Chandra Nandini 31-33:Extended finale;Nos.46-47pg 120;No.48 pg 128 - Page 7

Originally posted by: ---Khushi---

Originally posted by: amina1

Aunty 👏

Originally posted by: varala

Awesome update 👏👏

Thanks for pm 😊

Originally posted by: _Payalj_

I am new to this forum. Must say a perfect analysis. One could almost visualise the episodes again.

Originally posted by: Vampire2468

Amazing n thourghly research analysis 👍🏼thnkzz for d pm

Originally posted by: shailusri1983

Aunty I have been very busy this entire week. I was planning not to come to IF at all. But I came here and ended up commenting and making two big posts. I can very well imagine why everyone is so confused and morally perplexed in such ethical dilemmas of whether to condemn or accept the behavior of all the characters.

I wrote these two posts in reply to Devki who felt that Chandra was being misled by two dangerously obsessive people, Chanakya and Helena and did not have a brain or thinking of his own. She felt that he was being brainwashed and conditioned by these two people to behave in this brutal fashion with Nand and his sons. I do not get why both Chanakya and Helena should take the blame for every small action of Chandra's. At least as far as I understand all this ruthlessness and brutality in Chandra's own. He has his reasons for hatred and seeking revenge from Nand. I will copy those posts here before I supplement them with any new points I might have. Just wanted to save myself a bit of time and typing:

Post 1:

Shailaja my pet, this is one of your best!👏👏👏 The parts I liked specially, and my few comments. are in blue.

The oddest thing about this whole debate, for me, is that Nand's sons got off very easily. They were simply killed in one fell sweep. If they had been Suryagupta's sons and Nand had got hold of them, he would have dragged them around in chains, blinded them, whipped them, and finally cut their throats lovingly with his own patented ustara.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by shailusri1983

This is a 4th BC period story. Please do not impose your contemporary morals or codes of conduct on it. I am not going into history at this point at all. The original Chandragupt was very ruthless and clinical in his destruction of the Nandas. There he had no serious personal reasons to defend his conduct or reason away his extreme hatred for the ruling family.

It was true that the Nandas were highly unpopular as a ruling dynasty. They sucked the people dry and filled their own coffers. They were least bothered about national security and people's welfare. They ruled on the basis of fear. They executed anyone with or without the least possible justification.

Chandragupt, according to history, just wanted to weed them out just like a farmer extinguishes pests and poisonous and thorny plants from his crop to save the crop from being destroyed. Even if you leave one such plant or pest, it will spread and destroy the whole crop. So he destroyed the entire Nanda race.

That was the standard operating procedure when one dynasty replaced another.

That was how kings and winners established and stabilized their rule. At least here, Chandragupt seems to have a solid personal reason for his hatred and his behavior. In the period we are taking about the personal was always political. The powerful oppressed the weak and there was only one way of making a big line smaller; that was drawing a bigger line beside it first and then try erasing the previous line. That was how empires were made.

Nand, Chandragupt, or for that matter any other king did not/would not extend any charity or mercy to the former ruling king or ruling family. It would be too dangerous for them. You talk about Chandra's cruelty to Nand in killing his own sons before his eyes and Nandini's eyes.

What about Nand having an affair with his queen and killing his own king when the latter trusts himself in his hands under the assumption that his barber has come to shave his beard? What will you call his Peeping Tom behavior at a pregnant Moora; some sort of social service? What about Suryagupt's murder before Moora's eyes?

Leave all that! This Nand killed 39 new born kids the day Chandra was born thinking that one of them must be Suryagupt and Moora's son. Similarly Nand and his nine sons cooly walk about murdering poor old men in the open court just because they have the temerity to question his injustice. Being Nandini's dad or brothers does not exculpate or atone for every sin they have committed. Nemesis and Karma catches up with everyone. It did with Nand and his sons.

I agree that Nandini and the women on this side will suffer a lot. Every war results in a lot of collateral damage; the woman, children, the aged, the families of the soldiers, etc. Any king would be cruel and ruthless to his enemies, with the traitors or with the previous king, his family, relatives, and even his faithful ministers.

Chandragupt was a great warrior, general, just and noble king to his people, and the founder of a mighty empire. It is nowhere written that he was a great humanitarian, altruist and peace lover. Politics and power in the BC were not for the chicken hearted and Chandragupt Maurya was one of the greatest brave heart warrior Indian soil has ever known.

No warrior worth his salt in those days would have such qualms for spilling their enemy's blood or be put off by all this gore. In a way I felt, the CVs were not exaggerating things or making Chandra cruel. I would rather see it as doing justice to the character description.

You might still feel that Nand being evil is no justification for Chandra being equally evil. This could be your opinion. In that case, no doubt you would equally condemn somebody in the military services of any country like the army, airforce, or navy of being murderers because they actually kill whoever comes in the line of their duty?

Similarly would you condemn an executioner who enforces and carries out the death sentence issued by our Supreme Court as the worst human being on earth for having no pity on his fellow human being? Going by the kind of logic you adopt, he should be the most miserable man on this planet.

Similarly, if we are going to take such considerations into account, I suppose we have to get the Bhagavad Gita banned. We a wear to this day in courts of law to say that whatever we are stating is the absolute truth. I suppose you would have a problem with that too as it was spoken on a field of battle inciting a soldier and warrior who wanted to run away to do battle and kill his enemies. Should we stop worshipping Lord Krishna because he not only supported war but many times also resorted to dubious means to achieve his ends in the battle of Kurukshetra?

Truth and dharma are very relative. We do have courts or police to seek justice in this age. So we can afford to speak all these morals. What about a period like Chandragupt's where the king was law himself and a bad, tyrannical king was at the helm of affairs? Your only option to restore justice or Dharma would have been to overthrow that king. Chandragupt and Chanakya did the same thing.

It at times pains when I see people talking about truth, dharma, right action and conduct in such an arbitrary fashion and sit over judgement of characters, people or their motivations at such a superficial level without realizing the underlying or deeper significance in them.

How easy isn't it to call somebody of Chanakya or Chandragupta's stature as cruel, obsessive, vindictive, demean or lessen their greatness of character just because the other person at the receiving end happens to be the father or brother of the female lead? It is enough if they are good fathers, brothers or husbands. Should all their other crimes be forgiven or overlooked because of that? I think not!

I have been very busy and should not have been replying at all. But I could not help it. So even if you are replying to this post, I will not be continuing this discussion or argument. I hope you understand.

Post 2:

"Thank you for the reply. Chandra was actually on his own and not under any conditioning or brainwashing in the scene you were alluding to. If his personal equation with Nand, reasons for enmity and his lineage had not been revealed, he would just have done the thing you suggested with Nand and Sons. He would just have killed them in battle, imprisoned them or have them quietly executed. See how lightly he lets Malay go. He hands him over to Helena to punish him as she sees it fit. That he escapes is another story.

All this ruthlessness and brutality was Chandra's own. No Chanakya or Helena were egging him on to implement it in this manner. He merely did not want to kill them. He wanted them to suffer before they died. It was his own eye for eye stuff. He wanted to rub in the reason for his revenge. He wanted it to sink in their psyche why they were being treated like this before their death. He wanted them to see his mother's suffering in Nandini's and his father's cruel and unjust death in their own cruel death.

Nandini irritates me a lot with her blindness and unseeing nature but all the same I feel sorry for her. A great personal loss like this will be hard to overcome. Even warriors and hard hearted people will crumble against such situations or brutality. Her being a man or woman will make no difference here. She has never seen such blood or cruelty in her life.

Learning fighting or self defense does not mean that you are immune or unaffected by the scenes in a war field. There was one tiny scene where she is terribly disturbed by all the bloodshed in the battlefield when she sees the wounded soldiers. She seems terribly disillusioned and disturbed as she witnesses all these scenes.

Just imagine the state of any Rajput warrior whose wife has committed Jauhar and he somehow escapes and survives her. Will he not be equally affected or disturbed by this loss despite the fact that he has seen a number of battles or seen a lot of blood and gore before this. He might have seen thousands of soldiers being killed before his eyes, or he himself might have killed thousands, but he will react as badly or be as distraught to the thought of his dearest wife burning in the fire.

I still fail to understand how Nandini will even forgive Chandra, leave alone falling in love with him. I suppose the only reason why a majority fail to sympathize with her or identify with her is because of a lack of clarity in the way the character has been conceived and the way it has been portrayed by the actress. If there had been a bit of subtlety, a few layers to the character, it would have really worked wonders for the character and show. Now the character comes across as a very hypocritical, unthinking, unfeeling, careless, self-serving, and egotistic one. But all these aspects though irritating and exasperating are not criminal offenses. So provided, she is given a proper redemption track and the acting improves, it will be good for the show."

There is no need for any of us to either be defensive or disturbed by moral and ethical dilemmas about the conduct of the characters. They have their underlying motivations for each action of theirs. Similarly Nandini's singular stupidity or mindless carping or invectives does not mean that she deserves hatred even from the viewers. She has enough coming her way from Chandra, Moora, Helena and the entire Magadh. It is a very great fall for her as such from being such a pampered, spoilt and bratty princess to life as a Daasi or prisoner of war.

One does not begrudge a collateral damage of war like Nandini for any stupidity, foolish statements, rants or vents. One just overlooks or ignores them. Moora did the same thing. Only she had the moral high ground, justice, and classy royal behavior on her side. This girl has the moral low ground, does not realize it, is delusional, acts like a fishwife at times, mouths obscenities and profanities. But none of this is criminal. Chandra's brutality also was not criminal according to me. He was just taking justice into his hands. Killing Nand and sons was an execution necessary for the stability of his reign. It was a political move. There is no need to read much into it.

Nandini is not the reason, the instrument nor the result of anything in this war. She is just a victim of this war. I grant that she is a foolish one but she is a victim and collateral damage all the same. Though the CVs would like to make her the center of attraction and the cause and effect behind this entire scheme of events, she is not!

Nand and Avantika invited this holocaust upon them, their children, and the whole of Magadh with their sins. They deserved this retribution and in a way Nandini was inheriting part of it on herself by being their child. The seeds were themselves rotten, so the fruit from this tree was bound to be poisonous as well.

Aunty I know that many on the forum like Devki are finding it a bit difficult to stomach or understand Chandra's cruelty or brutality as they see it. They are having a hard time understanding or reasoning with it as they are imposing contemporary morals on a BC revenge saga. It will just not work. Similarly I just cannot bring myself to condemn or hate Nandini for some stupid babbling or ranting. She is just a frog in the well croaking away in full glory. Nand and his sons, Avantika deserve every bit of punishment coming their way.

I do not think many in the forum - which is hardly much of a forum, come to think of it, it is like a puddle to the lake, or even ocean of the Jodha Akbar forum - react that way, Shailaja, as far as I could make out by skimming thru the forum index. There was only Devki and that cactusbutt,and with her, it was a dead cert that she would take this line.

But when I read comments elsewhere in the forum that Nandini deserves to suffer because she is a proud, bratty, blind, delusional and egoistic princess is a bit too much to wish for anyone. Saying that being Nand's daughter and his blind supporter, she was bound to suffer is one thing. But wishing all these mighty calamities upon her because she was proud or bratty is something else.

Similarly she was never a pattern card of perfection. Except Pitha Nand and Bharath Mata in her homilies, nobody saw her as a paragon of perfection, including her own mother Avantika. One does not become empowered or broad minded just because of education, learning fighting skills, self defense techniques, etc. It takes a great deal of courage and fortitude to bear a situation similar to Moora's with a similar grace, dignity and steely resolve.

This girl was such a frail creeper that she fails to stand up for her own self and is prepared to marry a person who attempted to rape her.

Learning a few concepts from books or a few sword fighting moves will not make a person strong or powerful. Strength comes from within. Even knowing a hundred best sword fighting moves did not help her in a real field of battle. Here she was up against Chandra. But any odd Tom, Dick or Harry who knows the only sword fighting move of removing her dupatta or causing a wardrobe malfunction can defeat all her great learning or training. Only practical experience teaches a person this important lesson of life.

She seems to have copped up the royal library in Magadh full of leather bound books but she lacks true wisdom. She has acquired knowledge but not wisdom. Only real life experiences teach a person that. She has never seen real life till now. She has been living a beautiful dream all this while.

Just because she shows off her learning or her fighting skills, she is fooling nobody. Her father claps his hands at every small achievement of hers and praises her to the skies. So she harbors a few mistaken notions about her abilities. She thinks she can pull off anything under the sun and mouths the most stupid profanities. But all this is stupidity or irritating behavior. But it would be wrong to categorize this and the criminal behavior of Nand and his sons on the same scale of justice.

Chandra and Durdhara scene was fantastically conceived, executed, and enacted as was the Moora, Chandra and foster parents scene. A brilliant and superlative viewing experience hands down! I have grown to love Durdhara a lot. I am going to miss her terribly as Chandra is going to do on the show. I hope we see some more of her on the show before her exit.

Originally posted by: Teejsssgod

thnkxxx

Originally posted by: myviewprem

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. 😡

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!

You ought to have. He is STILL alive.😡 And Chanakya simply says 'humse bhool ho gayi thi Chandra'. Is he THE Chanakya whose is synonymous with intellect in our country and author of THE Arthashastra! After what Ekta did to Akbar, this is not altogether unexpected either.

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.

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!

He is so thin skinned that not just her words, but even her wails permeate through him from the far distances of the karagrih!😡

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.👏

But he seems constantly hung up unilaterally on 'Feeling' Nandini's 'pain'. The first time, as a water drop fell on him in the forest when she cried and the then yesterday, which was the worst. Why is Rajat made to don those woe begone weepy apologetic expressions in all shows! Like Anita (rock&roll) I wish he had given her the water and said ' isme doob maro. After all your vain declarations and screams, you are not tough enough to withstand one day's sorrow. After subjecting MY family to 20 years of tribulations and agony, you are not princess enough to stand one day of it. This madam is the REAL you - hollow and incompetent.' And just walked off with the grina expressions as promised in the promos. But the 'ajeevan kaaraavas' all sounds empty after yesterday's weepy Chandra.😡

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.

Didn't he know that there were 9 in all? Why is he content to slay just 7. Why didn't he look out for the other 2. Esp it was strange that he didn't find Dhananand missing.

They were all standing there like tailor's dummies, waiting to have their throats cut!

🤣

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.

😔

If she had been a pure warrior, why should losing the dupatta have bothered her at all? She should have continued fighting.

Didn't she do that while fighting with Malayketu. Then why the sharm-o-haya with Chandra! All her warriorship seems limited to practice sessions. When actually faced with crisis, she buckles and collapses.

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.

Both the actors were excellent in the execution scene. Ruthless yet assured, the kind of assurance that fighting for a cause/justice gives.

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.

And such abject obedience had only proven to be to his benefit and rise, as Helena pointed out today. So why not?

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.

Yes. Esp the first shot as she puts the shawl around him. 'You are my best friend and see what I am having to do to you'. Rajat was perfect in his expressions.👏

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.

⭐️👏😭

But before dying, she will do her best a la Salima Begum to unify Chandra and Nandini. Helena has already set her Ruqaiyya framework today and Mura is going to become another Hamida with Vaishali filling in for Bakshi Bano. (I expected something solid by Vaishali's entrance into the palace, and she did nothing but one failed attempt to kill Nandini and now is all prepared to cheerlead). And Chandra, who is soon going to take liberal doses of painkillers and wallow in tears to assuage his guilt for having caused 'peeda and vedna' to Nandini. There is more to come aunty. Nandini consumes poison and is tandoor roasted as Jodha was during Ben track(spoilers). Beware of more from Chandra.