The ending of Mandala Murders was all about Rea’s efforts to stop Ananya from bringing Yast into his mortal vessel. Back in the 1950s, Rukmini and the Aayastis began giving shape to Yast’s plan at his chosen place, Aayasthal, which was located deep inside the Varuna Forest in Charandaspur. Anant and his wife, Nandini, arrived there to set up a nuclear plant, and despite several warnings to not defile the sacred grounds, they sanctioned the destruction of the outer walls of Aayasthal. As a result of that, Anant died, and Nandini joined the cult, as Rukmini had shown that she was an integral part of Yast’s design. Nandini created the device that was needed for the supernatural project and was really glad that she was broadening the horizons of science. However, when Nandini learned that, if Yast entered that vessel, it’d lead to the destruction of Charandaspur and maybe even the rest of the world, with Yast’s chosen ones being the sole survivors, she destroyed Yast’s vessel. Rukmini killed Nandini. The villagers of Charandaspur, who had benefited from the boons that Yast had given and were not okay with the price they had to pay, razed everything else. 75 years later, Rukmini’s granddaughter, Ananya, restarted that project. Did she succeed? Or did Rea, the granddaughter of Nandini, put a stop to Ananya and the Aayastis? Will there be a Season 2? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Rea killed Ananya
The fatal flaw in Rukmini’s whole plan was that she assumed that after benefiting from the boons of Yast, the villagers would be okay with sacrificing their loved ones. Furthermore, she believed that Nandini would be okay with the destruction of Charandaspur so long as she got to use her science to bring a god to the mortal realm. I also think that the Aayasthal was known to way too many people. Therefore, when the villagers revolted, the location of the Aayastis’ lab was easily found, and, coupled with Nandini’s betrayal, that led to Rukmini’s failure. The show didn’t explicitly reveal what happened over the next few years, how the Aayastis regained their strength, and how they convinced Ananya to restart the project of turning Yast into an Indianized modern version of Frankenstein’s monster. But the one thing that was clear was that Ananya greatly benefited from the general populace’s apathy towards the horrific acts of murder that the Aayastis committed. When Abhishek was turned into a humanoid starfish, nobody really batted an eye. Sujay and Vijay, two of the most dreaded gangsters, were killed, and there was no widespread political outrage or riots against it. Kalindi’s head was severed, and still nothing. Kavita’s face was ripped off, and while Vikram did pummel the hell out of Vyankat, Ananya’s right-hand man and Kavita’s one-sided lover, the people of Charandaspur remained unperturbed. Awdesh, a kid who came back from the dead, had his legs cut off, and the rest of his body was found in an alley. Any major reactions? Nope. Noor, a little girl whose heart was ripped out, didn’t send shivers down the spines of her neighbors, even though in this fictional version of Benaras, Hindus and Muslims coexisted peacefully.
Back in the day, Giyassudin at least managed to rally the people and stop the Aayastis. Jimmy could do nothing. Last but not least, when they came for Vikram, his father, Vishwanath, couldn’t do anything to save him. And those were just the people who were killed, or about to be killed, so that their bodies could be used for the creation of Yast. Several others were casually murdered just because they came between the Aayastis’ assassin, Moksha, and her mark. Did that stir the general public’s conscience? No, it didn’t. It was actually an unfulfilled boon that Vikram’s mother, Vasudha, had asked of Yast in order to save her other son, Pawan, from the jaws of death, as well as Rea’s grit that saved Vikram, Charandaspur, and maybe the rest of the world. The difference between how Ananya and Rea chose to carry forward their respective grandmothers’ legacies is worth noting as well. Ananya blindly followed in Rukmini’s footsteps just because she was taught that she had to complete the task that was started several decades ago. She had a sprawling political career ahead of her. Sure, her husband was a cheater, and he was abusive. But Ritwik, her son, seemed like a nice kid who could’ve been molded into a well-rounded person. Yet she chose to become an agent of genocide—and also a weirdo for romancing her sister’s boyfriend, almost killing her sister’s boyfriend, and ripping off her sister’s face—which is why she met her end at such a young age. Meanwhile, despite having no direct impact on Rea’s character, Nandini somehow influenced her from the afterlife into being an agent of justice. She didn’t know she had a personal connection to Charandaspur and Aayasthal. Yet she kept trying to do the right thing, and she was rewarded appropriately.
Yast’s Design
Yast’s whole design was a tad confusing, to be honest, and even if there are plotholes in it (the biggest one being Yast’s boon missing Pawan and hitting Vikram), the showrunners of Mandala Murders can just say that everything happened according to the Aayast Granth. But since the show yaps a lot about science, technology, and magic, you must be wondering who wrote the Aayast Granth. Rukmini gave a very vague explanation that it was created when Yast first “arrived” and that it has been passed down through the generations. In what form did Yast exist back then? Why couldn’t it continue to exist in that form? Why did it need to become this collage of human body parts? Why is the energy transference process so needlessly complicated? Why is Yast telling its followers to destroy the old so that something new can be formed? What is the new “utopia” all about? There’s no explanation for that. Which is why I just think that Yast did a bad job of choosing his followers, who did an even worse job of interpreting his Aayast Granth, and that’s why they kept failing so many times. Continuing on the topic of misinterpretation, maybe Yast doesn’t want to become a humanoid, and his followers just keep forcing him to be one because of their need to pray to something tangible. However, he keeps trying to indirectly foil their plan, which is actually his plan. At least that’d explain why Yast didn’t see that the act of not granting Pawan his boon would cause it to eventually reach Vikram, thereby preventing his arrival into the mortal realm. It still doesn’t clarify what the need for annihilation was. I mean, sure, if I squint really hard, I can say that Yast’s whole plan in the 1950s was to stop Anant’s nuclear project because he was pro-environment.
Well, he got what he wanted, right? Anant died, and the nuclear project was abandoned. Yet, his followers kept marching towards total annihilation, something that could’ve been brought about by the nuclear project anyway. If total destruction was the end goal, what was the point of opposing it? Was Yast all about adding his personal touch to the apocalypse instead of letting humanity script its own demise? I think letting Charandaspur complete its course of self-destruction and then beginning his reign would’ve been much easier than whatever Rukmini and her minions did. That said, while I can see the 1950s altercation through the lens of environmentalism, what’s the one in the 2020s about? I mean, 75 years have passed. Things are new. So, is Yast supposed to provide something newer? Would his utopia be free of hooliganism, corruption, and adultery because, realistically speaking, those were the only three things that were presented as “real problems” in 2025? Or maybe the point was that, even after 75 years, Charandaspur hadn’t actually changed much; it’s just that people had become more used to living with their miseries. Either way, if the show focused on highlighting why it was necessary for Yast’s reign to begin, if we saw more of the perspective of the Aayastis, their program would’ve made sense. The manner in which both Rukmini and Ananya were presented, they just seemed like bog-standard villains with some surface-level understanding of nihilism. Of course I’m going to hate them and root for the guy who is trying to reunite with his long-lost mother. If that was the end goal of the show, they didn’t need to take us on this meandering 8-episode journey; that’s all I am saying.
Season 2 Expectations
In Mandala Murders’ ending, Rea killed Vaitarni and Ananya. She subdued Moksha and got her jailed because she had committed a string of murders in the name of sacrificing their energy to Yast. But she was soon freed by the Aayastis, who were still out there. Maithili disappeared from the Aayasthal without any real explanation. I think she has the gemstone that’s required for the final process of waking up Yast in his mortal vessel, and she’ll produce it when the time is right again. The Yast device was kept in the evidence room, but after Moksha was freed, it lit up. Vasudha was reunited with Vikram and Vishwanath. Jimmy was recuperating in the hospital and dealing with the loss of his entire family. Rea informed the CIB about the existence of the Aayastis and vowed to keep fighting the good fight until the world was rid of these cultists. So, yeah, it’s pretty evident that the showrunners have left a lot of loose ends for a potential Season 2. As long as there’s even a single Aayasti, they’ll keep repeating the process of killing people, stealing body parts, and installing Yast into a body reminiscent of Frankenstein’s Monster, with Moksha probably leading the charge the third time around. The people who are first in line are, of course, Vikram and Vasudha. I mean, the rule is that the individual who gets the boon will eventually be killed, right? So, while Vasudha’s boon did save him from Ananya, he isn’t safe from Moksha’s reign of terror. Moksha is probably under the impression that she can learn from her predecessors’ mistakes and do things more efficiently this time. But unless Vikram has amnesia, he can also learn from his captors’ methods and ensure that they don’t succeed again.
Who knows? Maybe this is a Final Destination-esque situation where if one person manages to avoid becoming a body part of Yast, everyone else down the line will continue to be safe. Maybe that’s what the generation who were around after the 1950s and before the 2020s did to save those who came after them? Yes, you might’ve noticed that the show has omitted an entire generation of Aayastis and Charandaspurians who have gone to them to ask for boons. Rukmini’s daughter, Nandini’s daughter, Zulfi… What were all these folks up to? So, yeah, exploring the period between the ‘50s and the 2020s will probably explain why it took 75 years to restart the Aayastis’ operation. The showrunners have also shrouded Yast, Aayasthal, and the Aayast Granth in ambiguity. Hence, they can go even further back in time to explain why such a complicated process is required to give Yast a mortal vessel, or why he needs a mortal vessel at all. Most importantly, though, I expect the show to do a better job of fleshing out the ideology of Yast and Aayastis. If you can get your audience to wonder whether the “villains” were kind of right, no matter how much you complicate the narrative, the rivalry between the protagonists and the antagonists isn’t going to fly. If the Aayastis continue to be portrayed as these mindless, destructive entities, of course, everyone’s going to root for Rea to kill them all. That said, with the endless possibilities that come with sci-fi and fantasy, do the showrunners really want this to be a “copaganda” show? That’ll be so reductive. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the ending of Mandala Murders and my expectations for a potential Season 2 (which hasn’t been officially announced at the time of writing this article). If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to let me know through the comments section below.
