ST,
I think Satrupa is playing good cop, bad cop, along with Gayatri to befriend Anami, as well as keep her under control. Rather, Gayatri is filling in the gaps Satrupa should be. Satrupa tells her she is spoiling Anami, by supporting her, but Gayatri is brilliant. Grandparents can never be strict with their children, and she knows Anami needs her to turn to, in this vanvaas.
Satrupa wants to be a good disciplinarian too, since she wants Anami to change her ways to impress LMwaasis. Anami is a difficult child, and S doesn't know how to handle her emotionally. Easier for her to engage with her daughter in power battles.
Narottam is a raw nerve, and Strips loses her Manipulative mechanisms with him around. The guy upsets her so much, she can't think straight.
Why she warned Anami that Narottam definitely belonged to the gray battles - partly due to her opinion of his mother, and partly due to his own kaand, perhaps. Vatsalya was more perceptive about the power struggles, perhaps and definitely more forgiving than Satrupa. My reading is, he was caught communicating with his mother, hence the restrictions on meeting her and so on.
Also, I think Sudha must have worked on LM people hating her son. It was important to showcase him as a petty person, so he wouldn't be noticed or suspected of bigger things. I won't be surprised if she asked Narottam to steal things and get caught too, making him the vermin of the house. That tag is also a shield for him.
If you remember, the way Narottam gathered Vatsalya's stuff and went to Dadaji, whining about his right to whatever Vatsalya left behind. I think that was a ploy too, Sudha or Narottam couldn't have been naive to believe he would ever be made a heir. Narottam is that whiny child who seems to want to tag along like a leech, to Satrupa. She knows he has no personalty, and lives on the sympathies he strives to get.
Also, we don't know the backstory of Sudha and Dheeraj. There's a lot to be uncovered about the past. We know Baldev had betrayed Dheeraj, along with Pujan and Satrupa seems to have come into the picture after that. Till then, she was just the DIL, but after Dheeraj left, things moved in such a way, that Baldev was banished from the inheritance and Satrupa became the Guardian of the heir.. Or Baldev had thought Dheeraj was the one instigating his father against him, and got rid of him.
There are two battles here. One for revenge, and the other for greed. I am sure Pujan has been the shakuni for a long while, and has played his game in such a way, getting rid of his opponents one by one. Unknown to him, Sudha is heading a bigger battle, using him as her shikhandi shield. She is watching him, letting him do all her dirty work. Will these two join hands one day?
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