lachii,nice connections. thank you baby.🤗i don't know if Aastha looks like swathi but she reminded shlok of her because she called him 'rakshas'. i have to check the bindi resemblance though.though she reminds him of swathi, shlok didn't pay much attention to aastha until the goons attack on office. i think he saw her in a different light, different from swathi, in that moment. thats the moment he stopped running away from problems plaguing his family.i think varad may be behind the media fiasco, he being from the same field. don't know the role of suresh and gauri in this whole drama. suresh looked more like shlok's spy though.then in that 'washing the mud scene' near aashram, aastha talks about how shlok is exacting revenge on her because she refused the alliance. Shlok is not worried about his ego at that moment but its his father's ego he is worried about. Isn't that when he started cornering aastha into marrying him?And then the bamboo incident happened which alerted him about some machinations against aastha. that is the reason for speeding up the courting process, to protect aastha.You are right about why Niranjan was interested in Aastha initially. he might be the one who planned many incidents to bring aastha and shlok together in the beginning. But later it became a matter of his ego and pride because of multiple refusals from Aastha as well as Avdhoot.Niranjan was the one who ordered misprinting the cards with shlok and aastha names. At the same time he asked avdhoot to approve land and also planned shlok's marriage with another girl. he was pressuring shlok into marrying aastha by hook or by crook and also planning avdhoot's doom(transfer) at that time.niranjan applied his favorite principle saam-daan-dand-bhed on avdhoot/aasthahe told shlok to get married and shlok has a strange expression on his face then. shlok understood that his dad is planning something against aastha and avdhoot. bacha has his own counter moves planned for his baba.
Bang on dsr11.👏👏👏..you must be my sister from some janam...I think exact same as you ditto...Read my post and whatever you said i pretty much said same thing.
That Shlok become her Astha's bodygaurd first and husband later so he can save her from NA's revenge.
Also..NA has some thing else with AVdoot other than the land deal. Maybe Avdoot had something to do with NA's jail time before, indirecly.