As for the rest, I agree with your last para , but I still found the entire Chandra-Nand encounter implausible, OTT and pointless. The CVs wanted a lot of seetiyaan aur taaliyaan for the kiddy hero, that was all. I was not at all impressed.
As for the way in which the matter was shown, ending with Chandra walking off with his head held high after making a sarcastic throwaway comment against Nand, that was ludicrous scripting. As Kashish (Couch_Potato) has pointed out, even if Nand did not want to execute Chandra in the open court - not that he would have been deterrred by such considerations - he would have had him collared the minute he left the palace and thrown into a dungeon. No king, least of all tyrant like Nand would allow such a public insult to pass without taking revenge for it.
So Chandra's so-called triumph is not the way you have described it in the part now in bold. It is totally implausible, a fake denouement cooked up by the CVs, which could not have happened at all. It is not that he could have faced severe consequences. In any halfway credible script, he would have faced severe consequences, without the slightest doubt. and let us not kid ourselves about that.
And this only underlines the relevance of your last para.
Shyamala Aunty
Originally posted by: shailusri1983
Now to my post on Chanakya. Both of us are of the same mind as far as Chanakya's behavior in court is concerned. But when it came to his behavior before the wild boar, you felt it as a bit of a letdown for a savant like Chanakya but ultimately let it go.
I will answer this using the concept of the human stress adapting and coping mechanism; the 3 Fs of Fright, Flight and Fight. Bravery does not actually mean the complete absence of fear. It is just well-controlled and well-adapted response to the fear triggers. Which mechanism any human being uses on being confronted by a potentially dangerous situation is based on his basic tendencies.
Chanakya's forte is his mind and knowledge. In potentially threatening situations, his brain completely takes over and handles the situation. It is usually adequate in most situations. But this was a situation which required brute force and power. He personally did not see that as his strong point. Hence the instinctive step behind showing the Fright and Flight response. If Chandra had not been around, that is actually the best thing Chanakya could have done.
Run away from it or climb up a tree until the danger had passed and some sort of help was available. But the fear which Chanakya faces at that single moment is debilitating. He sees his own imminent death before him. Whether he would have been afraid of death at some other juncture in a similar manner is a matter of pure conjecture.
But at that specific point, he sees his death approaching him and he is not ready for it because he doesn't want to die. He wants to save his Mathrubhoomi. He cannot afford to die but his death is very close to him. Even a man like Chanakya gives in to that one moment of raw truly unnerving fear. He would not have felt it even in Padmanand's Sabha despite a number of things not going according to his expectations. He was in perfect control of himself despite all that insult. He gave all the correct reactions and responses. But here, his actual strength, brain is powerless, so his human instincts take over giving uncontrolled responses to the danger or stress at hand. He stumbles and falls back in his attempt to escape.
Chandra's strength is his physical strength. He is small, skinny and an undernourished child but in all the challenges he has taken till now, his physical prowess or body has never failed him. It has never let him down. In most situations his heart takes over his mind. Fight is always the first instinctive response of this boy against his stress triggers.
While saving Chanakya from the brute power of the wild boar, Chandra is in his own territory and area of strength and also expertise to some extent. Despite being flung off furiously two times, he strikes at the right spot of the wild boar and scares him off. If we read backwards from here, he employs the same tactic with Padmanand. He sees the brute power of the beast and the brute power of the tyrant alike and adopts a similar stress response.
It works on the boar, it works on Nand as well but the required impact and result from the endeavor are missing. That's why his bravery though it wins him accolades does not result in the Praja getting their wealth back from Nand or Nand realizing his mistake and making ammends. The result and impact were there but its proper culmination was missing.
His Fight tactic in Padmanand's court could have got him in serious trouble. But he does it. He gets away with it lightly which is actually a relief! But he could have faced severer consequences for his Fight response in the court when it would have been better if he had listened to his brain instead of his heart and displayed either the Fright or Flight response which would have been the most apt for that situation.
He should have acted like Chanakya but he acts like himself and it results in a nil result endeavor. At the end, though Chandra actually won, neither he nor anybody got anything substantial in materialistic terms. He could have ended up losing also which is your argument Aunty.
Your concern is valid and also logical. This shows us why Chandra and Chanakya need each other so much to create history. Individually neither of them would have created the right impact or got the optimum result. For history to be created and rewritten both of them have to form a formidable team and combination where one's strength will be complemented by the other's intellect, and where the excessive giving way to the heart over the brain of one person will be balanced by one person's tremendous and supreme reliance on intellect in all situations.
