Padmavati

"Queen Nagmati rashly asks her new parrot who is more beautiful, she or his former owner Princess Padmini of Sri Lanka. Naturally, she gets a displeasing answer."An illustrated manuscript of Padmavat, c. 1750

Padmavat (or Padmawat) is an epic poem written in 1540 by Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi,^[ who wrote it in the Hindustani language of Awadhi, and originally in the Persian Nastaʿlīq script.^[5] It is the oldest extant text among the important works in Awadhi. A famous piece of Sufi literature from the period, it relates an allegorical fictional story about the Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khalji's desire for the titular Rani Padmini, the Queen of Chittor. Alauddin Khalji and Padmini's husband Ratan Sen are historical figures, whereas Padmini is a fictional character, though this is disputed

Cast

·         Deepika Padukone as Padmavati – a 13th-14th century^[10] legendary Rajput queen, who was, according to Padmavat, the wife of Rajput king Ratan Singh (also known as Ratan Sen), the ruler of Mewar. The news of Padmavati's beauty reached Sultan Alauddin Khilji, who besieged Singh's capital, Chittor, motivated by his desire to capture the queen.

·         Shahid Kapoor as Ratan Singh – the last Rajput ruler of the Guhila dynasty that ruled the kingdom of Mewar. He was defeated by Alauddin Khilji's forces during the siege of Chittor.

·         Ranveer Singh as Alauddin Khilji – the Turko-Afghan ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. He was the second and most powerful ruler of the Sultanate belonging to the Khilji dynasty.He ascended the throne by murdering his paternal uncle and father-in-law, Sultan Jalaluddin Khilji. According to Padmavat, Khilji laid siege to Chittor motivated by his desire to capture Ratan Singh's beautiful wife, Padmavati.

·         Aditi Rao Hydari as Mehrunisa– wife of Alauddin Khilji

·         Jim Sarbh as Malik Kafur– a prominent eunuch slave-general of Alauddin Khilji.

·         Raza Murad as Jalaluddin Khilji – the founder and first Sultan of the Khilji dynasty that ruled the Delhi Sultanate. He was deposed by his nephew and son-in-law Alauddin, who murdered his uncle to usurp the throne.

·         Anupriya Goenka as Nagmati – first wife and chief queen of Ratan Singh according to Padmavat. Nagmati and her husband's second wife, Padmavati, performed jauhartogether after Alauddin Khilji attacked Chittor

All those agitating over how Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat would trample all over Rajput pride, you may rest easy: the director didn’t need a memo from the Karni Sena and all the other self-styled ‘armies’ on keeping it ‘sanskaari’ – his entire film is a relentlessly opulent, magnificently-mounted paean to Rajput ‘aan baan shaan’.

Finally, and we can’t get away from this, the question for us while watching this fresh version of the oldest tale in the book – ‘ek tha raja, ek thi rani, dono mar gaye, khatam kahani’—is, how do we deal with the fact of a woman being forced to jump into a pyre to save the ‘honour’ of her husband, and her people?