Chandra Nandni

Chandra Nandini is a Hindi historical drama television series which started airing on Star Plus on 10 October 2016 at 8:30 PM.^[1] It is produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under the banner Balaji Telefilms and is directed by Ranjan Kumar Singh. It stars Rajat Tokas as Chandragupta Maurya and Shweta Basu Prasad as Nandini and is based on the life of Chandragupta Maurya, one of the major Indian Emperors of ancient India.^[1][2]

Plot

The first scene of the show starts with Bharatmata introducing the show Chandra Nandini as the tale of Chandragupta Maurya and Nandini, his wife as well as the daughter of his greatest enemy.

Moora, the wife of Suryagupta, the king of the small province of Piplivana, is pregnant with Chandragupta. Suryagupta along with his wife are invited by his friend, King Shishunaga of Magadha. At the palace, pregnant Moora is wooed by a fellow 'napit' (barber), Nanda. For his wrongdoing, he is whipped by Rani Avantika, wife of Shishunaga; but later it is revealed that Avantika and Nanda are conspiring together to get the throne from Shishunaga and also Shishunaga's 9 sons through Avantika are actually Nanda's. Suryagupta and Moora came to know about this but could not aware Shishunaga about this miserable truth as he (Shishunaga) had already been killed by Nanda and the blame is put on Suryagupta. Nanda kills Suryagupta as well and Moora escapes into the jungle where she delivers Chandra and hides him in a goshala away from the clutches of Nanda. Chandra is then adopted by a common lady named Kanika. On the other hand, Moora is held captive by Nanda, who has now become the emperor of Magadha and has assumed the title of Maharaja Maha Padmananda and has married Avantika. He proposes Moora for marriage, but she rejects his proposal insulting him. She warns Nanda that her son will take her revenge from him and if Nanda would have a daughter, his daughter will have to suffer for his wrongdoings as well. Soon Avantika gives birth to Nanda's daughter, Nandini.

14 years later

Padmananda has become a very oppressive ruler, exploiting his praja for more and more taxes. His only weakness is his daughter nandini whom he loves more than his life. It is also due to Nandini that Nanda has spared the life of Avantika, whom he has now no interest in. Moora is still held captive by Nanda. On the other hand Chandragupta has grown up as a commoner but holds great affection for his foster mother kanika, even not hesitating to fight with his drunkard foster father to protect her from his rage and increasing pressure for handing over money. To support his mother financially, Chandra sets out for pataliputra. He enters into Pataliputra with the special coin with (the royal mark of Magadh embedded on) that Mahaamatya (Prime Minister) of Magadh Rakshas had previously given him after being impressed with his noble values, his rich ideals and athletic skills. He then is shocked to see how cruel Nanda is, torturing his citizens severely for taxes. He then also finds Moora on the streets who was then being wiped by the soldiers of Nanada on his order. He somehow manages to protect Moora temporarily and then also receives a glance of Rajkumari Nandini. Meanwhile Chanakya watches Chandragupta's activities and somewhere in his mind considers that Chandra can one day become the heavenly and mighty ruler of India he is searching for and can fulfill his dream of Akhanda Bharatvarsh . Chandra confronts Nanda about his wrongdoings but Nanda pay no heed to his agitation and gets him thrown out of his site. On the otherhand, the Greek emperor Alexander The Great with his soldiers intrudes into Hindustan aiming to conquer the land. Chanakya visits Raja Padmananda at his court to alarm him of the possibility of an invasion from the Greeks, but Nanda paying no attention to his alarming throws Chanakya out of the sabha after insulting him to be nothing but a beggar. Chanakya, before leaving, warns Nanda that his ambition will one day bring his downfall and Chanakya, whom Nanda insulted as a beggar, will be the one responsible for his decline. Chanakya teaches child Chandra all the skills of a king.

After Some Years

Chanakya sends Chandra to Greek to know about their war skills. From there he went to Parvatak, where he knows about the betryaldone by Malayakethu to Helena, daughter of Selecus. With the help of Helena, Chandra learns Greek war skills. Then he escapes from them. He fought against Padmananda but failed. Then he attacked the Greeks left over in India after the death of Alexander. As a result of this, He marries Helena. Then he tried to attack Padmananda but failed. Then he tries again but fails again, then they gather a bigger army and Acharya Chanakya orders him to marry durdhara, his childhood friend as her father is a rich merchant and can provide money for the well being of the army. After that he attacks again, this time in the end of the first day Chandra was about to kill padmanand but failed to, as the day got over, the end of the next day malayketu who is supposed to be the fiancé of nandini by deceit comes and stabs Chandra on his back but he survives the next day the army of nanda becomes weak so he decides to run away from the field in a secret house behind a mountain, soon malayketu gets trapped by Helena and Chandra and tells them nanda's hiding place, Chandra then goes towards that place and malayketu puts sand in helenas eyes and runs away, then he finds nanda, he is just about to kill him that nandini appears there with her sword and tries to protect her father but fails to and then the soldiers get nandas 8 sons ( because 1 is mentally challenged) and Chandra kills them there in front of nandini and nanda, Acharya decides to leave nanda and nandini and they move on to a secret place where nanda has all of his wealth but then it is revealed that all this time Acharya was following them and then and there Chandra kills nanda, then nandini goes to the palace and tells all the mothers and sisters what happened. Then moora is freed and Chandra is now coronated as the king of Magadha. He is forced to get married as it is revealed that nanda and 1 of his son- dhan are alive and if Chandra becomes nandinis husband then he cant kill him as he cannot see her daughter as a widow then they do the first ritual which is also called the haldi ritual. in this ritual the male side gives the female side their turmeric and vice versa then for revenge nandini mixes poison in his haldi but the haldis are changed by helenas mother as she gets to know about the turmeric then durdhara who applies haldi on the face on nandini, her hands burn as they have the poison in them, she then visits Chandra to show her hands and then Acharya gives Chandra a medicine which he goes picks up nandini and puts her in the water and puts the medicine on her, then they marry and to perform a ritual called kanyadan in which a male has to give the daughter a gift and then it is revealed that they found dhan moving near the palace and he does the kanyadan

As Of December 2016

Cast

• Rajat Tokas as Chandragupta Maurya
• Shweta Basu Prasad as Nandini, Chandragupta's third wife
• Saanvi Talwar as Durdhara, Chandragupta's second wife^[3]
• Tanu Khan as Helena, Chandragupta's first wife
• Manoj Kolhatkar as Chanakya^[4]
• Papiya Sengupta as Moora, Chandragupta's mother
• Arpit Ranka as Mahapadma Nanda, Nandini's father
• Urfi Javed as Chhaya, Chandragupta's sister
• Sheeba Chaddha as Helena's mother^[5]
• Chetan Hansraj as Parvatak Malayketu, Nandini's ex-fiance^[6]
• Lokesh Batta as Dhana Nanda, Mahapadma Nanda's son and Nandini's brother
• Danish Bagga as Pandugarti, Mahapadma Nanda's mentally disabled son and Nandini's brother
• Mansi Sharma as Rani Avantika, Nandini's mother and Mahapadma Nanda's second wife
• Sanjeev Siddharth as Amatya Rakshas, Mahapadma Nanda's minister
• Rohit Choudhary as Vakranas, Mahapadma Nanda's Minister
• Ekroop Bedi as Kinnari^[7]
• Geetanjali Mishra as Sunanda, Mahapadma Nanda's first wife
• Tarakesh Chauhan as King Parvatak, Malayketu's father
• Vibhuti Thakur as Kanika, Chandragupta's foster mother

Former cast

• Jineet Rath as young Chandragupta
• Angel Rupchandani as young Nandini
• Alexx O'Nell as Alexander the Great^[8]
• Siddharth Tamboli as child Kevarth
• Sudhanshu Agarwal as child Dhana Nanda
• Mohit Joshi as Bhootpal
• Salman Shaikh as Panduk
• Ankur Malhotra as King Ambhi
• Shikha Singh as a princess^[9]

References