Chandra Nandini 86-90: Sylvan idyll - Page 12

Originally posted by: amina1

Im sorry Aunty it wont happen again

Originally posted by: sashashyam

What a resourceful and helpful child you are, Ria! Thank you! Please send me the link.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Shailaja my dear,

It is OK.

As I said, I am tiring of this belan business. I am not a grouch and I like a joke as much as anyone else, but this single point obsession gets me down. I really wonder if anyone likes Jane Austen or Walter Scott these days! They wrote wonderful tales without any need for all this in your face stuff. I suppose they are seen as jurassic, just like me!

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: sashashyam

OK, my dear Amina. Thanks a lot! And I am sorry I sounded crabby.

Shyamala Aunty

Originally posted by: amina1

I need to go buy these books read Wuthering heights years ago selling used books in my avenue

Originally posted by: shailusri1983

Aunty I absolutely adore Jane Austen and Walter Scott. I must have read their novels endless number of times, specifically Austen. My other favorites as far as literature goes are of course the Brontee Sisters, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, DH Lawrence, James Joyce as far as fiction goes.

In poetry I idolize and adulate John Keats, Percy Shelley, ST Coleridge, Tennyson, Robert Browning and DG Rossetti. When it comes to drama, my favorites are Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. As far as essays go there is nothing that can beat Charles Lamb for me.

And Aunty, I do belong to the younger generation. At least, I am not too old if not too young. This is the stuff I read and love reading. So it means I am a Dino in Jurrassic as well?

We all love you a lot. None of us here can equal you in judgement, understanding, knowledge, wisdom or experience about the world. You really are sans pareil and a world apart in everything you do, everything you say, and everything you analyze.

These writers whom you mentioned were also a class apart. But that does not mean they were/ are outdated. Some fashions, trends, ideas, books writers are universal and evergreen. They can never fade away. Being superior or better than the rest does not equate to being a Dino in Jurrasic. At least, that is what my humble understanding says.

Originally posted by: sashashyam

Pataalgram: Night

I had noted , in my last post, while describing that madcap chase across their room, that when Chandra wonders to himself at the way in which Nandini's happiness gives him santosh, all unbeknownst to himself, he has summed up the very essence of love. Now, in wanting to wipe away all the pain he had ever suffered at the hands of fate, and if need be to take it all upon herself, Nandini too is defining, in a different but equally telling fashion, the very essence of love.

👏👏

Instinctive empathy: Nor is this empathy that she feels for him something born of the moment. It is by now instinctive.

With that comes another seminal understanding, of what it is that makes Chandra wary of love, distrustful of indulging his heart, and letting it drag him into a crippling emotional dependency on another. It is this vital new level of understanding that will shape their future relationship from her side. And it is the shared pain at the thought of all that he has suffered that leads to her Parantu jo ghaav tumhein samay ne diye hain, kaash mein unhein mitha paati!

Inspite of having been raised a princess and showered with all the love in the world, that Nandini understands the pains of another d eprived of tge same, shows her sensitivity and empathy for all that shines through her. Which is what makes her special and draws Chandra to her. Goodness and pretence of goodness in course of time is as distinguishable instinctively as chalk and cheese. And Shweta brings out this innate goodness so naturally without any airs.

Chulha kaand: It is tough to say what it was that I liked the best about this marvellous segment.

It could be the self exculpatory try by Nandini: Maine roti nahin jalayi! Wo jal gayi!😉

Or the childlike urgency and stubbornness with which she clamours, as soon as he has got the chulha going: Main bait thi hoon! Main karoongi! Main karoongi!! The way is which she dismisses his remonstration: Pehle seekh to lo!, with an even more insistent Nahin, aa gaya! Tum idhar aao!, as she ousts him from the seat in front of the chulha and takes charge.

Or the pleasure with which she receives his instructions as to how to make the roti, her hands, held closely between his own, rolling out the dough. Or the open affectionate admiration in her gaze as she asks him confidentially how he learnt to cook so well, and listens to his explanation.

Or her innate honesty which almost torpedoes Chandra's determination to give her the sole credit for all the cooking, and produces a small, shame-faced grin as he looks across at her while Kanika is praising the food.

Surely EVERYTHING.😃

Ghatak prahaar!: Now for the unquestioned piece de resistance. Everything about this bovine encounter is priceless, and the P should be uppercase. 👏

The whole word i believe.

It begins with Nandini's unconsciously hilarious query Kahaan se? when Kanika tells her to get the milk, as Chandra is silently chortling with ill-suppressed mirth in the background. 😉

It continues in high gear as she tentatively approaches the cowshed, wondering to herself Duhte kahaan se hain?, while Chandra, lounging against a post and taking large bites out of a fruit, watches her uncertain progress with mischievous glee, and kindly informs her that one usually sits down to milk a cow.😉

Reminded me of Krishna watching the gopis in distress, with mischief and mirth.

The ghatak prahaar by the supposedly gentle animal lands poor Nandini with her hand in gobar, and by now she has abandoned all pretence of being a pro at milking a cow. She is thus grateful when Chandra takes the matter in hand, and approaches the cow only when assured that it will be all right, aur phir main hoon na!

What follows, as Nandini gets her first experience of doodh duhna, and even more so of drinking milk straight from the cow, is pure delight. For her, for Chandra, and for the viewers, who are drawn irresistibly into the magic world that the two of them inhabit for the moment.

👏

Yes. One could actually feel the joy they felt. Their pleasure was contagious.

Their faces, close enough to touch each other, are awash in bubbling delight, as Nandini licks her lips and rejoices in how good the milk tastes, and her joy in these simple pleasures is mirrored and amplified in Chandra's laughing eyes and his wide smile.

So well described.👏

This is not romance. This is something rarer and more precious, a perfect camaraderie of the spirit that, for the moment, has blended the two of them into one symbiotic, supremely happy whole.

👏👏 Truly precious.😳 Such bliss is dearer than the kingdoms and every other comfort and only those who realize its worth can feel it.

Aficionadas of Pride and Prejudice would remember Elizabeth joking that she fell in love with Mr. Darcy as soon as she caught sight of his spectacular ancestral property of Pemberley. For Roopa, her fixation on Chandra clearly dates from the moment when she first caught sight of his perfectly sculpted abs!😆

Lizzy was for a moment taken by what she could have become a mistress of and then realises that her aunt and uncle wouldn't be with her then. An admirer of beauty and a realist and spirited enough to make a joke out of it. No wonder she is one of the most loved characters in literature. ⭐️😳

As for Roopa, she had seen him off his dupatta quite a few times earlier and once looking extremely handsome in the Hamam as well. Wonder what made her fall for his abs suddenly now.🤔

So we arrive at the end of Chandra-Nandini's first day at Pataalgram. As they settle down to sleep, it was somewhat odd to see Chandra almost apologizing for her having to spend the night with him in the hut, and also adding, with a curiously placatory look at her, Kuch hi dinon ki to baat hai, so jaate hain!, as if she had not done precisely that, without any problem, for days in his rooms in the Pataliputra palace!

His comment was weird. He has been sharing room with her and only her almost everyday at Pataliputra.

But it all ends charmingly, after a spell of mutual day dreaming about each other, when Nandini, who was a moment ago well set with her own arm for a pillow, complains about not being able to sleep without one. She promptly ends up with a bonus, Chandra's arm, and in due course, Chandra himself to cuddle up to .

At which point we shall leave them both in the arms of Morpheus, and move on, or rather backwards in our tale.

A lovely wordplay.👏

. In fact, one is dismayed that he does not have the political smarts to realise, on his own, what the likely reaction of the praja would be to his declaring a Yavani queen as his Mukhya Maharani.

A key stone: No, not the usual keystone that holds up an arch.

I have always wondered how it does.😲

We are by now so used to these missed signals that we merely sigh and pass on.

But maybe he was doing something about it after all, which will surface later, so let me give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

No way.😕

But that is not what is relevant. What matters is the expression on his face as he says, almost in spite of himself: Aur jis avasta mein maine tumhein dekha, main.. where he comes into dangerous territory and makes an abrupt halt.

As usual.

Originally posted by: shailusri1983

Nowadays not necessary to buy these books Amina. You get free e-books to read online. You will get most of these classics to read in Project Guttenburg free of cost. If at all I want a hard copy, I ask my husband to take a printout of these books. Moreover ever since we came to US, I get all the books I need in my husband's university library. I recently read through Robert Sevell's A Forgotten Empire: Vijaynagar A Contribution to the History of India and Nilkanta Sastri's A History of South India. Very interesting reads both of them were.

Originally posted by: shailusri1983

Nowadays not necessary to buy these books Amina. You get free e-books to read online. You will get most of these classics to read in Project Guttenburg free of cost. If at all I want a hard copy, I ask my husband to take a printout of these books. Moreover ever since we came to US, I get all the books I need in my husband's university library. I recently read through Robert Sevell's A Forgotten Empire: Vijaynagar A Contribution to the History of India and Nilkanta Sastri's A History of South India. Very interesting reads both of them were.