Chandra Nandini 31-33:Extended finale;Nos.46-47pg 120;No.48 pg 128 - Page 2

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Folks,

End game with hiccups: I finally understood the reason for the Mahabharata style trappings of a dharmayuddh, complete with a bugle to signal the end of the day's fighting. It was explicity designed so that:

-Padmanand can survive the first day's fighting,

-Nandini can chase after Chandra, throw a sword at his back in a most adharmic manner, and indulge in a bout of insane ranting directed at him. A tirade, demented even by her standards, about his alleged lack of purushatva because he would not (a) fight after the sunset bugle being blown and (b) will not fight a woman.*

Which tirade has consequences on Chandra's psyche that gladdened the hearts of many amateur psychologists here😉. And finally so that

-on the next day, Malayaketu can do a Nandini (what a perfectly matched pair they would have made ! I only wish we could tamper with the script and pull that off!😉) and attack Chandra from behind after the close of the hostilities for the day, wounding him seriously.

On the third day, the bugler was dispensed with, as all of Padmanand's army - his ashta putra ( the ninth appears to be mentally challenged and must have been left behind in the palace), his war minister Vakranaas and his senapati Bhadrashaal, and the remaining foot soldiers (some 20 odd, as the battle budget had been drastically pruned by now!😉) - after having cast a timorous look at Chandra's bloodthirsty face, voted with their feet. And Padmanand himself, after having carefully avoided confronting Chandra or even lifting his sword, made off post haste to his secret hideout.

*NB: I am afraid I cannot agree with the argument that Nandini's tirade is an attempt to destabilize Chandra psychologically.She is not trying anything so fancy, just being specially nasty, as she was when she landed up on Mura, only far more so this time.

For it is not like the psy war Padmanand tries out in the beginning, which made perfect sense and was quite effective to begin with till Chandra recovered his poise. Here, the insults are so nonsensical that any other man would have laughed at them and at her.

Chandra is somehow very thin-skinned where she is concerned, that is all. If he had not been so, he would have yelled after her that it was only the sun that saved her father today, but he would not let that happen tomorrow!

What Nandini and Maleyketu did was aganst Dharma atacking from behind. Atleast Chandra never did that ever he always attacked from front risking his own life. And nandinis tirade about his paurushatya does not desrve any audience or response but that was 300 BC warriors would never tolerate such words

Revenge stymied: This sub-title is of course for Helena.

If she had asked me, I would have told her there was no way Malayaketu was going to die, at her hands or Chandra's, so soon, seeing that the inevitable death of Padmanand would leave a yawning gap in the ranks of the evildoers, and so the script could never allow such a solid presence in those ranks as Malayaketu's to be also wiped out.😉

In the event, he escapes, after Helena is fooled by the oldest trick in the world, a handful of earth flung in her face. What a pity they did not have spectacles in the 4^th century BC! But even if they had been around, and Helena had been myopic, she would still have avoided wearing them on grounds of personal vanity. 😆

She presumably does not have a dagger tucked away in the fancy costume of hers (see how useful a solid back to that battle dress would have been? She could have had a special pouch for the dagger behind her neck!) , otherwise she could have done a Chandra on the fleeing Malayaketu .

By the way, the snippet showing Chandra taking aim at the fleeing Malayketu, and flinging his dagger at his retreating back so hard that it cuts straight thru his protective jerkin, was excellent, with Chandra's face looking exactly like that of a greyhound hot on the trail of its target.

It also showed that Chandra is no Yudhishtir, to be constantly hung up unilaterally on dharma, but can pay his enemy back in his own coin and attack him from the back.👏

Revenge achieved: This is for Chandragupta, and it comes in two stages.

Stage 1: the elimination of all the available Nandputras, numbering about 8, as far as I could make out.

It was strange that they all let themselves be captured en masse, and did not, going by their appearance, seem to have put up a fight at all. Nor could I grasp why they all ran away from the battlefield on foot, whereas they all rode at Chandra on horses, and those must have been still around even after they had been unhorsed.

Be that as it may, Chandra disposes of all of them in one fell sweep, cutting their throats in a single curving motion of his sword, like Lord Rama shooting a single arrow thru 7 sal trees. They were all standing there like tailor's dummies, waiting to have their throats cut! It was most peculiar.

What with her beloved bhais abandoning the battle and their father, with the great warrior Dhananand heading the exodus😉, and then Malayaketu peaching on Padmanand's hideyhole to save his own life, it must have been a comprehensive wake up call for Nandini!😉

To revert, before he moves towards the Nandputra, as Padmanand pleads for his santaan to be spared, Chandra smiles a cold smile of savage amusement. As he calls to his enemy: Bas ab dekhte jaa!, his smile widens even further. It was a chilling sight.

Two clarifications are in order here, to respond to reservations about Chandra's actions against Nand's sons and against Nandini.

Justice is mine: One, what Chandra does to Nand's sons is an execution. It is not a killing of a foe in the battlefield. Yes, not all of them were directly involved in Nand's atrocities, but for Chandra they are all tarred with the same brush. And he is not wrong in feeling so, for they are all complicit in their father's crimes. They fully approve, for example, of his cutting the throat of an old man who is unable to pay the special tax Nand levies on the populace.

Chandra is thus the executioner, and his acharya is the judge who pronounces sentence. It is another matter that Chandra has a personal motive for his vengeance that is overpowering.

Contrary to some criticism seen here, I do not see any indication in the script that the cowardice of Nand's sons was attributed to their low social origin on their father's side. Why, if this was so, Padmanand. who was nothing but a barber himself, while his sons were at least half of royal blood, should have been shown as the biggest poltroon of the lot,but he is recognised as a great warrior! The sons are always shown as weak, bar Dhananand, and Nand keeps insisting that Nandini is worth more than all of them put together. They have no guts and Nandini has plenty, which seems to me to be a plug for nari shakti, and nothing else! 😉

To revert, Chandra would have killed the sons on the battlefield if they had not all run away. But they do run away, and so he kills them here. Surely one does not expect him to set them all loose and run after them, like a chicken herder!😉

As Nandini rushes to lament over the dead bodies of her brothers, Chandra's smile is frightening in the pure pleasure it radiates. He is a living illustration of what he tells Durdhara that morning: Jab ghrina seema laang jaati hai, to manushya ko andar hi andar jalaati hai, and it is clear that he is still on fire inside.

Two, what Chandra does to Nandini when he removes her dupatta is the direct pratiuttar to what she screams at him the day before, that he he was a coward and lacked purushatva, and this after he had downed all her brothers and was within an instant of killing her father after besting him in single combat!

He could have dealt with her easily now, for his first move is a shove that sends her reeling backwards. So what he does is in retaliation for that insult of hers, by showing her that she is a woman, and has all the weak points of a woman after all. If she had been a pure warrior, why should losing the dupatta have bothered her at all? She should have continued fighting.

Aunty, here nandini was in warrior uniform when she goes to save nand and suddenly in between warrrior uniform is not there? Why?? to create a sympathy for nand and his putri and show chandra as bad may be by CVs? I doubt real chandra would behave so with a woman no matter an enemy daughter. If he was such a guy why he take sanyas in prime of life and go off and fast to death?

She asked for what she got, and though I am a feminist to the core, I also believe that a woman who behaves in the ugly manner that Nandini did at the end of the battle deserves what happened to her.

And what was it anyway? She was not disrobed like Draupadi, was she? Whereas what she said to him the evening before was the ultimate insult for a man, and that festers in his mind like poison. As you sow, so do you reap.

Another odd point. As Mishti (mishtidoi) has pointed out, one fails to understand why Nandini discarded her samurai style battle jerkin for her regulation chakmak when she arrives at Nand's hideout. She is listening when Malayaketu betrays its location to Chandra and Helena, and she should have immediately guessed that Chandra would track her father down there. Surely then retaining the protective jerkin would have made more sense?

Stage 2: This comes after Chanakya stymies Chandra's second attempt to dispose of Padmanand, and instead sets him free to depart with his daughter dearest in tow. I could fully share Chandra's angry exasperation at this latest quirk of his mentor, and I gritted my teeth. He must have done the same, but Rajat has an excellent set of pearly whites, and I suppose they could stand the damage!😉

I could not understand why Padmanand, who must surely have had his sword with him when he fled from the battlefield, does not put up even a token fight against Chandra when he sees him at the door of the hut. Instead, he looks at him as though paralysed, and lets himself be dragged out and flung to the ground like a sack of potatoes. And once there, he keeps staring up at Chandra's vengeful face with scared eyes.

The only possible explanation for his bizarre behaviour is that he has completely lost his nerve. Probably Nemesis, the vengeful goddess, on his trail for long, had got to him at long last!

To revert, it turned out that old man Chanakya knew what he was doing after all, and our two Cs got at Padmanand and his ill-gotten loot as well. And it was poetic justice that Padmanand was killed not by beheading, but by being slashed by Chandra's sword the same number of times as he had whipped Chandra at the swayamvar.

Nandini needs a crash course in doing pralaap. Her vocal laments sounded horrible, with a pitamaharaj or two thrown into each wail. Chandra watches her with silent satisfaction.

Hold on chandra has not killed padmanand he is alive 😲

Icy fulfillment: Often, especially in the battle scenes, I have noted Rajat's flair for projecting extreme rage and hate without going over the top. Here too, the prize in this category should go to the delighted smile with which he greets Chanakya's pronouncement that Ab is khuli shikha ko baand loonga.

But the still, icy gleam in Chanakya's eyes, as he looks down at the drops of Padmanand's blood that spatter his shikha, tops even Chandra's savage hilarity. As does the eagerness with which he eggs Chandra to get on with the business of Nand ke vansh ka vinash by killing all his sons. He is truly a terrible old man, is Chanakya.

Urgency for the uttaradhikari: I would go with Ashwinee's superb and psychologically plausible explanation for the whole thing, which goes as follows:

Chanakya was not suddenly worried about Chandra's uttaradhikari but he sent Chandra to Durdhara to undo any residual effects that Nandini's comments might have left on Chandra's psyche. I would bet on this guru knowing his shishya that well and also on his cunning in trying to keep Chandra's thoughts from revisiting Nandini's speech by keeping him otherwise engaged.Cynical but not impossible since it also has the added advantage of nudging Chandra in a direction which he otherwise would not take given his 'bal bramhachari' niyat. As you said, pure politics - of a very layered kind!

I must confess that this particular layer did not occur to me at all, but she is absolutely right. The old man knows how Nandini's taunts would affect his boy, whence this attempt at diverting his mind. And since everyone in the cast has the eyes of an eagle and the hearing of a lynx, Chanakya would have heard all that Nandini spat out right from his hilltop position! 😉

this is what i mentioned in my last post with you, chandra was upset with nandinis words and chankya made him go to dhurudhara to forget that taunt and he does after spending night with her . Dhurudhara even asks him in morning why were you so upset and angry last night and he says he is angry on someone. But in today episode chandra feels nandini pain and haas tears

Slavish obedience? : Chandra has been criticized for accepting his guru's fiat in the matter of the uttaradhikari and Durdhara without much protest, and branded a puppet of his mentor's. To these criticisms , I would say just this.

Chanakya is Chandra's Acharya. He is the man who has made him what he is, and but for him, what would Chandra have been? A skinny, undernourished brat, beaten black and blue daily by his drunkard of a foster father, while his foster mother bleated in the background about her abiding prem for her husband. For that inestimable favour that Chanakya did him, Chandra owes him at least total obedience.

In any case, Chanakya has bought him from his foster father, and he makes it clear right at the beginning that he expects implicit obedience from Chandra in all things. It is another matter that over the years, he comes to love Chandra like a son,but that alters nothing in the context of the obedience he demands of his shishya.

If Chanakya had been Chandra's father, and Chandra had obeyed him in the same way, would the criticism be the same? I don't think so. But Chanakya is the only father figure Chandra has ever known, and even in Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat, Bindusara tells his eldest son Sushim that his father, the great Chandragupta Maurya, would not take a single step without his guru's explicit approval. Was that found strange? No. Is it seen as strange that Lord Rama obeyed his father, who was clearly in the wrong, so implicitly? No.

The fact is that such critics are importing contemporary sensibilities into a 4th century BC story. No one can expect anything different from a shishya in that age. In the 1990 Chanakya too, Chandragupta was shown as a completely obedient shishya, for that is the historical truth. I do not see why the script should stand this paddhati on its head to please those with 21st century ideas.

That right, chandra has three fathers his father who was killed, his dad who brought him up and Chankya. Chankya is father cum guide cum teacher cum philosopher all rolled into one. When chandra got hit in war field i saw a mother too in him a concerned mother

Superb renditions: For me, the most striking aspect of the whole uttaradhikari sequence is that Rajat's performance during the whole, from the time he approaches Durdhara to the morning after, is quite simply outstanding, even by his standards.

It was a very difficult set of scenes to tackle: the awkwardness, the reluctance amounting to distaste for having any such physical intimacy with his best friend - whether he is right or wrong here is not the point, the point is that he does so feel - the thinking back to Nandini's mad, hateful tirade, the shamefaced reaction the next morning.

Every single bit of it was near perfect. I cannot think of many actors, even those in films,who could have pulled that off.

Saanvi's Durdhara complemented Chandra to perfection. She was gently, calmly supportive of Chandra all thru, understanding his reluctance and his hesitation with clear-eyed wisdom, and helping him over the emotional roadblock that seems to stymie him at first. For apart from his idea of the maryada towards a very dear friend, there is also a deep seated aversion in him towards any act of physical intimacy with a woman, which has to do with his bal brahmachari bent of mind, which is still deeply ingrained in him.

It is the same the next morning, when she sees that Chandra is on a fresh guilt trip, blaming himself for having, as he sees it,forced her to a level of intimacy that he somehow sees as violative of their deep friendship. I am sure she does not share these views of his, but she does not argue the point with him. Instead, she frames it all in the context of their having done their duty as a potentiual king and queen, proposes that they should just forget it, and stresses that he should focus on the war ahead.

Chandra is truly very lucky to have Durdhara as his helpmeet - a caring, non-judgemental wife and a dear, loyal friend in one. For she loves him , though she does not show it. As for him, I think he himself does not understand what it is that he feels for her. Be that as it may, when she dies, it will be a terrible, emotionally crippling blow for poor Chandra.

Dhurudhara is a very adjusting soft and nice human being who does not have a mean bone in her body. Chandra understands that and hence he treats her differently from any other human he knows. I think chaya may get similar treatment in future from chandra and later nandini too. But chaya is elder to him and nandini more mature than dhurudhara she is no childlike so only dhurudhara will get such affection and attention from him

Emotional high: I do not have anything much to say about the milan between Mura and Chandragupta. It was something to be viewed, not to be analysed.

Chandra was superb in his overflowing love and grief, and the tremendous sense of relief at having fulfilled his duty to his parents. It was all there in the hoarse cadences of his voice as he asserts, again and again: Main aa gaya, maa! Maine pratishodh le liya hai! Apne pita ki hatya aur aapke apamaan ka pratishodh le liya hai!

I loved it when he took in his foster mother too into the all embracing circle of his love and sense of belonging. But I did not like it when he forgave his now snivelling, grovelling foster father so easily. What happened to the count that the young Chandra was keeping of the number of blows he had taken from this man? He should have been kept at a certain distance, and not embraced with such easy warmth. I am almost sure that this character will be a source of trouble for Chandra in the future.

ha ha aunty are you serious, some fathers are violent at home does that mean kids keep count and give their father back after becoming big. In anger all kids say and think i will give it back when i get big but in reality thats momentary anger. but chandra should not forget his foster dad saved him from nand and his army and fed him so many years and also sent him to chankya where his fate changed. He let by gones be by gones like a true son like any son does. Indeed i would feel bad if he had taken any revenge, after all that will pain his mom heart too no. And has his dad not suffered enough in nand custody so many days because he sheltred new born chandra and took care of him till 7-8 years? So why keep grudge.

Actually in todays times kids make such big issue out of what their parents say or do. They never forget mom said this, dad hit me that year etc. Once they are financially independent they start taunting for past that parents said and did, indeed they make it reason for abusing aged parents at home or to push them to old age homes. Such kids must take a cue from chandra and let by gones be bygones. Have not parents forgiven kids transgression so many times?

Here chandras foster parents are poor yet took care of baby chandra risking their life and second they are in prison because they are chandras parents. Thats punishment ebough now how can chandra bring back issues again?

All this said and done, I think this grand, high octane reunion of the long suffering mother and her long lost son should have appealed greatly to the TRP audience. And about time!

Now we can look forward to further TRPs boosters in the shape of the Chandra-Nandini hostilities and the problems that Nandini will face from the women in Chandra's household.

Pot pourri:

-Malayaketu should avoid these topless displays. He looks like a WWF contestant.

-Chanakya's vrushchika vyuha in movement was great fun, especially since it was shown in an overhead shot. Though it was difficult to understand how it actually worked.

- Nandini's mind-boggling VFX jump from the ground to the back of her horse would have given even an agile frog an inferiority complex.😆

-Avantika shows Sunanda what queenliness means when she moves resolutely to open the door to the soldiers before it is broken down.

-For all his ominous comment To Nand ka rakt abhi jeevit hai!, as he shoves Nandini aside and grabs the last of the Nandputra, I do not think Chandra, once he realises that the boy is mentally challenged, will kill him as well.

Well, folks, bye for now. Please do not forget to hit the Like button if you think that is warranted. See you again over the weekend.

Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di

Aunty, this post had so much humour along with the usual awesomeness 😆 Ekdum masstt! 😆👍🏼

This apart, the way in which Padmanand was trying to compete with the cat and its nine lives became, after a point, acutely exasperating. So much so that I was strongly tempted to jump into the frame, shove Chanakya aside, grab Chandra's sword, and do the job myself! Hilarious😆. Btw aunty, I watched only bits of today's episode, but according to the precap, it looks like Nand is alive, like I'd predicted in my comment on your Samhaar post😉😆. Ab dekhte hain if the rest of my prophecy proves true😆

For it is an immutable law of physics that a reflection cannot be brighter than the original object. True. But a mirror captures the light of a lamp and spreads it throughout the room, brightening and beautifying the whole space. Just like...no, no, I'm not going to say it 😆. You will unjustly accuse me of flattery again 😭😆

Nandini can chase after Chandra, throw a sword at his back in a most adharmic manner, and indulge in a bout of insane ranting directed at him. A tirade, demented even by her standards, about his alleged lack of purushatva because he would not (a) fight after the sunset bugle being blown and (b) will not fight a woman.* This made me laugh 😆. Do these CVs realise how badly they have damaged the female lead's image😕.

...the remaining foot soldiers (some 20 odd, as the battle budget had been drastically pruned by now!) - after having cast a timorous look at Chandra's bloodthirsty face, voted with their feet. Aaj toh you're on a roll, aunty😆😆.

..after Helena is fooled by the oldest trick in the world, a handful of earth flung in her face. What a pity they did not have spectacles in the 4^th century BC! But even if they had been around, and Helena had been myopic, she would still have avoided wearing them on grounds of personal vanity. 😆😆

...showed that Chandra is no Yudhishtir, to be constantly hung up unilaterally on dharma, but can pay his enemy back in his own coin and attack him from the back. ⭐️

Chandra disposes of all of them in one fell sweep, cutting their throats in a single curving motion of his sword, like Lord Rama shooting a single arrow thru 7 sal trees. Niiiccceee⭐️

In the Justice of mine section, I agree with everything you've written. It would not have been too much even if they had shown him beheading all of them one by one. And as for Nandini, if a woman in those times had actually spoken and behaved as she did on the battlefield, losing her dupatta would have been the least of her worries. As I'd mentioned in another post, it irks me when PHs impose modern day sensibilities on historical characters. I forgot to add that it irks me further when viewers expect and demand the same from the makers.

Surely one does not expect him to set them all loose and run after them, like a chicken herder! I actually imagined this😆😆

...needs a crash course in doing pralaap. Her vocal laments sounded horrible, with a pitamaharaj or two thrown into each wail. I'd adored her so much in Iqbal, which is one of my favourite movies. Don't know what has happened to her. She seems very unconvinced by what she is doing in the show. But in some bits that I happened to watch today, I felt I caught a fleeting glimpse of that old talent. I hope she improves soon..

Chanakya is Chandra's Acharya. He is the man who has made him what he is, and but for him, what would Chandra have been? A skinny, undernourished brat, beaten black and blue daily by his drunkard of a foster father, while his foster mother bleated in the background about her abiding prem for her husband. For that inestimable favour that Chanakya did him, Chandra owes him at least total obedience. V nicely explained!

The fact is that such critics are importing contemporary sensibilities into a 4th century BC story. This > 👍🏼

The Superb Renditions and Emotional High portions lived up to their names⭐️. And the Pot pourri section too was great :)

P.S: Aunty, this is with reference to your very interesting comment on Sun Tzu in the Vengeance thread. Maine toh uske baare mein socha hi nahi tha😲😆. Hmmm🤔...I want to believe Sun Tzu was too wise a man to give much importance to his enemies😆. Mujhe lagta hain that particular quote has two objectives - 1) Discourage proactive people from indulging in plotting and violence to seek revenge😆😆 2) Offer comfort to incurably lazy gits like me by assuring us that nothing needs to done at all, and we can sit and chill by the riverside with our favourite books while waiting for errr... proof of karmic justice🤔😉😆.

Originally posted by: jayaks02

Today's episode was an eye opener. It would have been better if she was shown with iron will and grit .

But the way she was begging him to kill her was moving.

How do you all feel about today's episode ?

How Mura survived the orderal with tenacity. But this girl has broken down so easily may be due to her upbringing. But somehow I could not feel the sadness for her - Her acting is so wayward. She screams but emotions are not in sync. Durdhara impressed in that 3 minute sequence more.

Sweta is day by day becoming a liability for the serial.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

The best thing I liked about the post was the precap. Poor, dear Chandra. Every time his Acharya turns up, he has a new female whom he insists that he has to marry! Chandra's horrified expression was pure delight.

🤣

But of course the cherry on the cake was the resurrected Nand. I think the one whom Chandra killed was a doppelganger, a double,which was why he could not fight with Chandra, either on the battlefield or in the hut, which was something that, as I have noted in this post, puzzled me a lot. The substitution must have taken place before the fighting began on the third day. The first day, Padmanand was the original, so he is ready to fight, and able too.

Yes... it makes sense now...

Originally posted by: mistofshadows

Hello Di!

You analysis is really a welcome treat.

I was a tad busy and watched the whole war scenes today.

My conclusion-

1) I hate VFX and the ridiculous jumps that are seemingly portrayed.

2) I am hopelessly disappointed at the sons of Nand. Instead of meaningless war drag where Chandra is gutting a soldier her slashing another there; there could have been major fights at least two with the brothers and him killing them on the battlefield. Others I will not speak off, why is Dhananand also a Popat??? He was appraised a s the best and undefeatable wasn't he?

3) CV's need to work on scene continuity.

4) I wish the vyuh rachna would have been more focused on. As far as I know the Scorpion vyuh could have easily been subverted by a half-moon vyuh. Where are tacticians and strategists man!!!!!

5) What is wrong with Nandini? I had always admired that steel pride in her no matter her stupid blindness and ridiculous actions. Now that has apparently gone to dumps though I hope she gets that back. I had expected her to be like Mura but I guess I was wrong...my bad. I would have supported her had she been burning for revenge and here she begs for death😕

6) Chanakya = another marriage. Chandra seems to be caught in an eternal trap of marriages. My biggest disappointment was the scene where he feels her pain. May be my sadistic side but I wanted himto remain a bit standoffish till sometime since we all know he will be a mush soon.

Niki

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Folks,

After the high octane goings on last week, what followed was, perhaps unavoidably, somewhat anticlimactic. For one thing, it set my teeth on edge when the samhaar turned suddenly into a damp squib. 😡

😆 Actually I was expecting for such an anti-climax... 😆 How can Padmanand die so easily? 😉

This apart, the way in which Padmanand was trying to compete with the cat and its nine lives became, after a point, acutely exasperating. So much so that I was strongly tempted to jump into the frame, shove Chanakya aside, grab Chandra's sword, and do the job myself!

🤣

By the precap it seems Nand abhi bhi jeevit hay! 🤣 I think you seriously should have done the work on behalf of Chandra. 😉

Anyhow, as we cannot be too finicky and insist on nonstop excellence, let us take up this triptych, not ad seriatim, but as a series of issues. But before I begin, a disclaimer. Please do not be disappointed after comparing this post with my last one. For it is an immutable law of physics that a reflection cannot be brighter than the original object. Similarly, despite the very flattering assertions by many of you, my posts cannot be better than the material I have to work on.

Enuff said. Let us begin.

End game with hiccups: I finally understood the reason for the Mahabharata style trappings of a dharmayuddh, complete with a bugle to signal the end of the day's fighting. It was explicity designed so that:

-Padmanand can survive the first day's fighting,

-Nandini can chase after Chandra, throw a sword at his back in a most adharmic manner, and indulge in a bout of insane ranting directed at him. A tirade, demented even by her standards, about his alleged lack of purushatva because he would not (a) fight after the sunset bugle being blown and (b) will not fight a woman.*

The attitude of Nandini here was sheer idiotic and disgusting!🤢 Either she was mad out of tension when he was just going to wipe out the trace of her pita-maharaj from the world, and after releasing tension she was overwhelmed and started talking gibberish; 😆 or she definitely has no idea about war-ethics and how to behave as a royal princess,(more likely, it was Nand who taught her. Nandini has to learn a lot to shine herself while standing beside Chandragupta...)

I found the whole part, along with the consequence unnecessary. 😔 Now the story is in such a point, where the viewers should sympathize Nandini, but due to her disgusting acts before she loses half of the sympathy... I wished the CVs could understand that taunting a brave and honest warrior as a na-mard does not elevate the idea of Nayi Soch, rather demean the woman herself!

Which tirade has consequences on Chandra's psyche that gladdened the hearts of many amateur psychologists here. And finally so that

-on the next day, Malayaketu can do a Nandini (what a perfectly matched pair they would have made ! I only wish we could tamper with the script and pull that off!) and attack Chandra from behind after the close of the hostilities for the day, wounding him seriously.

I want to know particularly in which delicate part of neck he had been injured. It must be very delicate, as he was unconscious for the whole night 😭 but hats off to his fitness and energy, he was absolutely fit and fine to go for the war the very next day.

I found Chanakya too strict teacher when he ordered Chandra to go to the battle at the very next moment after he woke up. 😡 😭 😆

On the third day, the bugler was dispensed with, as all of Padmanand's army - his ashta putra ( the ninth appears to be mentally challenged and must have been left behind in the palace), his war minister Vakranaas and his senapati Bhadrashaal, and the remaining foot soldiers (some 20 odd, as the battle budget had been drastically pruned by now!😉) - after having cast a timorous look at Chandra's bloodthirsty face, voted with their feet. And Padmanand himself, after having carefully avoided confronting Chandra or even lifting his sword, made off post haste to his secret hideout.

*NB: I am afraid I cannot agree with the argument that Nandini's tirade is an attempt to destabilize Chandra psychologically.She is not trying anything so fancy, just being specially nasty, as she was when she landed up on Mura, only far more so this time.

For it is not like the psy war Padmanand tries out in the beginning, which made perfect sense and was quite effective to begin with till Chandra recovered his poise. Here, the insults are so nonsensical that any other man would have laughed at them and at her.

Exactly.

Chandra is somehow very thin skinned where she is concerned, that is all. If he had not been so, he would have yelled after her that it was only the sun that saved her father today, but he would not let that happen tomorrow!

I expected him to give her back this way only, so that she gets back her sense and stop talking gibberish! Chandra is shown as a bit emotional type of person agree, but he is the same man who had shattered Mahapadmanand and his whole court with his strong,cold and never-bending attitude as well... It looked odd to me the way he gave attention to her nasty words, digested them completely and at the end landed up to Durdhara to pacify his burning rage in that deviant way.

Revenge stymied: This sub-title is of course for Helena.

If she had asked me, I would have told her there was no way Malayaketu was going to die, at her hands or Chandra's, so soon, seeing that the inevitable death of Padmanand would leave a yawning gap in the ranks of the evildoers, and so the script could never allow such a solid presence in those ranks as Malayaketu's to be also wiped out.😉

[LOL

In the event, he escapes, after Helena is fooled by the oldest trick in the world, a handful of earth flung in her face. What a pity they did not have spectacles in the 4^th century BC! But even if they had been around, and Helena had been myopic, she would still have avoided wearing them on grounds of personal vanity. 😆

😆 I found his tactics of escaping very funny... Especially when there were so many efficient soldiers to find out the sons of Nand, how did they miss the wounded Malayketu who had been stabbed at his back and had been beaten black and blue? 😆 (In this show people falls on the ground and faints due to little scratches in hand, but can run miles after miles with a dagger stabbed at the back. 😛) Helena herself could catch her if she would have a bow and arrow in her hand I suppose.

She presumably does not have a dagger tucked away in the fancy costume of hers (see how useful a solid back to that battle dress would have been? She could have had a special pouch for the dagger behind her neck!) , otherwise she could have done a Chandra on the fleeing Malayaketu .

By the way, the snippet showing Chandra taking aim at the fleeing Malayketu, and flinging his dagger at his retreating back so hard that it cuts straight thru his protective jerkin, was excellent, with Chandra's face looking exactly like that of a greyhound hot on the trail of its target.

It was great. 😃

It also showed that Chandra is no Yudhishtir, to be constantly hung up unilaterally on dharma, but can pay his enemy back in his own coin and attack him from the back.

He is Arjuna. 😃

Revenge achieved: This is for Chandragupta, and it comes in two stages.

Stage 1: the elimination of all the available Nandputras, numbering about 8, as far as I could make out.

There were 7, isn't it? I think Dhananad was missing and will be there as another permanent villain.

It was strange that they all let themselves be captured en masse, and did not, going by their appearance, seem to have put up a fight at all. Nor could I grasp why they all ran away from the battlefield on foot, whereas they all rode at Chandra on horses, and those must have been still around even after they had been unhorsed.

They were so scared that all had forgotten about horses. 😆

Be that as it may, Chandra disposes of all of them in one fell sweep, cutting their throats in a single curving motion of his sword, like Lord Rama shooting a single arrow thru 7 sal trees. They were all standing there like tailor's dummies, waiting to have their throats cut. It was most peculiar.

They are peculiar always in their every appearance. 😆

What with her beloved bhais abandoning the battle and their father, with the great warrior Dhananand heading the exodus, and then Malayaketu peaching on Padmanand's hideyhole to save his own life, it must have been a comprehensive wake up call for Nandini!😉

To revert, before he moves towards the Nandputra, as Padmanand pleads for his santaan to be spared, Chandra smiles a cold smile of savage amusement. As he calls to his enemy: Bas ab dekhte jaa!, his smile widens even further. It was a chilling sight.

Two clarifications are in order here, to respond to reservations about Chandra's actions against Nand's sons and against Nandini.

Justice is mine: One, what Chandra does to Nand's sons is an execution. It is not a killing of a foe in the battlefield. Yes, not all of them were directly involved in Nand's atrocities, but for Chandra they are all tarred with the same brush. And he is not wrong in feeling so, for they are all complicit in their father's crimes. They fully approve, for example, of his cutting the throat of an old man who is unable to pay the special tax Nand levies on the populace.

I don't know why all are so upset about Chandra executing all of the sons. First of all, they all represent their father's cruelty; and secondly, it was not any time to count how many sins they have committed individually, as when Chandra has taken vow to eradicate the dynasty, he can't be expected to judge all individually. Only Duryadhan and Duhshasan was directly involved in disrobing Draupadi, but all the 100 brothers had to pay off their sins.

And they had run away from the war-field. How Chandra would give them the honourable warrior's death if they are not eligible even to stay in the battlefield till the last breath?

(Sadly, both Duryadhan and Nand is played by the same person, and he has been solely responsible for the destruction of his own family, and to witness this destruction in front of eyes in both of the shows...)

Chandra is thus the executioner, and his acharya is the judge who pronounces sentence. It is another matter that Chandra has a personal motive for his vengeance that is overpowering.

Contrary to some criticism seen here, I do not see any indication in the script that the cowardice of Nand's sons was attributed to their low social origin on their father's side. Why, if this was so, Padmanand. who was nothing but a barber himself, while his sons were at least half of royal blood, should have been shown as the biggest poltroon of the lot,but he is recognised as a great warrior! The sons are always shown as weak, bar Dhananand, and Nand keeps insisting that Nandini is worth more than all of them put together. They have no guts and Nandini has plenty, which seems to me to be a plug for nari shakti, and nothing else!

To revert, Chandra would have killed the sons on the battlefield if they had not all run away. But they do run away, and so he kills them here. Surely one does not expect him to set them all loose and run after them, like a chicken herder!😉

Exactly. 😆

As Nandini rushes to lament over the dead bodies of her brothers, Chandra's smile is frightening in the pure pleasure it radiates. He is a living illustration of what he tells Durdhara that morning: Jab ghrina seema laang jaati hai, to manushya ko andar hi andar jalaati hai, and it is clear that he is still on fire inside.

Nandini's presence in the battlefield was not pre-planned. So how can one blame Chandra for giving her mental trauma? But this way, Chandra fulfilled his promise that he did to Nandini in his full rage... So much hatred and so much fire for Nandini!!

In today's episode, he didn't only looked sympathetic to her, also he was literally shedding tears while feeling her pain... The fire of hatred seems to be reduced from the part of Chandra as he has fulfilled his vow!

Two, what Chandra does to Nandini when he removes her dupatta is the direct pratiuttar to what she screams at him the day before, that he he was a coward and lacked purushatva, and this after he had downed all her brothers and was within an instant of killing her father after besting him in single combat!

He could have dealt with her easily now, for his first move is a shove that sends her reeling backwards. So what he does is in retaliation for that insult of hers, by showing her that she is a woman, and has all the weak points of a woman after all. If she had been a pure warrior, why should losing the dupatta have bothered her at all? She should have continued fighting.

That's the point! CVs don't know how to show woman-empowerment while portraying a character. Hence Nandini is full of flaws... she demands to be a warrior princess, and on the other hand she bends in front of nasty demands of her to-be... in a hand she keeps on ranting about female's valiance and taunts a courageous warrior to be a na-mard as he does not fight a woman, and on the other hand she leaves her weapon when her womanhood is insulted without answering back, showing no matter how much a woman be courageous, after all she is a woman and can be defeated by pulling off her veil.

It gives a bad taste throughout. Why to show something demeaning to womanhood in the name of propagating woman-empowerment?

She asked for what she got, and though I am a feminist to the core, I also believe that a woman who behaves in the ugly manner that Nandini did at the end of the battle deserves what happened to her.

Yes, that was the only reason of Chandra becoming so indecent to her... However, though I cannot say Chandra was RIGHT to do this, but I can easily read the reason of his act which is out of his character... It was like, look you arrogant lady, how small is you and how weak is your weapon that is not yet ready to come out of the barrier of your womanhood!

And what was it anyway? She was not disrobed like Draupadi, was she? Whereas what she said to him the evening before was the ultimate insult for a man, and that festers in his mind like poison. As you sow, so do you reap.

Also, it was a painful moment for Nand too, who could see clearly how karma strikes back when another lad pulls of his daughters dupatta and he was unable to do anything! Even at the time of death he could not come out of the worry that what this boy can do with his daughter once he is dead! (Only if he is REALLY dead! 😆)

Another odd point. As Mishti (mishtidoi) has pointed out, one fails to understand why Nandini discarded her samurai style battle jerkin for her regulation chakmak when she arrives at Nand's hideout. She is listening when Malayaketu betrays its location to Chandra and Helena, and she should have immediately guessed that Chandra would track her father down there. Surely then retaining the protective jerkin would have made more sense?

It was a wonderful discovery by her, I must say. 😆 I have alaways objection with her make-over and dresses in a battlefield. Where are those sword-fighting costumes which she is supposed to war this time?😡 Come on, you are in a war and not in a fashion show, at least tie up your hairs! 😆

I was chatting with one of my friend when Nandini was challenging Chandra, and we both were very much worried about her hairs and dupatta when she was popping her eyes and provoking him. Just the moment my friend said what will she do if by chance Chandra pulls her dupatta (he is already fascinated with that, remember the lizard), Chandra did his most criticized stunt by pulling that off, and we were like HAILA!! YEH KYA THA!! 😲 🤣

Stage 2: This comes after Chanakya stymies Chandra's second attempt to dispose of Padmanand, and instead sets him free to depart with his daughter dearest in tow. I could fully share Chandra's angry exasperation at this latest quirk of his mentor, and I gritted my teeth. He must have done the same, but Rajat has an excellent set of pearly whites, and I suppose they could stand the damage!😉

😆

I could not understand why Padmanand, who must surely have had his sword with him when he fled from the battlefield, does not put up even a token fight against Chandra when he sees him at the door of the hut. Instead, he looks at him as though paralysed, and lets himself be dragged out and flung to the ground like a sack of potatoes. And once there, he keeps staring up at Chandra's vengeful face with scared eyes.

He was at the end of his courage, and did not have any strength to fight back by that time.The fright of defeat had defeated him long back.

The only possible explanation for his bizarre behaviour is that he has completely lost his nerve. Probably Nemesis, the vengeful goddess, on his trail for long, had got to him at long last!

Yes. 😃

To revert, it turned out that old man Chanakya knew what he was doing after all, and our two Cs got at Padmanand and his ill-gotten loot as well. And it was poetic justice that Padmanand was killed not by beheading, but by being slashed by Chandra's sword the same number of times as he had whipped Chandra at the swayamvar.

Despite all the criticism of the punishment being too brutal, I didn't find it any odd.

Nandini needs a crash course on doing pralaap. Her vocal laments sounded horrible, with a pitamaharaj or two thrown into each wail. Chandra watches her with silent satisfaction.

Icy fulfillment: Often, especially in the battle scenes, I have noted Rajat's flair for projecting extreme rage and hate without going over the top. Here too, the prize in this category should go to the delighted smile with which he greets Chanakya's pronouncement that Ab is khuli shikha ko baand loonga.

But the still. icy gleam in Chanakya's eyes, as he looks down at the drops of Padmanand's blood that spatter his shikha, tops even Chandra's savage hilarity. As does the eagerness with which he eggs Chandra to get on with the business of Nand ke vansh ka vinash by killing all his sons. He is truly a terrible old man, is Chanakya.

Urgency for the uttaradhikari: I would go with Ashwinee's superb and psychologically plausible explanation for the whole thing, which goes as follows:

Chanakya was not suddenly worried about Chandra's uttaradhikari but he sent Chandra to Durdhara to undo any residual effects that Nandini's comments might have left on Chandra's psyche. I would bet on this guru knowing his shishya that well and also on his cunning in trying to keep Chandra's thoughts from revisiting Nandini's speech by keeping him otherwise engaged.Cynical but not impossible since it also has the added advantage of nudging Chandra in a direction which he otherwise would not take given his 'bal bramhachari' niyat. As you said, pure politics - of a very layered kind!

I must confess that this particular layer did not occur to me at all, but she is absolutely right. The old man knows how Nandini's taunts would affect his boy, whence this attempt at diverting his mind. And since everyone in the cast has the eyes of an eagle and the hearing of a lynx, Chanakya would have heard all that Nandini spat out right from his hilltop position! 😉

This explanation is awesome no doubt, and also able to pacify me who was very much disappointed with that particular scene, though I doubt if cvs have thought the same way. 😆 I was truly surprised when Chanakya came with his most weird and unjustified command to Chandra which somehow, according to me, breaks the barrier of the courtesy between Guru-Shishya making the whole situation embarrassing first of all. Then he demanded for an heir, long before he becoming a king, saying that he will carry his flag if by chance Chandra dies in the battle. It reminded me a Bengali saying- gache kathal, gofe tel (Jack-fruit on the tree, and you're oiling mustaches... something means like celebrating victory before going to war.) 😆

Overall I felt the whole execution was very cheap, and again unnecessary! 🥱

Slavish obedience? : Chandra has been criticized for accepting his guru's fiat in the matter of the uttaradhikari and Durdhara without much protest, and branded a puppet of his mentor's. To these criticisms , I would say just this.

At this point, I believe Chandra had no option but to listen to his acharya, and he was truly helpless. I absolutely hated this helplessness, but also understand Chandra really had nothing to do!

Chanakya is Chandra's Acharya. He is the man who has made him what he is, and but for him, what would Chandra have been? A skinny, undernourished brat, beaten black and blue daily by his drunkard of a foster father, while his foster mother bleated in the background about her abiding prem for her husband. For that inestimable favour that Chanakya did him, Chandra owes him at least total obedience.

In any case, Chanakya has bought him from his foster father, and he makes it clear right at the beginning that he expects implicit obedience from Chandra in all things. It is another matter that over the years, he comes to love Chandra like a son,but that alters nothing in the context of the obedience he demands of his shishya.

If Chanakya had been Chandra's father, and Chandra had obeyed him in the same way, would the criticism be the same? I don't think so. But Chanakya is the only father figure Chandra has ever known, and even in Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat, Bindusara tells his eldest son Sushim that his father, the great Chandragupta Maurya, would not take a single step without his guru's explicit approval. Was that found strange? No. Is it seen as strange that Lord Rama obeyed his father, who was clearly in the wrong, so implicitly? No.

The fact is that such critics are importing contemporary sensibilities into a 4th century BC story. No one can expect anything different from a shishya in that age. In the 1990 Chanakya too, Chandragupta was shown as a completely obedient shishya, for that is the historical truth. I do not see why the script should stand this paddhati on its head to please those with 21st century ideas.

Superb renditions: For me, the most striking aspect of the whole uttaradhikari sequence is that Rajat's performance during the whole, from the time he approaches Durdhara to the morning after, is quite simply outstanding, even by his standards.

It was a very difficult set of scenes to tackle: the awkwardness, the reluctance amounting to distaste for having any such physical intimacy with his best friend - whether he is right or wrong here is not the point, the point is that he does so feel - the thinking back to Nandini's mad, hateful tirade, the shamefaced reaction the next morning.

Every single bit of it was near perfect. I cannot think of many actors, even those in films,who could have pulled that off.

Saanvi's Durdhara complemented Chandra to perfection. She was gently, calmly supportive of Chandra all thru, understanding his reluctance and his hesitation with clear-eyed wisdom, and helping him over the emotional roadblock that seems to stymie him at first. For apart from his idea of the maryada towards a very dear friend, there is also a deep seated aversion in him towards any act of physical intimacy with a woman, which has to do with his bal brahmachari bent of mind, which is still deeply ingrained in him.

It is the same the next morning, when she sees that Chandra is on a fresh guilt trip, blaming himself for having, as he sees it,forced her to a level of intimacy that he somehow sees as violative of their deep friendship. I am sure she does not share these views of his, but she does not argue the point with him. Instead, she frames it all in the context of their having done their duty as a potentiual king and queen, proposes that they should just forget it, and stresses that he should focus on the war ahead.

Chandra is truly very lucky to have Durdhara as his helpmeet - a caring, non-judgemental wife and a dear, loyal friend in one. For she loves him , though she does not show it. As for him, I think he himself does not understand what it is that he feels for her. Be that as it may, when she dies, it will be a terrible, emotionally crippling blow for poor Chandra.

The whole scenario shows a different dimension in the relation of Chandra and Durdhara, showing us a matured Durdhara who actually loves Chandra clearly and is truly happy to get him completely, and a helpless Chandra being torn apart in the plight of the complications of duty, relationship and hurt male ego... But still I think the whole scenario was set in hurry. A night before they were playing like two little boy and girl in their first night of togetherness, and at the very next night they were forced to consummate without getting chance to mature the relationship- I fail to get the synchronization... would it be impossible to show the same thing some days later?

Emotional high: I do not have anything much to say about the milan between Mura and Chandragupta. It was something to be viewed, not to be analysed.

Chandra was superb in his overflowing love and grief, and the tremendous sense of relief at having fulfilled his duty to his parents. It was all there in the hoarse cadences of his voice as he asserts, again and again: Main aa gaya, maa! Maine pratishodh le liya hai! Apne pita ki hatya aur aapke apamaan ka pratishodh le liya hai!

It was the much-awaited scene, and something really too touchy to explain...

I loved it when he took in his foster mother too into the all embracing circle of his love and sense of belonging. But I did not like it when he forgave his now snivelling, grovelling foster father so easily. What happened to the count that the young Chandra was keeping of the number of blows he had taken from this man? He should have been kept at a certain distance, and not embraced with such easy warmth. I am almost sure that this character will be a source of trouble for Chandra in the future.

I feel in these years, after witnessing the world from so close, after getting know about Nand's sins and his mother's life so vividly, and after all completing his work for which he was destined, Chandra hardly has any reason to keep his grudge for that mere, too much common person. So he did not think twice while forgiving this man, who is obviously not evil in front of all the evil men he has encountered till now. I did not find it odd to forgive the very ordinary man.

I do not know if the foster mom-dad has any other role from now on. Maybe he will become a hazard for him afterwards, but I don't think that he can become a villein.

All this said and done, I think this grand, high octane reunion of the long suffering mother and her long lost son should have appealed greatly to the TRP audience. And about time!

Now we can look forward to further TRPs boosters in the shape of the Chandra-Nandini hostilities and the problems that Nandini will face from the women in Chandra's household.

Pot pourri:

-Malayaketu should avoid these topless displays. He looks like a WWF contestant.

🤣

-Chanakya's vrushchika vyuha in movement was great fun, especially since it was shown in an overhead shot. Though it was difficult to understand how it actually worked.

😆

- Nandini's mind-boggling VFX jump from the ground to the back of her horse would have given even an agile frog an inferiority complex.😆

🤣 🤣

-Avantika shows Sunanda what queenliness means when she moves resolutely to open the door to the soldiers before it is broken down.

⭐️

-For all his ominous comment To Nand ka rakt abhi jeevit hai!, as he shoves Nandini aside and grabs the last of the Nandputra, I do not think Chandra, once he realises that the boy is mentally challenged, will kill him as well.

As you expected, he did not kill that guy, and it shows his kind and generous nature... It was somehow expected, but what surprised me today is Chandra's extreme humanity of sympathizing Nandini, especially when he literally shed tears feeling in which state of mind the poor girl is going through. It was very sweet of him, I would say (though I felt shading tears is somehow extreme 😆) , and differs himself from the inhumane Nand.

Well, folks, bye for now. Please do not forget to hit the Like button if you think that is warranted. See you again over the weekend.

Shyamala/Aunty/Akka/Di