Chandra Nandini 8: The game advances - Page 6

Hello Shyamlaji - I enjoy reading your daily thoughts way more than the episodes. I hardly see anything with such depth or interest, which disqualifies me from making any meaningful comment on your post.

No doubt once again a great analysis aunty
I fully agree with ever points here
I have few points regarding Thursday episode and will post in your analysis post of that episode

Thanks for PM and sorry for being late

Nice take on today's episode...

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Now that, Amina dear, is a real compliment. Thank you!

Did you like my little paean of praise for him?

Shyamala Aunty.

yesAunty every bit of it,and i hope esa hi ho free mud pack,loved his nidarta just the same confidant when he went to amer oh loved those days,cant get enough,and you my dear Aunty is brilliant 🤗

Originally posted by: karkuzhali

Article from "The Hindu" today.

Homecoming for Shweta

BACK WITH A BANG Shweta Basu Prasad.

************

Tell us about "Chandra Nandni" and your role in it.

I am playing Nandni, Chandragupta Maurya's wife, with whom he had a very estranged relationship. It is about a couple who in no manner wanted to be together, but at the same time, were destined to be together. A perfectly coined term "revenge-hate" drama. They hate each other from the core of their hearts. It is very different from other shows because it focuses on the relationship of Chandragupta and Nandni instead of the achievements of the emperor.The duo will be seen engaging in multiple sword battles trying to fatally wound each other. We have tried our best and hope people will like this twisted and hateful angle of are ancient love story.

(Read the rest from "The Hindu" site)

Gm Shyamala Aunty...missed IF & CN all these days...haven't watched since Monday. ..will be watching all 4 episodes today, as I have had crazy schedules this week 😃...but m not complaining, as I love my work...will try to get back by evening.. .if not, please bear with me , as my kiddo will be clamouring for my attention as well..he's also leaving in 10 days...😃

My dear Katori (and please tell me your real name, I cannot go on calling you a bowl!😉)

You are of course free to be disappointed with Chandra Nandini or with any other show, and I am very pleased that you like my posts. But my dear, you are making the same old tired comments about blatant disregard for anything related to history without any research to back up your statements. It looks as it this is a mantra that half the folk here repeat day in and day out, in a kind of cyclical, self-reinforcing process. I don't like this parrot like behaviour.

Now let us look into two aspects, one, the actual amount of reasonably authentic historical data in Chandra Nandini thus far, and two, the difference between historical fiction and real history.

For the first, if you read serious sources on Mauryan and pre-Mauryan history, you will realise how much uncertainty there is about almost everything. ? For example, were the Nine Nandas the sons of Maha Padmanand or were he and they brothers? The historians are not sure.

But one thing seems certain according to serious academics, who go by Buddhist, Jain and Greek chronicles of the period and the Arthashastra, which is that the founder of the Nanda dynasty was either a barber or the son of a barber. That means that Ekta's naapit who became the king is authentic.

Similarly,the Buddhist chronicles attribute royal lineage to Chandragupta, as belonging to the same Sakya clan as Siddhartha Gautama, who later became the Buddha. Piplivahan and Suryagupta fit in here, and are not, as I initially assumed, natakiya rupantar. In fact I was surprised by the extent of historical backing of one sort or another for the narrative so far.

We are not here to write a thesis on Chandragupta Maurya, and very little is known about his personal life anyway! So. it would be a good idea not to fret constantly about "history" and instead see whether one likes the acting and the narrative in general. And on both counts, especially the first, above all Rajat's performance, Chandra Nandini is doing very well. One cannot watch a serial only for the sets, and one cannot dump it because the sets are garish. Which recent historical or mythological has been any different. This is not Bajirao Mastani, and even Bhansali's Saraswatichandra was not as muted in the art direction as his film on the great Peshwa.

One has also to remember that they were to make a clinically historical Chandragupta Maurya serial, like the 1990 Chanakya, it would not last 2 months.

Also to read Abhay (history_geek)'s latest about the pre-Mauryan dynasties, especially the Nanda dynasty, as also his earlier one about the origins of Chandragupta Maurya, just for personal information. Heis very careful to metion the alternative theories, as he is serious researcher.

As for the difference between historical fiction and history, I cannot do better that quote in full a recent post by my young friend Shailaja on my last thread, and I am sure she will not mind it.

"My friend you are in the wrong place if you are looking for historical accuracy. It is a costume and period drama. Moreover for the small mercies it is named Chandra Nandini to tell eternal optimists like us that this is a love story and not a history.

I guess the genre definition Historical Fiction ought to enlighten us to the fact that there might be a lot of fiction and very less of history or even nothing of history. According to its very categorization, you could call it a historical fiction if you have a few names and events lifted from history. Your take on them could be entirely different and might not even fall within the historical timeline. Still you would be justified in calling it historical fiction.

You'd perhaps be surprised to know that Shakespeare's Historical Plays adopted a timeline which did not coincide with the historical timeline neither did he stay close or true to history. It was his own imaginary take on history and it was what sold during his times as entertainment. Many famous historical novelists like Walter Scott did the same thing. They too were no pujaris of history. They too wrote what was entertaining and what sold!

If it was a documentary, or a text book on history, I could have understood your logic. Even there, there are times when we find history missing or distorted. Watch the series with an open mind you will find a lot in it to like as well. Dislike also becomes a habit if we give it too much importance. A stage comes when nothing could please us or keep us happy. "

I do not mean to try and put you down, my dear, but I do not like it when young people - or even those of a slightly more mature age - repeat things they pick up without trying to investigate the matter as far as they can and try and make up their minds for themselves. I hope, therefore, that you will take the above in the right spirit and not get upset about it.

Finally, while it is of course your decision to take, chill, and try and enjoy the good things in the show instead of indulging in doom and gloom!😉 Look at me! I am surely much older than you are, and I have been a hard core professional, an Indian diplomat of all of 38 years till I retired. Still I am able to have fun with this because right now, it is worth my time. When it fails to measure up, as happened with Jodha Akbar after about 220 episodes, I shall quit.

Shyamala Aunty (Di?)

Originally posted by: Katori

Hello Shyamlaji - I enjoy reading your daily thoughts way more than the episodes. I hardly see anything with such depth or interest, which disqualifies me from making any meaningful comment on your post.

All I can say about the show is that it has been disappointing to me as I have been unable to ignore below average art direction and blatant disregard for anything related to history.

Katori is my pen name.

Of course, my darling girl! Home and professional obligations obviously have to come first.

See you when you are a bit free. By then, my next post should be up. I feel that I am on a treadmill that keeps going faster and faster as I struggle to keep pace, and I cannot get off either! But the show is improving and Rajat is at the top of his game.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: ---Khushi---

Gm Shyamala Aunty...missed IF & CN all these days...haven't watched since Monday. ..will be watching all 4 episodes today, as I have had crazy schedules this week 😃...but m not complaining, as I love my work...will try to get back by evening.. .if not, please bear with me , as my kiddo will be clamouring for my attention as well..he's also leaving in 10 days...😃

I will be a regular post diwali, for sure, as I had promised earlier...😊

Subha dear,

Of course every actor and every director claims that his or her film or serial is different, hatke! But if I hear you - who are a very sensible young lady - trotting out this ahistorical complaint once more, I shall go into a depression!

I am weary of going into this ahistorical argument all over again, but tell me one thing, the CAS that you all adored till the leap, where was it historical? Ashoka was born in the Pataliputra palace and did not suffer 14 years vanvaas. There is NO evidence that Helena was a cross between Lady Macbeth and Catherine de Medicis. There was no Justin, no Noor and no Ahankara either. The Khorasanis did not speak Urdu. And I am sure the young Ashoka was no Goody Two Shoes like young Siddharth.. I could go on and on. Everything shown there was melodramatic nonsense, and this continued for a year longer than it should have, and drove me away. Then the life of the adult Ashoka was squashed together like an accordion. Even if Kaurwaki had been cancelled, nothing would have changed.

Still, you all had a lot of fun with it, did you not? That was historical fiction. So is this, and unlike CAS, it is not even called Chandragupta Maurya. It is not history, whatever that means. Do me a favour, my dear, and read my response above to Katori carefully, without skipping anything, It might help.😉


Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: .Subha.

🤣🤣

No Swetha,in this case ur show is not different because there were already shows like Jodha Akbar and Chakravartin Ashok Samrat because they focused more on the relationship between the hero and the heroine rather than achievements of the emperors. 🤣

I so wish Rajat's and Manoj Kolhatkar's characters too had fictional names.It's actually weird to see fictional 'revenge drama ' that never happened in CGM'S life.

Originally posted by: karkuzhali

Article from "The Hindu" today.

Homecoming for Shweta

BACK WITH A BANG Shweta Basu Prasad.

************

Tell us about "Chandra Nandni" and your role in it.

I am playing Nandni, Chandragupta Maurya's wife, with whom he had a very estranged relationship. It is about a couple who in no manner wanted to be together, but at the same time, were destined to be together. A perfectly coined term "revenge-hate" drama. They hate each other from the core of their hearts. It is very different from other shows because it focuses on the relationship of Chandragupta and Nandni instead of the achievements of the emperor.The duo will be seen engaging in multiple sword battles trying to fatally wound each other. We have tried our best and hope people will like this twisted and hateful angle of are ancient love story.

(Read the rest from "The Hindu" site)