Folks,
Like railway engines do sometimes when switching tracks, let us begin at the end and go backwards. You will not regret it!
Pataalgram: Night
Nandini, stretched out on the mat next to Chandra, her head pillowed on his outstretched hand, ruminates about his soft side that he keeps assiduously hidden most of the time. She moves his angavastram and once more regards the deep burn mark on his side, the mark she now knows was inflicted by his foster father when he was a child. She stretches out her hand and almost touches it, as her eyes soften in tenderness.
Jaanti hoon, shaareerik peedha tum sah sakte ho. Parantu jo ghaav tumhein samay ne diye hain, kaash main unhein mitha paati!
I had noted , in my last post, while describing that madcap chase across their room, that when Chandra wonders to himself at the way in which Nandini's happiness gives him santosh, all unbeknownst to himself, he has summed up the very essence of love. Now, in wanting to wipe away all the pain he had ever suffered at the hands of fate, and if need be to take it all upon herself, Nandini too is defining, in a different but equally telling fashion, the very essence of love.
I found myself wishing that Chandra had woken up at the precise moment when she was looking at the scar of his old wound, and that she could then have summoned up the courage to repeat to him what she had just said to herself. But then their love story would have been speeded up by God knows how many episodes, and that would never have done for the CVs, would it? 😉
Instead, in a sudden realization of what he now means to her, she moves closer and cuddles up to him as she falls asleep in her turn.She has used him as a teddy bear earlier, but that was accidental, and it shocked her when she woke up. This is a deliberate, desired closeness, which is sought and cherished. Which is what makes all the difference.
Instinctive empathy: Nor is this empathy that she feels for him something born of the moment. It is by now instinctive.
As soon as the two of them enter the old family hut at Pataalgram, Nandini watches Chandra's face cloud over and his eyes look veiled, as if he was hiding an old hurt (Rajat brings this out beautifully). Kanika's exhortation to him not to brood on the past - Puraane ghaav khurede jaayenge to phir se peedha denge...- puzzles her still more, and she scents something amiss. Her eyes reflect his mood and his sadness, though she does not understand either of them.
When she sees the scar of that old wound in Chandra's side while they are cooking, these half formed impressions probably resurface. The sudden surge of feeling in her eyes is striking, as she presses him hard about how and where he got that wound. She gives up when he dodges the question - Smaran nahin hai mujhe- but the subterranean sense of unease probably lingers in her mind.
This sequence is also remarkable for the way in which Chandra looks across at Nandini before sidestepping her query. The shadow of that old, ugly incident clouds his eyes, and darkens his soul all over again, even if only for an instant. It was a truly marvellous shot.
It is when Nandini finally learns - thanks to Kanika's unusually candid confession about how she had failed him as a mother in his childhood - about all that Chandra had suffered at the hands of his foster father, that the mystery of the old wound is finally cleared up for her.
With that comes another seminal understanding, of what it is that makes Chandra wary of love, distrustful of indulging his heart, and letting it drag him into a crippling emotional dependency on another. It is this vital new level of understanding that will shape their future relationship from her side. And it is the shared pain at the thought of all that he has suffered that leads to her Parantu jo ghaav tumhein samay ne diye hain, kaash mein unhein mitha paati!
Chulha kaand: It is tough to say what it was that I liked the best about this marvellous segment.
It could be the self exculpatory try by Nandini: Maine roti nahin jalayi! Wo jal gayi!😉
It could be the smart and aggressive comeback she makes when Chandra ribs her about having boasted of her cooking prowess: Karya hum donon ka hai na? To tum khade khade tamasha kya dekh rahe ho? Sahayata karo!
Or the childlike urgency and stubbornness with which she clamours, as soon as he has got the chulha going: Main bait thi hoon! Main karoongi! Main karoongi!! The way is which she dismisses his remonstration: Pehle seekh to lo!, with an even more insistent Nahin, aa gaya! Tum idhar aao!, as she ousts him from the seat in front of the chulha and takes charge.
Or the pleasure with which she receives his instructions as to how to make the roti, her hands, held closely between his own, rolling out the dough. Or the open affectionate admiration in her gaze as she asks him confidentially how he learnt to cook so well, and listens to his explanation.
(Photos kind courtesy of Sarika or skamunugama)
Affection and warmth which match his own as he looks at her smilingly, clearly enjoying this new adventure of hers as much as she does. For it is all as new, and as delightful, for him as it is for her.
Or her innate honesty which almost torpedoes Chandra's determination to give her the sole credit for all the cooking, and produces a small, shame-faced grin as he looks across at her while Kanika is praising the food.
Or the way in which she, a princess used to being served and waited on hand and foot, serves the food with grace and warmth and obvious pleasure. What we in Tamil would call kuduttana paangu, or in the manner of an accomplished housewife.
Saanjhi peedha: I could not quite understand why the two of them had to go from door to door seeking bhiksha, but I suppose it was because they are not producers of food here, and so have to seek it from those who are. It is noteworthy that Chandra will not take more than a handful from each house, and insists on approaching all the houses in the village.
Nandini is dead set on making up for the chulha fiasco and not being found in the least wanting this time. But when her folly in hiding that bad cut in the sole of her foot is detected at last, Chandra first dresses her down like a sergeant major, for he feels any hurt to her as if it was his own. Then he cleans and bandages the wound - a very painful one judging from Nandini's reactions - with careful attention and even offers to carry her for the rest of their round when she will not let him go alone.
Luckily, the RK Films logo moment that follows, as Nandini attempts to demonstrate that she is fine, thank you, is blessedly brief!😉
It is another matter that the CVs forgot all about this serious injury in a trice, for at the milking scene itself Nandini was walking absolutely normally!😆
Ghatak prahaar!: Now for the unquestioned piece de resistance. Everything about this bovine encounter is priceless, and the P should be uppercase. 👏
It begins with Nandini's unconsciously hilarious query Kahaan se? when Kanika tells her to get the milk, as Chandra is silently chortling with ill-suppressed mirth in the background. 😉
It continues in high gear as she tentatively approaches the cowshed, wondering to herself Duhte kahaan se hain?, while Chandra, lounging against a post and taking large bites out of a fruit, watches her uncertain progress with mischievous glee, and kindly informs her that one usually sits down to milk a cow.😉
The ghatak prahaar by the supposedly gentle animal lands poor Nandini with her hand in gobar, and by now she has abandoned all pretence of being a pro at milking a cow. She is thus grateful when Chandra takes the matter in hand, and approaches the cow only when assured that it will be all right, aur phir main hoon na!
What follows, as Nandini gets her first experience of doodh duhna, and even more so of drinking milk straight from the cow, is pure delight. For her, for Chandra, and for the viewers, who are drawn irresistibly into the magic world that the two of them inhabit for the moment.
Their faces, close enough to touch each other, are awash in bubbling delight, as Nandini licks her lips and rejoices in how good the milk tastes, and her joy in these simple pleasures is mirrored and amplified in Chandra's laughing eyes and his wide smile.
(Photos kind courtesy of Sarika or skamunugama)
This is not romance. This is something rarer and more precious, a perfect camaraderie of the spirit that, for the moment, has blended the two of them into one symbiotic, supremely happy whole.
I could have clouted Kanika when she turns up, most inopportunely, and puts a (temporary) stop to their idyll, 😡and Chandra comes back to terra firma with an almost physical jerk. But the magic still lingers as he remarks: Sach kahoon to bada anand aaya uske chehre par gai ka doodh maarte samay. And it would have been clear even to a blind man that Chandra's anand at her delight was no less than Nandini's.
The rest: Compared to these exquisite scenes, what was left, including the jhoola nritya, was just not in the same league.It was predictable, down to the admiring glances exchanged between our lead pair, the ease and grace with which they danced, and the obvious comfort level they shared.
Even this was spoilt by the shots devoted to the snake in this Garden of Eden, the literally hissing Roopa, glaring at the dancing couple from behind a bush, and wondering why, instead of doing what she has come here to do - alienate Nandini from Chandra for keeps - she is now obsessing with getting Chandra for herself.
Aficionadas of Pride and Prejudice would remember Elizabeth joking that she fell in love with Mr. Darcy as soon as she caught sight of his spectacular ancestral property of Pemberley. For Roopa, her fixation on Chandra clearly dates from the moment when she first caught sight of his perfectly sculpted abs!😆
So we arrive at the end of Chandra-Nandini's first day at Pataalgram. As they settle down to sleep, it was somewhat odd to see Chandra almost apologizing for her having to spend the night with him in the hut, and also adding, with a curiously placatory look at her, Kuch hi dinon ki to baat hai, so jaate hain!, as if she had not done precisely that, without any problem, for days in his rooms in the Pataliputra palace!
But it all ends charmingly, after a spell of mutual day dreaming about each other, when Nandini, who was a moment ago well set with her own arm for a pillow, complains about not being able to sleep without one. She promptly ends up with a bonus, Chandra's arm, and in due course, Chandra himself to cuddle up to .
At which point we shall leave them both in the arms of Morpheus, and move on, or rather backwards in our tale. Nothing of what remains to be covered is going to be even a patch on what we have already done, par kya karein, it is like homework, and has to be done!
Unhesitating support: But before we do that, a word about the precap. The man who is questioning Chandra with such arrant impertinence is, as Amina has noted, most likely sent by Padmanand to queer Chandra's pitch, by making him explode in anger and perhaps make some damaging statements that would hurt his image among his praja. The chap would have had no idea that he was going to run head first into a brick wall,the wall of Mukhya Maharani Nandini's stout and categoric defence of her patidev. I wonder what Padmanand is going to make of this when it is reported back to him. I can find it in me to pity the messenger, for uski to khair nahin!😉
The Mukhya Maharani track: I am sure you would have no objections if I merely skim over this, being not in the least interested in the mechanics of the contest.
The only point of note was Chandra's involuntary exclamation Nandini! Sambhal ke! , when her arm is slashed by Helena's spear.
For the rest, I was initially of the view that Chandra was not, contrary to the fond speculations of many here, practicing reverse psychology on Nandini, to ginger her up to win by openly boosting Helena in front of her. Neither in his rooms nor later after the first round, when he once again strongly reasserts his support for Helena. I had felt that he was merely at his old, puerile game of needling Nandini.
But after listening to him complaining later, bitterly and baselessly, to Nandini that she had done everything possible to let Helena win - jab kitnon ki aashaayein tum par tiki thin, a very broad hint that he was included in this kitnon, but which apni Nandini of course never picked up- I am not so sure.
Perhaps he was trying to use reverse psychology after all, but he fails to take into account that this is not the Takshashila pareeksha, and the both the stakes, and even more so, the competition, are very different for Nandini. That there is an emotional element here which, when pushed too far, would end up not stiffening her resolve to show him he was wrong, but in weary defeatism. In fact, but for Daadi, that is exactly what would have happened.
So at the decisive moment, Chandra lets his disappointment, and his irritation at Nandini's stated disdain for the post itself, overrule his personal preference and tilt his decision in Helena's favour.
But he is nothing if not persuadable. After listening to Nandini's impassioned tirade against the unsuitability of his choice, he once again starts having doubts. In fact, one is dismayed that he does not have the political smarts to realise, on his own, what the likely reaction of the praja would be to his declaring a Yavani queen as his Mukhya Maharani.
Be that as it may, if Roopa had not taken it upon herself, in the meantime, to do a Delilah number on him in the snankaksh ( it is proof of how her focus at this point is unwaveringly set on getting Nandini, and thus, eventually, herself, Roopa, made the Mukhya Maharani, that she barely notices Chandra's abs, the same abs that fascinate her so much at Pataalgram !😆 ) one can have no idea what he would have done the next day.
Much of a muchness: Frankly, it says very little for Chandra's perceptiveness that he can actually mistake this brazenly seductive woman to be the Nandini he has by now known for weeks at close quarters. But that is exactly what he does do, following this folly up with another of his standard issue tirades once he is back in his rooms and finds Nandini, in the same costume but a bone dry one, ensconced cozily in the bed with one of her eternal pustakein. One presumes he thought she had duplicates of every single dress! 😉
It was all so very predictable- right down to him asserting that he would never accept her as his patni, and she wondering why she could not feel any ghrina towards him regardless of how he behaved - and so very boring.
A key stone: No, not the usual keystone that holds up an arch. This is a stone that holds up our tale. The stone which, launched by an extra enthused member of the outraged praja, hits Mura's head, and puts an abrupt end to Helena's bid for the Mukhya Maharani's post.
As for me, I wished it had hit Chandra's head instead. Even with the protectiom of his massive pagdi, it might still have done him some good by shaking up his somnolent grey cells!😡
NB: The slogans of the crowd: Nahin sahenge, nahin sahenge!, sound like those used in modern political rallies, making one wonder at how "advanced" the Magadha populace is in such matters. But when Helena talks of her "mood", and Durdhara of "number", one can hardly cavil at such anachronisms! 😉
Unspoken pleas: So we come to yet another Chandra-Nandini confrontation, as he announces that he is now going to make her the Mukhya Maharani, and she first turns him down flat. This one is much better then the last one in their rooms, for the lines are far superior, both the spoken ones - about this being the desire of the praja, and about the need to avoid unrest, a possible revolt and bloodshed- and the beautiful unspoken ones:
Nandini: Kyon mera hriday chahta hai ki ek bar tum mujhe Maharani nahin, apni patni ke roop mein khade rehne ke liye kaho? Ek bar kaho ki tumne mujhe Mukhya Maharani praja ke liye nahin, apitu apne liye chuna hai!
Chandra: Pata nahin kyon mera hriday chahta hai ki tum sada ke liye mere saath raho..Mera man batana chahta hai ki main praja ke liye nahin, swayam ke liye tumhein Mukhya Maharani banaoon..
The same longing echoes in his odd exclamation, almost a question, when she declares that she will accept the post for the sake of her praja, Bas kewal prajat ke liye!?! What the devil does he expect her to say?
She turns to him and looks into his eyes with her heart in her own, but he either cannot or will not read the message in them. For there are none so blind as those who will not see.
We are by now so used to these missed signals that we merely sigh and pass on.
The first apaharan: Of the rest, there is only one scene that is really worth mentioning, the one of Chandra rescuing Nandini and bringing her back to the palace with him, ending up with their mini-conversation in their room.
Here, one has to congratulate the CVs for their fresh thinking. Usually it is a dog that acts as catalyst in such matters, but in a revolutionary new twist, they chose a calf instead! 😉That too a calf that can knock six grown men sideways, and then zero in unerringly on the seventh, as the one who would be the rescuer of choice for the damsel in distress. 😆
When Chandra discovers Nandini's recumbent form, the shock and near panic that grip him are all there in his voice. It is not hoarse. It trembles, it becomes almost suspended as he scrabbles around to see if she is still breathing. It was an amazing display of voice control by Rajat.
When he finds that she is alive the first, cold fear in his heart subsides, and he begins to think of practical things once more, like getting her back to the palace.
Then follows one of their charming riding back together scenes, in which she is invariably unconscious.😉 And just as invariably, his heart speaks the lines his tongue never manages to articulate.
Na jaane kyon mera man karta hai ki main tumhein sada yon hi thaame rahoon, aur samay rukh jai.. Ki tum sada yon hi meri baahon mein raho aur main har pal tumhari raksha karta rahoon..
Later, in their rooms, once she is conscious, he barely lets her get a word in as he bombards her with repeated questions about how she came to be in that cave in the forest at night.
And he even, wonder of wonders, manages to actually arrive at the conclusion that Kabhi kabhi to lagta hai ki koyi to baat hai jo tum mujhse chupa rahi ho, jo mujhe batana nahin chahti ho! At this point, I almost fainted from shock. 😆
Of course, once he is out of the room, and even later in Pataalgram, he promptly seems to have forgotten all about this matter, which should have been of vital concern for him. 😲But maybe he was doing something about it after all, which will surface later, so let me give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
But that is not what is relevant. What matters is the expression on his face as he says, almost in spite of himself: Aur jis avasta mein maine tumhein dekha, main.. where he comes into dangerous territory and makes an abrupt halt.
Nandini is of course stuck with her old mantra that he loves only Helena and cares nothing for her, Nandini. It is not only Chandra who is blind. If Nandini had eyes to see, the look on Chandra's face, which speaks louder than the words he says to himself: Ek pal ke liye mujhe laga ki maine tumhein sada ke liye kho diya hai..Main bata nahin sakta ki kya dasha thi meri..., would have told her all that she needed to know.
The double apaharan: Now do bear with me while I pat myself on the back for one of the rare instances when I was able to second guess the CVs with 80% success! I had written on my last thread, the day before all this happened:
Now we are going to have a comical double apaharan, with Helena's goons kidnapping Roopa, whom they will take to be Nandini, while the real Nandini will be somehow discovered by Chandra in that kali gufa. He will of course assume that she had been kidnapped by Padmanand's men, and will get her back to the palace, where she will duly take part in the pooja and then leave for the village with Chandra.
What remains to be seen is what Helena makes of the reappearance of Nandini even while she is, as Helena will assume, still her prisoner. Will the Roopa angle be then revealed to her? I doubt it. She will probably go to the hiding place to check on her prisoner, only to find that Nandini, that is to say Roopa, has escaped. And so the merry go round will continue for while longer.
The only thing I got wrong is that I thought the identity of Roopa would not be revealed to Helena right now. Also, I had presumed that Roopa would, for obvious reasons, be kept corked up in the secret room in the palace while Nandini was away in the village. But seeing the way in which she is running amok, that was hardly something the Aapama-Sunanda duo could have pulled off. 😉
Roopa is now like the bull at a Spanish corrida, and all that remains to be seen is how many get gored before she is corralled. In fact, the most delightful Roopa passage this last week was the one in which she terrorizes both Helena, with her knife at the Patrani's throat, and the redoubtable Aapama. I simply loved it! 👏👏
The Sunanda mystery: Many very pertinent objections have been raised here re: the Sunanda-Roopa-Aapama troika, especially about every possible plan that could logically have been attributed to Sunanda.
I too have given this matter a lot of thought, and got precisely nowhere. Sunanda's real game plan is something I have not managed to make out as yet, except for some vague idea that she wants revenge on Padmanand thru Roopa, perhaps by switching her with Nandini. But this does not jell well at all.
The Sunanda-Roopa combo have been making some extortion money on the side till now, but on this job, for which Aapama must have paid Sunanda regardless of Roopa saying that she will do it for nothing, things are not simple. For now Roopa wants Chandra so that she can become his chief queen, while Aapama also wants him for Helena, so the two are plainly at odds.
Sunanda seems by now to have lost control of the show and is hanging desperately on to Roopa's chunari to stay afloat. 😆
Over and above this, the outcome of the Roopa-Helena deal making would lead one to surmise that Roopa had now moved to abandon her original goal of supplanting Nandini, and opted for the even more tempting prospect of taking revenge on Padmanand, and so she agrees to play along with Helena on this.
But there are two objections one can raise to this: (a) how does Helena know where Padmanand is ? She is just bluffing and (b) even if Roopa locates him, he is not a bali ka bakra that she can kill with her dagger or her nails! And she cannot hope to get close to him for the length of time needed by pretending to be Nandini, for I am sure he would spot the substitution very soon.
Moreover , there is another point that I seem to have got right. In my last post, in the section about Roopa, I had speculated:
Or would she switch plans, try to eliminate Nandini altogether and replace her in Chandra's life, however tough such a transformation might seem for Roopa to pull off? We have to wait and watch.
This too seems, by now, to have come to pass. So much for the foolishly sanguine Helena's plans. She is not going to know what hit her. 😉
Whichever way one looks at it, it is confusion worse confounded.
Kamaal ki jodi: Finally, a few words about our Odd Couple.
It is clear that the two of them have a remarkable range in the kinds of togetherness they handle with consummate ease. The milking scene and the madira scene are the two extremes, and in between there are ever so many other shades: the farewell gifts, the packing, the vaanar jokes, the choice of the gift for Mura, the acceptance by Nandini of the Mukhya Maharani post, the list goes on. This is what makes the journey to their realisation of their love as engrossing as their eventual arrival at the end point. It is rarely that this is the case with romantic couples, so this pairing is really special. And we, the viewers, are really lucky.
OK,folks, this is it for now.
Please do not forget to hit the Like button if you think it is warranted.
Shyamala/Aunty/Periyamma/ Akka/Di
