Chandra Nandini 8: The game advances

Folks,

I was strongly tempted to name this post, what else, Khoon bhari maang!😉 But that would have been both too predictable and too kitschy, so I desisted.

The present title is also a good fit, for right from the time he enters the Pataliputra palace environs, Chandragupta is focussing, not on the swayamvar, but on imprinting every detail of the area and the layout of the palace, as also of the sole access route across the moat, in his mental hard drive, to be reproduced later for the benefit of his guru.

One also realises exactly why that elaborate reference to the santaram vidya was made earlier, complete with a demo by young Chandra. For it is he who, when the time comes, is going to cross this palace moat by literally walking on water!

Extended encounter: Between our lead pair, of course. The opening part, with Nandini - stroking her fake moustache every ten seconds to make sure it is not coming off, and once babbling aayee hoon instead of aaya hoon 😆- spinning a yarn about a fat, limping princess with a maleficent kundali, is noteworthy only for Chandragupta's partly puzzled, partly suspicious reactions as she proceeds. His subsequent ruminations about who these odd folk might be - his shatru or his shatruon ke shatru - show that he is indeed a Chanakya's child, and suspects everything and everyone till they are proved innocent.

The duel that follows is at times gripping, at times funny - as during their desperate struggle for Nandini's beard and moustache😆 - at times OTT. Prime examples of this last were when Nandini jumps clear over Chandra in a bizarre manner, like a jack rabbit, or a pole vaulter without the pole😆, and when Chandra walks up a vertical wall to do an entirely unnecessary somersault before landing on his feet, which is where he was in the first place!😉

I am not going to compare the swordsmanship of the two, noting only that Chandragupta is merely toying with his opponent, with the sole intention of removing the facial hair and revealing the person's true appearance. Which he manages to do, and also to disarm Nandini and remove her turban, revealing that she is a woman and thus cannot, under the code of the warrior, be attacked. So he turns to leave the room.

Khoon bhari maang: It is solely Nandini's ego that prevents her from following Chandragupta's example. Or perhaps the script's fixation with the khoon bhari maang, for which it is obviously necessary that

- Nandini should confront him once again,

-that he should stick to his principles and not attack her, and so

- he should be forced to arrest her sword by holding it with his bare hand.

Voila, we have the blood from his cut palm dripping, with admirable precision, right down to the parting in her hair. While the familiar sloka, with the almost impossible degree of perfection it demands of the ideal wife, is intoned in the background. (Of course it must have been composed by a true blue MCP of those times, and there is no corresponding definition of the ideal husband; it presumably suffices that he be of the male gender.😡)

Karyeshu dasi, karaneshu mantri (Like a daasi in serving her husband, like a minister in giving him advice)

Bhojeshu mata, shayaneshu Rambha (Like a mother while feeding him, like the apsara Rambha in the bedroom)

Roopeshu Lakshmi, kshamayeshu Dharitri (Like Lakshmi in beauty, as forgiving as the Mother Earth)

Shata dharmayukta, kuladharma patni. (Equipped with a hundred virtues, such is the ideal wife)

Having thrust this heavy handed symbolism down our collective throats - and startled even the immovable Chandragupta by what looked at first sight like an impromptu and longdrawn out hug - Nandini scoots, after having fibbed to Chandragupta that she is the princess' daasi, and adding forcefully that her mistress does not want the marriage at all.

He looks after her with a bemused face. He is no fool , and he clearly does not believe this daasi nonsense; whoever has heard of a daasi being such an accomplished swordswoman?

As if this was not enough, , there is the other piece of heavy symbolism, when Chandragupta looks down at the cut across his palm, and responds to Nandini's query about the blood with: Abhi abhi smaran rahega ki Magadh mein ek kanya ne meri haathon ki rekha ko badal diya.

Lastly, to top things off, there is the Star Trekkie Amatya Rakshas babbling about the conjunction of the full moon (Chandra, get it?) and the Rohini nakshatra, making it especially auspicious for Nandini, as she was born at an identical conjunction. Now Rohini was the Mood god's favourite wife, so the inference to be drawn is blindingly obvious.

He goes on to repeat the prem ya ghrina spiel , a very odd thing to say under the circumstances, but his main point is that a couple who get married at this conjunction of the moon and Rohini are leg shackled for life - in all absorbing love for or murderous hatred of each other. So what is new there for us, folks? 😉

Misleading spiel: To revert, this belief of mine, that Chandragupta was on to Nandini's deception very soon, was reinforced during their subsequent encounter, with her in a proper daasi outfit, when Chandragupta is on his detailed reconnaissance tour of the palace.

He treats the supposed maid of the princess to a curious spiel about how his real goal is to seize the rajya Magadha, by means fair or foul, by consent or by theft.

Vivaah karne kaun aaya hai? Hum use paane aaye hain jiski sundarta man moh leti hai..Jise dekhte hi use jeevan ka lakshya bana diya jaata hai..Jiske pas aakar rikht haathon lautna aasmabhav hai..Wo apni ichchanusaar aaye to theek, anyataa chura loonga main use..

Then, responding to the fake daasi's protest, Rajkumari ke baare mein baat nahin kar raha hoon main. Baat kar raha hoon rajya Magadh ka!

It was an extremely strange, indeed dangerous thing to say even to a maid, especially when he tops off this peroration and responds to Nandini's pitying reference to his not knowing Maha Padmanand, with Jaanta hoon, tabhi to aaya hoon! , while his lips curl in barely veiled contempt.

It sounded and looked exactly like a magician forcing a card on you while producing the illusion that it is your own free selection. But why this spiel at all?

Why, because by now, Chandragupta knows perfectly well that the pseudo maid is Nandini herself. As this is almost obvious, he deserves no special brownie points for that.

So now he wants, for some as yet obscure Chanakyan purpose of his own, to make her suspect him, either his bonafides or his intentions or both. Which is why he takes the turn towards Maha Padmanand's rooms, the opposite direction to the one Nandini had indicated.

What he said here has to be part of a deliberate plan. Otherwise it makes no sense at all, it would be simply inviting trouble for nothing and torpedoing his own plan. For after having said such explosive things, it would hardly be enough to change the topic and refer to the King's invitation.

The precap: As Padmanand holds forth about how his daughter's cleverness had trapped him, Chandragupta looks across at the triumphant Nandini with narrowed, almost slit-like eyes in a face as expressionless as that of a statue. This is clearly the climax of his devious stratagem.

It will be delightful to see him turn the tables on Nandini tonight, trump her effortlessly, and also ingratiate himself with Padmanand, thus getting exactly where he wants to be, right at the power centre of the Nanda empire.

We shall see tonight what his stratagem is.

I hope my theory is correct The alternative would be that he is jailed and meets Mura there and learns all his past history. Then he will escape from the prison, after learning about the layout of that part as well. That is the only other twist possible. But I prefer my first version!

So the game advances.

The main players: Rajat's Chandragupta: He brings nuances to his eyes, his face, his demeanour, that invest his Chandragupta with more shades than perhaps the director ever dreamed of.

It is not only in the opening scene, which I had discussed in my last post. His shifting expressions before and during the duel are fascinating. Puzzlement, suspicion, hostility, curiosity, a grim determination to get at the real identity of the shubhchintak, the shock as her feminine identity is revealed, the total absence of any reaction as she seems to be hugging him - all these shades of emotion chase each other across a face that, in his Jalal, was always mobile, but is now always still and unmoving.

However, as I had noted the last time, he also manages to make it clear to the viewer that this stillness is illusory and that his mind is working beneath the surface at top speed.

I repeat myself, but I do love that parallel. His is the stillness at the centre of a spinning top. He moves, but nothing moves inside him.

Plus, he is a cinematographer's dream. Take the classic profile and the now lean, drawn face, free of the slightest hint of chubbiness. Take the planes under skin that is stretched tight, showing the fine underlying bone structure. Add an abundance of wavy, unruly curls framing that face, and every shot of his Chandragupta looks like a painting: a Van Dyke, a Franz Hals, or a sculpted head from a museum in Athens or Florence.

For those still hung up on his Jalal, to my mind, the shot of Jalal that was as good, though in a different way, was in the tent on their way back from Amer to Agra, as he was dreamily regarding the sleeping Jodha Begum. Then too he looked exactly like a Van Dyke, and I had said so (Of course this was just before she woke out, ranted ast him and then bolted out into the cold!)

I am too old to go gaga over a handsome young man, but pure beauty entrances me still, and in Chandra Nandini, Rajat's Chandragupta is almost impossibly goodlooking in frame after frame after frame.

The main players:Shweta's Nandini: She is at her best in the white dress just after her turban has come off and her hair is loose, and she is staring across at Chandragupta in sheer shock. She looks lovely then, proving that all this chakmak only dilutes her looks.Poor girl, she is stuck with it!

She looks second best in the daasi get up, with absolutely no ornaments, her wide eyes and the round face structure being shown to best advantage. When she is being dressed up for the swayamvar, she looks standard issue, like any other overdressed and over bedecked princess.

I am not among those who love her chulbulapan, the girlish giggling, the teasing, the running around with her sakhis. As I noted elsewhere, I do not like giggling girls, whether in the 1970s films or now; they invariably look silly to me.

But there was one point where Nandini, though doing some of the same things that irritate me, came off very well. This was when the number of princely candidates stalls for a while at 14, and she is convinced that she has scared off Paravtak Malayaketu. As she chortles in pure glee and repeats delightedly that No.15 has been scared off, she is exactly like a naughty little girl so pleased that her trick has paid off. Delightful!👏

Of course this joy is fleeting, for soon our hero saunters in on a very graceful white mount, making sure he is not one of the crowd, but a solo, standout entrant. Plus, he also has much more time to survey and assess the palace entrance and its security.

To revert, this Nandini will begin to shine once she is allowed to get out of this atipriya putri straightjacket, and can cut loose. There is promise, even now, of this. In her scenes with Chandragupta, she is neither coy nor arrogant, but simply matter of fact, which is a relief, and forceful when necessary. She does not rave and rant or start speechifying (as yet). And when she is playing at being Nancy Drew (the girl detective in a famous American series of novels for the preteen and early teens), her eagerness and her puzzlement are alike entertaining.

OK, folks, this is it for today. I am sorry that I have not been able to respond to any but a very few of the comments on my last post, though I must state, with pardonable pride, that I have covered all of those on the Episode 6 thread! I will try and cover those on my last thread tonight; please bear with me till then. I am very headachy and it was all that I could manage to get this post done, though an hour later than usual.

See you again soon. For now, please do not forget to hit the Like button if you think that is warranted.

Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di

Originally posted by: Shinning_Stuti

In spite of the loopholes, super-heroic long-jumps, melodramatic khoon-bhari-maang 😆 and strange deductions of Amatya Rakkhas 🤣, I enjoyed this episode to the core. 😃

When Chandra was doing dialoguebazi to Nandni regarding his motto of stealing Magadh, I was like- yeh to gaya kam se!😆... but those are necessary to warm up the excitement quotient I suppose. 😆 But I liked the second encounter of both as well as the first one... and the credit goes to Rajat's smooth handling of Chandra's character mostly. I am loving Chandra, his subtle intelligence and controlled coolness.⭐️

Is Chandra caught according to precap? truly excited. 😃

Loved each and every inch of your analysis Aunty. 😳 😃👏

Originally posted by: munni_rajatfan

Aunty posting after a long time. Anyways I just wanted to say I think the typecasting issue of rajat can now take a rest. Rajat's cgm is enough to prove tht how his characters r different nd how rajat is playing it. The way he is performing it's too good. Nd one more yes chandra told the dasi those words but immediately he changed the topic saying tht he just wanted to see the beauty of magadh nd also he came bcoz the king had invited him. So this chandra knows as of now how to deal with the situations.😉

"Why, because by now, Chandragupta knows perfectly well that the pseudo maid is Nandini herself. As this is almost obvious, he deserves no special brownie points for that.

So now he wants, for some as yet obscure Chanakyan purpose of his own, to make her suspect him, either his bonafides or his intentions or both. Which is why he takes the turn towards Maha Padmanand's rooms, the opposite direction to the one Nandini had indicated.

What he said here has to be part of a deliberate plan. Otherwise it makes no sense at all, it would be simply inviting trouble for nothing and torpedoing his own plan. For after having said such explosive things, it would hardly be enough to change the topic and refer to the King's invitation.

The precap: As Padmanand holds forth about how his daughter's cleverness had trapped him, Chandragupta looks across at the triumphant Nandini with narrowed, almost slit-like eyes in a face as expressionless as that of a statue. This is clearly the climax of his devious stratagem.

It will be delightful to see him turn the tables on Nandini tonight, trump her effortlessly, and also ingratiate himself with Padmanand, thus getting exactly where he wants to be, right at the power centre of the Nanda empire.

We shall see tonight what his stratagem is.

I hope my theory is correct The alternative would be that he is jailed and meets Mura there and learns all his past history. Then he will escape from the prison, after learning about the layout of that part as well. That is the only other twist possible. But I prefer my first version!

So the game advances.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Folks,

I was strongly tempted to name this post, what else, Khoon bhari maang!😉 But that would have been both too predictable and too kitschy, so I desisted.

KHOON BHARI MAANG, IT CERTAINLY WAS 😆 BUT I AM GLAD THAT ALL THAT KHOON IN THE MAANG WAS PROMPTY WASHED OFF BEFORE IT WAS NOTICED BY ANYONE OTHER THAN THE GIRLS GANG. COZ WHILE THE AMATYA RAKSHAS WAS RANTING ABOUT THE SANJOG OF THE NAKSHATRAS, I HALF EXPECTED HIM TO MAKE SOME REFERENCE TO THE ACT 😉

The present title is also a good fit, for right from the time he enters the Pataliputra palace environs, Chandragupta is focussing, not on the swayamvar, but on imprinting every detail of the area and the layout of the palace, as also of the sole access route across the moat, in his mental hard drive, to be reproduced later for the benefit of his guru.

One also realises exactly why that elaborate reference to the santaram vidya was made earlier, complete with a demo by young Chandra. For it is he who, when the time comes, is going to cross this palace moat by literally walking on water!

Extended encounter: Between our lead pair, of course. The opening part, with Nandini - stroking her fake moustache every ten seconds to make sure it is not coming off, and once babbling aayee hoon instead of aaya hoon 😆- spinning a yarn about a fat, limping princess with a maleficent kundali, is noteworthy only for Chandragupta's partly puzzled, partly suspicious reactions as she proceeds. His subsequent ruminations about who these odd folk might be - his shatru or his shatruon ke shatru - show that he is indeed a Chanakya's child, and suspects everything and everyone till they are proved innocent.

The duel that follows is at times gripping, at times funny - as during their desperate struggle for Nandini's beard and moustache😆 - at times OTT. Prime examples of this last were when Nandini jumps clear over Chandra in a bizarre manner, like a jack rabbit, or a pole vaulter without the pole, and when Chandra walks up a vertical wall to do an entirely unnecessary somersault before landing on his feet, which is where he was in the first place!😉

YES INDEED THE FIGHTING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON KIND OF ACROBATIC WAS INDEED FUNNY AND SO AVOIDABLE 😕

I am not going to compare the swordsmanship of the two, noting only that Chandragupta is merely toying with his opponent, with the sole intention of removing the facial hair and revealing the person's true appearance. Which he manages to do, and also to disarm Nandini and remove her turban, revealing that she is a woman and thus cannot, under the code of the warrior, be attacked. So he turns to leave the room.

Khoon bhari maang: It is solely Nandini's ego that prevents her from following Chandragupta's example. Or perhaps the script's fixation with the khoon bhari maang, for which it is obviously necessary that

- Nandini should confront him once again,

-that he should stick to his principles and not attack her, and so

- he should be forced to arrest her sword by holding it with his bare hand.

Voila, we have the blood from his cut palm dripping, with admirable precision, right down to the parting in her hair. While the familiar sloka, with the almost impossible degree of perfection it demands of the ideal wife, is intoned in the background. (Of course it must have been composed by a true blue MCP of those times, and there is no corresponding definition of the ideal husband; it presumably suffices that he be of the male gender.😡)

Karyeshu dasi, karaneshu mantri (Like a daasi in serving her husband, like a minister in giving him advice)

Bhojeshu mata, shayaneshu Rambha (Like a mother while feeding him, like the apsara Rambha in the bedroom)

Roopeshu Lakshmi, kshamayeshu Dharitri (Like Lakshmi in beauty, as forgiving as the Mother Earth)

Shata dharmayukta, kuladharma patni. (Equipped with a hundred virtues, such is the ideal wife)

Having thrust this heavy handed symbolism down our collective throats - and startled even the immovable Chandragupta by what looked at first sight like an impromptu and longdrawn out hug - Nandini scoots, after having fibbed to Chandragupta that she is the princess' daasi, and adding forcefully that her mistress does not want the marriage at all.

He looks after her with a bemused face. He is no fool , and he clearly does not believe this daasi nonsense; whoever has heard of a daasi being such an accomplished swordswoman?

As if this was not enough, , there is the other piece of heavy symbolism, when Chandragupta looks down at the cut across his palm, and responds to Nandini's query about the blood with: Abhi abhi smaran rahega ki Magadh mein ek kanya ne meri haathon ki rekha ko badal diya.

Lastly, to top things off, there is the Star Trekkie Amatya Rakshas babbling about the conjunction of the full moon (Chandra, get it?) and the Rohini nakshatra, making it especially auspicious for Nandini, as she was born at an identical conjunction. Now Rohini was the Mood god's favourite wife, so the inference to be drawn is blindingly obvious.

He goes on to repeat the prem ya ghrina spiel , a very odd thing to say under the circumstances, but his main point is that a couple who get married at this conjunction of the moon and Rohini are leg shackled for life - in all absorbing love for or murderous hatred of each other. So what is new there for us, folks? 😉

NOT NEW AT ALL AUNTY!!!WE'RE UPTO OUR EARS WITH GHRINA 😆

BUT DADDY DEAREST SEEMED QUITE UNAFFECTED WITH THE RANT. SO SURE WAS HE ON HIS LADLI'S ABILITY AND HER FIRM BELIEF ON HRIDAY AND PREM

Misleading spiel: To revert, this belief of mine, that Chandragupta was on to Nandini's deception very soon, was reinforced during their subsequent encounter, with her in a proper daasi outfit, when Chandragupta is on his detailed reconnaissance tour of the palace.

He treats the supposed maid of the princess to a curious spiel about how his real goal is to seize the rajya Magadha, by means fair or foul, by consent or by theft.

Vivaah karne kaun aaya hai? Hum use paane aaye hain jiski sundarta man moh leti hai..Jise dekhte hi use jeevan ka lakshya bana diya jaata hai..Jiske pas aakar rikht haathon lautna aasmabhav hai..Wo apni ichchanusaar aaye to theek, anyataa chura loonga main use..

Then, responding to the fake daasi's protest, Rajkumari ke baare mein baat nahin kar raha hoon main. Baat kar raha hoon rajya Magadh ka!

It was an extremely strange, indeed dangerous thing to say even to a maid, especially when he tops off this peroration and responds to Nandini's pitying reference to his not knowing Maha Padmanand, with Jaanta hoon, tabhi to aaya hoon! , while his lips curl in barely veiled contempt.

It sounded and looked exactly like a magician forcing a card on you while producing the illusion that it is your own free selection. But why this spiel at all?

Why, because by now, Chandragupta knows perfectly well that the pseudo maid is Nandini herself. As this is almost obvious, he deserves no special brownie points for that.

So now he wants, for some as yet obscure Chanakyan purpose of his own, to make her suspect him, either his bonafides or his intentions or both. Which is why he takes the turn towards Maha Padmanand's rooms, the opposite direction to the one Nandini had indicated.

I TOO THOUGHT IT STRANGE THAT CHANDRA WOULD REVEAL HIS LAKSHYA SO EASILY AND WITH SUCH NON CHALANCE. AND WHILE NANDINI WAS OVERCONFIDENT IN HER FATHER'S ABILITIES (SHE SMILES WHEN SHE ASKS HIM IF HE IS AWARE OF PADMANAND AND HIS PROWESS) AND YET SHE SHOWS DISCOMFORT/FEAR WHEN CHANDRA TAKES THE WRONG TURN TOWARDS PADMANAND'S CHAMBERS.

HOWEVER, I WAS NOT ABLE TO ASCERTAIN THAT CHANDRA HAS GUESSED NANDINI'S REAL IDENTITY

The precap: As Padmanand holds forth about how his daughter's cleverness had trapped him, Chandragupta looks across at the triumphant Nandini with narrowed, almost slit-like eyes in a face as expressionless as that of a statue. This is clearly the climax of his devious stratagem.

It will be delightful to see him turn the tables on Nandini tonight, trump her effortlessly, and also ingratiate himself with Padmanand, thus getting exactly where he wants to be, right at the power centre of the Nanda empire.

So the game advances.

The main players: Rajat's Chandrgupta: He brings nuances to his eyes, his face, his demeanour, that invest his Chandragupta with more shades than perhaps the director ever dreamed of.

It is not only in the opening scene, which I had discussed in my last post. His shifting expressions before and during the duel are fascinating. Puzzlement, suspicion, hostility, curiosity, a grim determination to get at the real identity of the shubhchintak, the shock as her feminine identity is revealed, the total absence of any reaction as she seems to be hugging him - all these shades of emotion chase each other across a face that, in his Jalal, was always mobile, but is now always still and unmoving.

However, as I had noted the last time, he also manages to make it clear to the viewer that this stillness is illusory and that his mind is working beneath the surface at top speed.

I repeat myself, but I do love that parallel. His is the stillness at the centre of a spinning top. He moves, but nothing moves inside him.

IN MY LAST REPLY TO YOU I TOO HAD MENTIONED THAT HIS DEMEANOR IS CALM, ALMOST REVEALING TO ANY OBSERVANT PERSON THAT HE WANTS TO TAKE IN AS MUCH OF THE SURROUNDINGS AS POSSBLE.

Plus, he is a cinematographer's dream. Take the classic profile and the now lean, drawn face, free of the slightest hint of chubbiness. Take the planes under skin that is stretched tight, showing the fine underlying bone structure. Add an abundance of wavy, unruly curls framing that face, and every shot of his Chandragupta looks like a painting: a Van Dyke, a Franz Hals, or a sculpted head from a museum in Athens or Florence.

For those still hung up on his Jalal, to my mind, the shot of Jalal that was as good, though in a different way, was in the tent on their way back from Amer to Agra, as he was dreamily regarding the sleeping Jodha Begum. Then too he looked exactly like a Van Dyke, and I had said so (Of course this was just before she woke out, ranted ast him and then bolted out into the cold!)

I am too old to go gaga over a handsome young man, but pure beauty entrances me still, and in Chandra Nandini, Rajat's Chandragupta is almost impossibly goodlooking in frame after frame after frame.

TRUER WORDS HAVE NEVER BEEN SPOKEN, AUNTY 😆😳 RAJAT DOES LOOK AMAZING - THE BEARD STUBBLE, HINT OF A MOUSTACHE, VERY LITLE MAKE UP AND THAT CHISELLED HANDSOME FACE!!!UFFF

THE RAKE JALAL IN JA BEFORE JODHA WAS INDEED PLEASANT, AND THIS CHANDRA IS AS DIFFERENT AS POSSIBLE, AND EVEN MORE YUMMILICIOUS 😆

BUT I FEEL AT TIMES THAT RAJAT'S DIALOGUES ARE NOT CLEAR ENOUGH. NONETHELESS, HIS SHUDDH HINDI IS REFRESHING

The main players:Shweta's Nandini: She is at her best in the white dress just after her turban has come off and her hair is loose, and she is staring across at Chandragupta in sheer shock. She looks lovely then, proving that all this chakmak only dilutes her looks.Poor girl, she is stuck with it!

She looks second best in the daasi get up, with absolutely no ornaments, her wide eyes and the round face structure being shown to best advantage. When she is being dressed up for the swayamvar, she looks standard issue, like any other overdressed and over bedecked princess.

I am not among those who love her chulbulapan, the girlish giggling, the teasing, the running around with her sakhis. As I noted elsewhere, I do not like giggling girls, whether in the 1970s films or now; they invariably look silly to me.

WHEN I HAD COMMENTED ON HER CHULBULAPAN, AUNTY, I WAS MAKING A REFERENCE TO THE TENET IN HER CHARACTERIZATION THAT TELL THE VIEWERS THAT SHE MAKES MISTAKES AND IS NOT FLAWLESS!! SHE HAS A RESTLESSNESS THAT IS QUITE INTRIGUING.

WHY DONT YOU LIKE GIGGLING GIRLS, AUNTY???😆😆 I KNOW THAT THE TUN TUN IS A BIT OFF

I HAVE QUITE A LIKING FOR THEM EVER SINCE MY FRIEND'S DAUGHTER AND HER FRIEND COME TO ME FOR SOME HELP IN THEIR HINDI LESSONS!! BRACES, CONFIDENCE, A WIERD LINGO AND THEIR ABILITY TO START GIGGLING AT THE DROP OF A HAT IS ENTERTAINING!!

But there was one point where Nandini, though doing some of the same things that irritate me, came off very well. This was when the number of princely candidates stalls for a while at 14, and she is convinced that she has scared off Paravtak Malayaketu. As she chortles in pure glee and repeats delightedly that No.15 has been scared off, she is exactly like a naughty little girl so pleased that her trick has paid off. Delightful!👏

FOR A PERSON WHO WAS SUSPICIOUS OF HER AND HELL BENT ON DISCOVERING HER REAL IDENTITY, NANDINI TAKES HIM FAR TO LIGHTLY. EVEN THOUGH SHE DID WELL IN THIS SCENE, I FELT HER ATITUDE TO BE A TAD CASUAL, SPECIALLY WHEN SHE WAS ALMOST ROUTED IN THE DUEL AND HAD TO BOLT

Of course this joy is fleeting, for soon our hero saunters in on a very graceful white mount, making sure he is not one of the crowd, but a solo, standout entrant. Plus, he also has much more time to survey and assess the palace entrance and its security.

To revert, this Nandini will begin to shine once she is allowed to get out of this atipriya putri straightjacket, and can cut loose. There is promise, even now, of this. In her scenes with Chandragupta, she is neither coy nor arrogant, but simply matter of fact, which is a relief, and forceful when necessary. She does not rave and rant or start speechifying (as yet). And when she is playing at being Nancy Drew (the girl detective in a famous American series of novels for the preteen and early teens), her eagerness and her puzzlement are alike entertaining.

FULY AGREE WITH YOU AND I LOVE YOUR BIT ABOUT A PROMISE IN HER, COZ I TOO FEEL THE SAME

OK, folks, this is it for today. I am sorry that I have not been able to respond to any but a very few of the comments on my last post, though I must state, with pardonable pride, that I have covered all of those on the Episode 6 thread! I will try and cover those on my last thread tonight; please bear with me till then. I am very headachy and it was all that I could manage to get this post done, though an hour later than usual.

TAKE CARE, AUNTY. PLEASE DO NOT OVER EXERT YOURSELF. WE WOULD ALL LIKE YOU TO BE HERE FOR THE LONG HAUL😉😆 OF COURSE WITH THE CONDITION THAT THE SHOW IS WORTH IT

See you again soon. For now, please do not forget to hit the Like button if you think that is warranted.

Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Stuti, child, for all your talk of every inch, did you read my post through at all? If you had done so, you would not be writing the parts now in bold.

Of course I might be wrong, and I often am as far as predicting things are concerned as I go by logic and the CVs don't, but here I think I am on firm ground.
Let us see, but you clearly have not read the post carefully.😉

Shyamala Aunty