This is an interesting post of yours, though you are rather late with it, for there have been about three earlier threads on the same topic, which you can find easily in the forum index, all on the same lines as yours.
I did not comment on any of them, for I write very little these days outside my own thread unless I am asked to do so. But I remembered our little contretemps in the CAS EDT, and thought that I should welcome you to the CN forum!
Now, if I may offer my twopennyworth without fear of being lynched,😉 here it is.
One, and this seems to have been totally ignored by you and by all the rest in your threads, this was a privileged and powerful male who had just then narrowly escaped being murdered as he slept by the oppressed female - though where she was oppressed till then it is impossible to say, for it was she who agreed to the marriage, not Chandra. It was not a case of his pouncing on her unawares in her room.
Two, the scene, especially the way in which it was shown, reminded me of nothing so much as a schoolboy in an old fashioned school having his trousers taken down before he was caned, only that was deliberately done in public. It did not seem to me to be sexual in any way, it was so ludicrous. Payal's take on it above is spot on in this respect.
Anil (AKT.JA) put it even better when he noted that "the actual act in question was a man forcefully undressing and bathing his wife. At most places and most times, few men or women would have had a desire to do this to their spouse, but if they did do so, the act would have been considered lunatic at worst, but not criminal."
Finally, the very next day, the heroine did not behave as if anything very much had happened to her, and was busy (a) reading a book (b) skinning her knees on an errand of mercy (c) being carried back to her room by her persecutor of the night before (d) having him slather lep over her knees, and finally (e) reporting to her mother about how suspiciously good his behaviour towards her was!
As for your question as to how Nandini can love a man who treated her like this, there is also the other question of how Chandra can come to love a woman who tried repeatedly to kill him, once when he was sleeping trustingly in her room.
Nandini will learn to accept Chandragupta when she understands that her father had sinned so grievously against so many that he deserved to die (when he finally dies, that is!), and that the same would hold for her brothers.
For her to come to love him will need more. She will have to see some very remarkable qualities in Chandragupta.
It will be the same as far as Chandragupta is concerned. Already, after seeing her enthusiasm for books and for learning in general, he softens visibly towards her, and even after her attempt to kill him, he personally brings her a whole lot of books. In fact, a good part of the fury in him after the attempted killing is a contrary reaction to that very softening of the night before.
The script, which resembles nothing so much as a seesaw, is lousy, but the above would have to be the road map for an eventual love story.
This has become too long, so I will stop here. But there is not more than one dear in all of it, as you would have noted, and that too because it is the mandatory opening!😉
Shyamala Aunty
Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
