Chandra Nandini, a brand new television series, on king Chandragupt Maurya and his wife Nandini is a story of two individuals fighting for their honour eventually fall in love. Arpita Singh reports

Shweta Basu Prasad has been living the life of Nandini ever since her comeback show was offered to her. The new TV series is an untold story from the pages of ancient history themed on  the love-hate relations of the royal couple Chandragupt Maurya and Nandini. Rajat Tokas carries on the baton after playing Akbar.

Chandra Nandini is a love story written with hatred. It’s more about revenge than love”, says Shweta. The character of Nandini made me to wake up every morning and I then lived the life of a princess. She is a warrior princess, who rides  horse and fights with sword. She is a strong character, who loves the idea of love”. She further says, “Nandini fights against injustice and is forcefully married to the emperor Chandragupt Maurya. Their wedding was more like an alliance. They both have their reasons to have the conflict”.

 Shweta, who also has a national award in her credit as  best child artist in 2002 for the film Makdee, believes it’s a show of facts made fiction. It’s stot of  two individuals fighting for their honour eventually fall in love. “For Chandra Nandini we are not exploiting history in any form, but just took out a tale from it. The director has just tried to play around with colours”, Shweta says.

 Shweta, who was last seen in her award winning film Iqbal in 2005, has too much expectations about it.  More about her character Shweta says, “Nandini is a multi-faceted woman. She is bold but lovely. Every woman can relate herself with Nandini. She was the third wife of Emperor Chandragupt Maurya”. 

On asked about the reason of such a long break in career, Shweta says, “My parents wanted me to study and to complete my graduation first.  I was also keen on concentrating on my studies, though I got some good offers from directors like  Madhur Bhandarkar and Raj Kumar Santoshi”.

Shweta  says working with the team is like home coming for her. When asked about how challenging it was for her to fit into the character of Nandini, she says, “I didn’t find it tough to play the character. Everybody on the set could relate themselves with the characters”. The actress also underwent a training session of horse riding and sword fighting for the shoot.   “I enjoyed doing it every bit of it”, she added.

Seems pissed off with the repetitive questions of media on his typecast historical roles, Rajat Tokas who is playing Chandragupt Maurya, was reluctant to speak.

 At one point of time the television team had to come  forward to calm him down. His public relations team also had to ask him to behave politely with the media.

Talking about his character, Rajat says, “I was offered this role even three months before I completed Jodha Akbar. Ekta ji asked me not to go anywhere but be prepared to act in her next project”.

 The other cast and crew of Chandra Nandini include  Arpith Ranka as Raja Padmanand, Papia Sengupta as Moora, Mansi Sharma as Queen Avantika and Marathi actor Manoj Murlidhar Kolhatkar as Chanakya. It will be on air soon.