New member Rajat fan, Shweta fan :)

This is my first post in this forum or any forum on this site actually :) I have been a regular visitor since the days of Jodha Akbar, when I hopelessly fell in love with Rajat Tokas and was desperate to get any info, discussion, interview on him, then I came across India forums. After the show went rather downhill esp after the Salim-Anarkali track. I lost interest and stopped frequenting this forum too. But then came the promo of Chandra Nandini on TV, and I literally jumped off my couch. Was that Rajat Tokas that I saw again on TV? Was the titular character being played by my favourite heartthrob :)

I started watching the show religiously, I was just so happy to have him back on my TV screen regularly after 2 years :) As the interest started grew, I started visiting the long forgotten India forums also.

Apart from the general Rajat love that is witnessed here, I saw a lot of negativity regarding the show, which was a little difficult to understand for me. Because if you ask me frankly, (and this is coming from a person who literally cannot stand hindi serials), what were people expecting from a Balaji show. To me watching a hindi serial, a Balaji one at that is at most a guilty pleasure, the only and only motivation being the presence of Rajat Tokas. In that sense, to find logic, historical accuracy, and acting prowess in a Balaji show will not be my priority. In general, the only good thing about Rajat's show is Rajat himself. For that matter, how much historical authenticity or logic was shown in Jodha Akbar? Truth be spoken, Rajat's shows are there for a simple reason- to showcase his good looks,his acting and his chemistry with his heroine , which has a very definite arc, hatred, friendship and then love. This is a pleasure-delaying arc that is a sure-shot formula to gain TRPs from Tokas's substantial female fan following. So are we really watching the show to gain some historical perspective? Let us not kid ourselves :)

Another thing I noticed in the forum - the unabashed dislike and negativity towards the leading lady Shweta Basu Prasad , almost verging on hatred. It is this which was absolutely impossible to me to understand. Shweta Basu Prasad is the only one in the entire team of CN who can actually be called an ACTOR in the real sense(And yes, even given my love for Tokas I would still hold Shweta more talented than him). She has a national award in her kitty for God's sake. Frankly, from the very first episode , it was her acting that made me like the serial. And I agree she was not being given the right material initially to bring out the best in her, but to her credit she even shined through mediocrity in the dialogues and scenes to make one take notice of her. The reason, why I refrained from posting anything here was some of the posts clearly hating on her so much, there was a time I stopped visiting the forum itself. On one hand, people are bashing the serial for being illogical and mediocre as if it is supposed to be Vishal Bharadwaj's work, while on the other hand unnecessarily hating on the girl actually acting in the whole team. The dislike for Nandini character is so high, people actually pitted her against the Durdhara character, which I think is the most dim-witted written ever in TV history and people actually said, the actress playing Durdhara is acting better than Shweta !! That blew my mind.

In any case, the serial for that matter has "improved" atleast as much as it can in the terms of editing in the last couple of weeks giving good action-filled episodes and I have to say, Shweta has come off age and in a lot of scenes not only matching Tokas but giving him a run for his money. Funnily though, I hardly find any posts admiring her acting even now, while there would be a hundred praising Tokas even when he would be mediocre.

For me, the purpose of visiting this forum, like it was during JA, is to get a feel of what other fellow show-buffs are thinking and discussing about the tracks. Sometimes, it will match with mine (like the abuser Chandra track, totally hated it), other times it would not, like the hatred for Nandini character. But to maintain the desire to keep frequenting, the balance will have to be there. Currently, it is just sad to see an actress getting no appreciation for her work, when she should be.

I have rambled a lot, as all this I wanted to express since long. My apologies if my writing hurts any of the forum rules. But I guess this I needed to do here.

Thanks a lot for anyone who read this :)

Pratiksha

CN is winning peoples heart . ⭐️

Leads are doing good job .😳

Their hard work can been seen and people are appreciating it ... just wish ...it keeps on increasing 😳

First of all, a big thank you for making a much-needed post and I have to say I couldn't agree more!

Strangely enough, I started watching this serial for Shweta and Shweta alone (I know, I'm in the minority here or in a completely non-existent group all by myself ) as I've seen a few of her movies and thought she was very good in them. Never watched JA and had no expectations from this one either, just wanted to give it a shot. I started visiting this forum for the same reason as yours, remained an on and off (silent) reader and was relieved to see people warming up to Nandini and Shweta in the past few days, thanks to the romance track. Glad to finally find a post I've been waiting for all along. As of now, I like both the leads and I hope they get enough (well deserved) credit for their work.