalal is seen mercilessly cutting the throat of a criminal pleading innocence (like he used to recklessly do in old times).
OK, now on to the rest of this week ... what else do you think is on the cards for today, tomorrow and the day after (other than Rajat's wedding)?
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