Originally posted by: sashashyam
As always, made for such a lovely read, Periyamma... ferrying through the episodes of the past week on your gentle carrier of an analysis (I say gentle this time... because apart from the '😡' about RT's crying segment, the tides were mostly gentle😳)The unexpected tragedy darkens his mind with black despair. His voice is slurred and low, his eyes are clouded, more deep set than ever before. Every movement is a fresh strain that it seems he can barely take; even his right arm, when he moves it to one side, flops limply. And there is, in the lines of his face, in his hooded eyes, something else. A sullen anger, a resentment at this backhanded blow fate has dealt him.
Wouldn't the director of this shot have been enthralled if he'd been given this piece of writing, before the scene?
What stood out here was the limp, totally exhausted, almost extinguished quality Rajat infused into Chandra's voice in the court scene, and even earlier when he was getting out of bed. It was a remarkable display of voice control, of a kind he has never before had a chance to explore, and he pulled it off splendidly.👏
I read this portion in a reply you'd posted in the previous thread. Obviously, you have been left 'awestruck' and your reactions make me want to catch up with all the episodes I've missed out on.
Open and shut case:
It is odd that Nandini looks shocked at the charges against her. What else did she expect?
Again, when Chandra, after all the three testimonies have been given, says that all the evidence is against her, Nandini looks alarmed. This is equally bizarre. She barely seems to recognize the gravity of the charges against her. Maybe she is lightheaded after 3 days of mirjal upavaaas, and no, I am not joking.
It could be the cumulative effect of Chandra repeatedly threatening her and never carrying it out... so this time, when he is apparently going to punish she must've been 'Really, Chandra really?'
Or (if going by the latest buzz) was she acting?
Does she think that he has telescope eyes that he can see the truth in hers from 50 feet away?
Why do heroines think that their men must be eye-readers? 😆
This was not just a faith that needed no proof. It was a faith that was ready and willing to provide the proof, and did so. With deadly consequences.
What more does, or should Nandini expect from Chandra? That too when every bit of direct, eyewitness evidence is against her?
She knows that the problem lies within her (or at least thinks it is). Then, as soon as things started getting dangerous, she must have opened her mouth and confided in Chandra about the VVV.
Anyway, seems like we'll have to wait and watch for the next episode to find ou what exactly has been happening...
Lingering hope: Even now, when , despite the crushing evidence against her, Chandra still gives Nandini a hearing.
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All of his slender hopes, his whole being, seem to be hanging on the words to come out of Nandini's lips.
How wonderfully worded Periyamma
It shows in his face, his eyes, as she says Chandra, mujhe ek rog hai!, and he looks wearily across at her. This was not what he was expecting. It sounds very weak, like the insanity defence that is often the last resort of those accused of murder, and he can probably also see the danger inherent in this defence, of which more later.
Periyamma - the underlined... it never struck me, the analogy is ⭐️
the lines of his faces look even deeper, as he asks her whether she can prove it. Maybe there is still some hope, his mind calculates, of getting her off the death sentence.
His face freezes in disappointment, the magnitude of which is reflected in his stentorian roar that cuts off her desperate pleas: MAUN, Nandiini!!
his voice thickens and catches in his throat
The way you've described each emotion, change, thought... ❤️ beautifulStentorian roar? Never came across this term beforeThe final judgement is a classic case of force majeure, but not even Nandini seems to realise what it must have cost Chandra to pronounce it.
force majeure? Google says - Unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract. Which contract? 🤔Or is it responsibilities?
Like that of a husband's to a wife?
Avantika's blank face is the worst
She is a very pretty actress, but her acting has always been sub-par!
count blessings that we are not likely to get a remix of Filmistan's 1960 (or thereabouts)Anarkali, where Pradeep Kumar, as Salim, dragged himself on his stomach all the way to that wall! And the audiences wept and applauded, while I, even at that very young age, gnashed my teeth.
I had no idea about this... 😲😕
The walling in option: Putting the best possible spin on the developments on Friday, see, there just might be a different reason for the walling in method of execution for Nandini. The death penalty is a given, but she could have been beheaded - they never hanged royals.
I wanted to ask you this too... (you've mentioned this before) Why were royals never hanged?
Now walling in is the only method of execution where there is a possibility of extracting the condemned person without anyone else finding out about it.
The sentence was pronounced at the dead of night. So the execution could not be before the next day. Which would leave quite enough time for Chandra, who is now recovered, to have a secret exit built in the back. Once Nandini has been smuggled to safety, he can watch the reactions of the rest and try and unmask the culprit. He need not have any idea of the Roopa angle, only that Nandini has been, as he feels instinctively, framed by the really guilty person.
Those here who have watched Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat would remember the very dramatic scene where Helena is unmasked in open court by Ashoka. There he actually switches tunnels, and it could not have been easy. When he could have been shown doing that complicated exercise , why not Chandra now, with a much simpler one? Jalal did something roughly similar in the Atifa case, he faked his own death to unmask Maham Anga.
Of the three scenarios presented above, the first one actually sounds the most do-able and practical of the lot! If this is indeed what CGM has been planning all along, it might also explain his lack of (good-enough) reaction after her drunken dance in the Sabha, and after the allegations of an affair with Malayketu.
The rush to judgement: Also, why the tearing hurry for Chandra to try Nandini and pronounce judgement on her the very night after he regains consciousness? It could just as well have been done after he was a bit stronger, and Nandini was safely in house arrest anyway. Is he worried that now that he had not died, the culprit might try to escape, and that he must move as fast as he can now to prevent that?
One question though, when did he start having these suspicions? Based on your assumption that he's up to something - that must mean that Chandra must suspect/presume there is some impostor roaming around. If he knew there was an impostor, why did he risk drinking from the bowl? Or did he suspect all that afterwards? After he awoke? Is it all based purely on instinct? Love? Faith?
And he then carries out a plan to see if his 'faith' in Nandini is to be proved fruitful? Have to wait and watch
The Mukhya Maharani angle: Last but not the least, one should not lose sight of the very odd provision in the list of items for the Mukhya Maharani drawn up by Chanakya, viz that if for some reason, she is subjected to some punishment, the Maharaja too would be subject to the same punishment.
The verdict: Now for the critiques of the verdict.
Even if Sunanda had supported Nandini, it would not have been a ticket to freedom. Nandini would have been locked away in an asylum for life.
After Sunanda's denial, there is NO way, that Chandra could have avoided sentencing Nandini, and the only possible penalty was death. If he had freed her, no one would ever have believed in Mauryan royal justice any more.
I totally agree with all of your points here...
Finally, it is Nandini who has brought all this down on herself by clinging to that asinine vachan she gave her Badimaa. Such arrant stupidity brings its own rewards!😡
TOTALLY agree..
Not to speak of her supplementary folly in being blind and deaf to the sight of Roopa, reaching out right in front, within a foot of her, and pouring that deadly liquid into the aushadi Nandini has prepared for Chhaya.😡
😆
The maanasik rog angle: It is true that if Nandini had been examined in greater detail and cross-questioned, the penny might have dropped for Chandra, for he is the one who knows of most of the contradictions in her behaviour, in Pataliputra and in Pataalgram.
Though that would begin seeming more like a courtroom battle of modernist era than the kind of justice system that would have prevailed then..
In that case, she would have been sent for long term treatment, and one does not know if she would ever have accepted back into the royal family.
All the others, bar Chandra, would always have been afraid of her, thinking that the alter ego might surface at any moment. This is because Nandini's supposed vipareet vyaktitva was not a gentle, inoffensive one, but patently murderous.
Even if her alter ego was gentle, people have always been afraid of something the 'unknown'... and wouldn't this have been the same case with mental illnesses in the bygone eras?She might have never been allowed in the same room as Chandra again... people with mental diseases were treated as bad as someone with a highly infectious disease today... plus being so close to Chandra, they would have deliberately kept her elsewhere in chains, in order to avoid the possibility of any kind of heir who might be born with mental illnesses etc...
she would then have been boycotted and reviled by the whole royal family, headed by Durdhara, bar Chandra, of course. After a while, it would have become unbearable for the poor girl.
Exactly!
Lastly, to answer a plaint that if Chandra had been found afflicted with the same maanasik rog, his queens would not have abandoned him, as Chandra was now apparently doing with Nandini, the point is that more serious things would be at stake for the king in question than his queens being loyal to him.
If Chandra had been shown to have this illness, he would have been dethroned and sent for treatment, and most likely killed off quietly by the next in line, in this case Malayaketu, who would have taken over the throne and the kingdom. One cannot have a mentally unstable man ruling a kingdom, and Chanakya would be the first to endorse that.
True!
Tenacious hope: To sum up, I harbour a distinct hope that the walling in is a deliberate ploy - thought out by Chandra himself, based on his instinct that tell him that Nandini is innocent and has been framed - for trapping the real culprit, though he would of course have no idea of its being Roopa. Let us wait and watch.
My only question... is when and how?😊 Will have to wait and watch...
Acclimatisation to poison: No amount of acclimatisation to poison can make one immune to all poisons.
But for that acclimatisation to poisons in general, he would have been as dead as a door nail in a matter of minutes from Roopa's Rambaan.
True!😊 Agree with the entire explanation on the poisoning/acclimatisation angle
The unseen bond: All this apart, what stood out in the rest of the episode was, firstly, Nandini's realization of what it is that Chandra really means for her, and following from that, her grasping the fact that she cannot now exist without him.Whence her desperate laments on being sent into house arrest, not so much to exculpate herself, though there is that as well, as not to get separated from Chandra. Whence the almost demented energy with which she clings to Chandra's side, and even escapes from the guards and rushes back to him. wailing Chandra, main tumhein kabhi nahin chhodoongi!
Stentorian roar and now demented energy... such novel adjectives, Periyamma.. 😃
That apart, the Chandra, main tumhein kabhi nahin chhodoongi sounds refreshing - not because I like clingy women ... but simply because it's refreshing to see a lady who's fallen in love, embraces it with all of its faults and not afraid to announce it to the world either!
talks even the tempestuous Helena out of strangling her thru simple, calm reasoning. And even more so the way in which she asserts that Chandra mera bhi pati hai
👏
The remaining Chandra-Nandini scenes: My favourite among these is the simultaneous kshama yaachana scene. It was utterly sweet, charmingly natural, and unaffected, and they both looked like very young lovers making up after their first big quarrel. Right down to Chandra's odd question at the end: Kyon?
Even the way you've written it, sounds very sweet!😳
Newfound camaraderie: Even more delightful was the sally with which she greets him when he enters the room straight from his failed attempt to persuade Chanakya to accept Padmanand's ransom demand for Bharati.
I was in stitches listening to her: Are mujhe sangeet sunaayi de raha hai!Aisa lagta hai ki mera maanasik santulan bigad gaya hai! Ya phir kisi vaanar ka prabhaav hai!
This new found ease and camaraderie that she feels with him is a carryover from the earlier scene where he is so strongly influenced by his friends' words of wisdom about the manifestations of love.
Cute!😳
Rajat, however, was clearly enjoying himself, and he was marvellous in that last shot when Daadi was teasing him. Shweta was really good too. Most of all when Nandini realises that Chandra is pretending that the lizard is still around so that she would continue to hug him. 😆Her mock angry eye movements, and the way in which she nods her head in fake reproof, were delightful, and it also showed how far they have moved away from their old days of prickly hostility.
😆
Multiple matrimony: The one which looked so promising in the precap, where Chandra teases Nandini that he need not take her permission, Mukhya Maharani or not, before marrying any number of more wives, began well, with a visibly jealous Nandini insisting that her permission would be needed, unless she abdicated her position as the Mukhya Maharani which, she notes cunningly, would never be permitted by Acharya Chanakya!
👏
And I loved the way in which, when she notes that the rules had been made not by her but by the Acharya, Chandra instinctively looks over his shoulder is some trepidation, as if Chanakya was there with his cane! 😆
😆
Chandra's mischievous, satisfied smile after she has stormed off in a huff!😉
The sum and substance of it all is that our lead pair jell very well together, no matter what the mood in the scene might be. If the scene is not up to par, it is mostly the fault of the script, more than that of the actors.
True that...
Lachrymose excess: Thus, the big disappointment for me was the closing Chandra-Nandini scene in Episode 98. It was overdone and literally soggy with all that weeping. Why does Nandini have to urge him to cry when he was already doing it, blubbering all over the place and declaring himself a durbal king because his sister fell down a staircase, lost her baby, and went into a coma? Is this going to be the touchstone for deciding who is a strong king? 😡
I read this take of yours and of others about this scene, and I must confess, I was 😆 by the reactions
But as you say, it really does not make any sense... neither his actions, nor her reactions... the entire pretext of that scene was 😕
the concluding 15 seconds with both making the momentous discovery that Chandra has a hriday after all. Ugh..😡
Ugh?😆
Chandra-Roopa:
There is a kind of still hopefulness, as if he wanted to believe that what was being told to him by, as he assumes, Nandini, was really the truth. And a trace of subdued, repressed joy at this prospect. Then Roopa says that this was what her daasi had told her. It is as if a spell that had held Chandra in thrall is broken. He turns away, smiling normally, if a trifle shamefacedly at his reverie of a moment earlier.
My is for your choice of words, more than the scene itself!
Roopa: near dementia: The normally feisty, aggressive Roopa is now silent, paralysed as much by the thought of what she has inadvertently done to Chandra as by the danger to her life. Shweta does that bit very well.
I am really interested to see how she's done this!
Roopa- Padmanand: bond of blood: One thing is now clear: Padmanand's real daughter, in terms of character, is Roopa, not Nandini.
Just look at how both of them behave almost identically in a crunch situation, like chickens with their head cut off, running headlong into disaster unthinking of the consequences! Roopa would have stabbed and killed Nandini in a fit of raging jealousy, without bothering about how to dispose of the corpse and what would happen if she was caught trying to do that. Padmanand would, in a fit of frustration and sudden rage, have killed Chanakya's daughter without thinking that then he would have no card left with which to force Chandra to return Nandini to him.
Excellent observations, Periyamma... and the parallels you've drawn between Roopa and Padmanand are. 👏 you filled some of the blanks in the missing links between father daughter duo...
Incidentally, I always wonder why Amatya Rakshas sticks around with an unstable, arrogant, dangerous bully like Padmanand, with whom his own life is periodically at risk. Especially when he ends up becoming Chandragupta's Mahaamatya, at the request of none other than Chanakya. Perhaps it is with that switchover in mind that he is always shown having at least some sense of right and wrong.
Amatya Rakshas becomes Chandragupta's Mahamatya?😲
Chanakya: Unbending principles: The one who stands the tallest at the end of this week is Chanakya. Having redeemed his reputation as the most astute strategic and tactical thinker India has ever known with the Trojan Elephant episode the week before, he now strengthens his reputation for unwavering integrity and adherence to principle with his handling of Padmanand's ransom demand for the release of his daughter Bharati.
His concept of his dharma and his duty towards Magadha is as straight and unbending as his back as he strides rapidly down the palace corridor, bluntly dismissing Chandra's idea that they give in to Padmanand. Poor Chandra's attempts to breach the wall of his Acharya's conviction are shattered, like waves hitting a rock. I loved Chanakya's blunt statement: Nandini Magadha ki Mukhya Maharani hai, koyi vastu nahin jiska sauda kiya jai!
>>>👏
But I also loved the way in which Chandra, while trying his luck with his Acharya by attempting to order him, as the king, to comply with the ransom demand, immediately rushes over to him, hands folded to nullify any inadvertent note of defiance in his previous sentence, and tries once again, this time pleadingly. Rajat brings off one of his swift changes of expression here, from sudden, kingly obstinacy to the pleading appeal of a devoted shishya, and it is a delight to behold. 👏
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The moment of truth: Now for the title.
It applies to Chandragupta, whose true mettle should be revealed by his handling of l'affaire Nandini tonight (incidentally, I would expect that he would go to meet her in her rooms before the execution) , by whether he is able to save the woman he loves, and whom he believes to be innocent, without abandoning his rajadharma.
It also applies to Chanakya, now on an as yet mysterious mission to Padmanand's lair to save his daughter, but without betraying his principles as the Mahaamatya of Magadha. I loved his closing line as he sets out thru the jungle without even the mashaal: Jise bhay se bhay ho, wo pehle hi kshan mar jaata hai!
You're celebrating aren't you?😆
Beautiful analysis periyamma... it was a pleasure... 🤗
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