Sanjay Leela Bhansali has got it wrong again: Padmavat was set in Sri Lanka, not Chittor
Thank God Sanjay Leela Bhansali was not shoed. I will explain why. He has based his film on Padmavat, an epic written by Malik Muhammad Jayasi in 1540 CE. A Sufi mystic, he was from Jais, a city in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. Can a Sufi mystic write a cheap love story?
He would write about the amalgamation of the mortal with the immortal, which he depicted in Padmavat, a story about this Sinhal Dweep ki Rajkumari (a princess from an island), which historians assume is present-day Sri Lanka. Sinhal refers to a place where Sinhalese was spoken and ‘dweep’ means an island. Critical analysis of Jayasi’s work is replete with this mention.
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| A still from Bajirao Mastani |
Padmavat that Jayasi wrote is based on a spiritual philosophy; Bansali never goes beyond love for lust, or lust for love. If he would depict love, it would and must be a transcendental, ethereal experience, one heart-to-heart, and not necessarily draping his women in transparencies, dipping them in water and bringing them out showing contours.
Padmavat also had a character in it called Hiraman, a messenger, a parrot and not a human. Bansali is citing Padmavat as his source, but is actually directly hitting at and distorting history, which is certainly not derived from the epic poem.
If he is filming Jayasi’s Padmavat, then he is not only distorting it, he is also mutilating the spiritual essence of the Sufi thought. He certainly is using Padmavat as a shield and in reality up to some other cheap box-office mischief.
Just to give you an idea of Jayasi’s time period — 30 years after him, Goswami Tulsidas wrote Ramayana. If you rewind the clock, you would reach Padmavati story 250 years backwards. Maharani Padimini or Padmavati, as making rounds today, is a record of her life in 1302-03 CE.
It was the same time around which Jalal-ud-din Khilji or Alauddin Khilji of Mamluk dynasty came to power and heard about the bewitching beauty of Padmavati, who was then the wife of King Rawal Ratan Singh of Chittor. (Chittor and Sri Lanka are 3500 km away from each other even today and were then also).
Alauddin Khilji was smitten by Padmavati’s bewitching beauty and wanted to possess her. It wasn't love, as Bansali claims, it was lust and to fulfil his lust, following refusal of his advancements by Rawal Ratan Singh, he invaded Chittor in 1303.
Rajputs lost; Khilji won, but by the time Khilji reached the fort, Padmavati had committed jauhar or self-immolation. It was a story of Rajput valour, which Rajputs are still proud of, not love that Bansali wants to show. He might even show her draped in transparent or translucent sari, doing raasleela with Khilji in a five-star swimming pool.
There was no two-sided love. There was only one-sided lust. Bansali cites creative freedom, but freedom doesn't allow you distortion of facts. He did the same thing with Bajirao Mastani. He showed Bajirao as an eccentric; he wasn't. He was a gallant soldier. Distortion, in the name of creative freedom, has become his habit.
It has become a habit for him to cash in on the popularity of epics. He did the same thing to Devdas. Nothing in the original Devdas by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay matches with the Devdas that Bansali made, except possibly one thing in common — that is both Sarat’s and Bansali’s Devdas immersed himself in wine.