Skip to main content

Padmavati


Fiction

I am Rani Padmavati, the Queen of Chittor.  People call me the Queen of Beauty.  I have never understood why our men bother about beauty at all.  They are warriors and love fighting. Bravery, physical strength and honour are the values they really cherish and want all of us to possess.  We cherish beauty too.  But we’d prefer to keep beauty veiled behind the purdah.  If anyone other than the husband dares to raise the purdah, he will be killed.  Beauty is a private property among us.  We, the women, are our men’s private properties.

Private.  So private that we, the women, can’t even go to the temple to worship our gods, let alone enjoy the public festivals.  We are like the precious stones and gold ornaments to be stored away in the darkness of secret chambers. 

The King, my husband, Rawal Ratan Sing, braver and nobler than any Rajput, is also an admirer of beauty.  He loves me just as he loves music and the arts.  Music was the reason why this man Raghav Chetan gained entry into the Palace.  Raghav was a musician par excellence.  He knew magic too.  Using his magic he gained entry to my dark, secret chamber.  I invited him to teach me magic. 

He taught me to listen to the music of the stars.  His magic took me to worlds beyond, far beyond, the dark chamber where I lived like a prisoner.  Music and magic – they intoxicate the soul.  The intoxication stripped me of my inhibitions and I made passionate love with my husband the King.  The King enjoyed the love making.  But his soul was caught in a dilemma.  How did this Rajput woman lose the inhibitions that her culture had put on her like inflexible chains of steel?

The suspicion cost Raghav Chetan his job. 

“Paint his face black,” the King ordered to the soldiers who had brought Raghav Chetan bound with steel chains. “Then put him on a donkey’s back and take him through the city streets.  Let the people jeer him for defiling sacred music with black magic.”

Raghav Chetan’s magic failed to save him.  My magic died the moment I peered through the veils to see my magic man in chains.  Magic is the music of the soul.  Veiled souls cannot produce magic.

Raghav Chetan was exiled after the humiliation.  He went to Delhi and made friends with the Sultan Alauddin Khilji.

“Is she really as beautiful as you describe?”  The Sultan asked Raghav Chetan.  I heard it in the magic of my soul whose veils were lifted by the post-coital stupor when the King my husband lay beside me exhausted unlike a Rajput warrior. 

“She is the finest mist that descends from the highest heaven, my Lord,” crooned Raghav Chetan.  “She is the moonbeam that can elevate you to the seventh heaven.  She is the queen of the houris in Paradise...”

Raghav Chetan’s black magic transmuted the Sultan’s soul.  The soul acquired a veil.  The veiled soul drove the Sultan to Mewar.  He entered the Chittor Palace with his veiled soul. 

“I want to see Queen Padmavati,” he demanded imperiously. As if I was his Queen.

Rawal Ratan Singh trembled.  In spite of the bravery and nobility fed into his veins by the Rajput tradition, Rawal Ratan Singh trembled.  My soul could sense the stirrings in Rawal Ratan Singh’s veins. 

“He is too powerful for us,” my husband pleaded with me in the dark secret chamber where we used to make love night after night, unveiling my soul.

“He can see me,” I said to my husband’s visible relief.  “But on a condition.”

My husband looked at me anxiously.

“He can see my reflection in a mirror.  That too with you standing near him and a hundred of my maids standing around me in a semicircle.”

My husband, the Rajput warrior, mustered the courage to convince the Sultan. 

My soul sensed the terror that was to come soon.

“I want her,” pronounced the Sultan.  “For myself.”

Private property.  His private property.  That’s what I would be unless my present owner killed him in a war.

The horses neighed.  Swords clashed.  Brave and noble Rajput warriors gave up their lives for the honour of their Beauty Queen. 

How could the Queen ignore those sacrifices?  Thousands of men sacrificed themselves for my honour?  I had no other way but defend that same honour.  The honour of the most beautiful property of the kingdom. 

“Maids,” I called.  “Let the flames guard the Rajput honour.”

Raghav Chetan’s music descended like the finest mist on my soul, that would put on no more veils, as the flames rose all around me and my maids.



Labels:

Comments

  1. Rekha'sJanuary 29, 2017 at 3:36 PM

    very interesting post .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Manisha SharmaJanuary 29, 2017 at 4:18 PM

    Vranda, Ahelya, Sita, Dropadi or the Queens. Tomichan, people are fighting in their name, and are always ready to cause riots, to save the "Honor" of these females.

    In today's date, Mulayam Singh Yadav, a person who is alive, says "If boy commits rape, then its a mistake." Sharad Yadav says, "The honor of a daughter does not have as much value as a single vote."

    Not a single "Sena" or "Dal" came forward against these comments, not a single person from such groups caused havoc.

    Now, who is to be blamed for this? Men or women? I believe, that both are equally committed to this. Because, even women are thinking that they are the honor of the house. Why? Why does she believes so?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 29, 2017 at 4:25 PM

      That last question of yours is one of the questions I raise in the story, Manisha. But subtly. Subtlety is the soul of literature (and all arts, I guess). It's the result of a social system made by men. When my protagonist says, "I had no other way but defend that same honour," she is implying that she is very much a part of that system. Or the system is an inalienable part of her. Would she be anything better than a precious "private property" in the harem of the Sultan even if she chooses to go with the victor? Does she want to continue as a property? That's one of the questions I'm raising.

      Delete
    2. Jyotirmoy SarkarJanuary 30, 2017 at 8:48 AM

      I think the reason is "beauty" and simultaneously the physical weakness(than men)...biological reasons.
      There are different types of worshipers of beauty...some are defensive,calm and some are aggressive and arrogant.

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 30, 2017 at 12:14 PM

      I don't like to interpret my own stories. But I must say that I have tried to dramatise the complexity including the role played by beauty in men's affairs.

      Delete
  3. Jyotirmoy SarkarJanuary 30, 2017 at 8:45 AM

    Interesting post.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Amit AgarwalJanuary 30, 2017 at 1:14 PM

    This dramatized version makes perfect sense to me. It stimulates and satisfies intellectually and does not twist the 'surface' facts..leaving no room for a controversy. I liked it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 30, 2017 at 2:06 PM

      Probably Kashyap's version isn't as controversial as people make it out to be. Dreams can be a means of showing people's inner motives and yearnings. And the inside can be extremely complex.

      Delete
  5. ekta khetanJanuary 31, 2017 at 12:38 PM

    spellbinding..

    www.numerounity.com
    www.hautekutir.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rajeev MoothedathJanuary 31, 2017 at 6:48 PM

    You have put it so beautifully- the pathos, the satire and the living conditions of the times! Bhansali can use this as the story and escape from the wrath of the conservatives...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 31, 2017 at 9:49 PM

      Thanks for the compliment, Rajeev ji. But even this can be kicked up into a controversy by those who have vested interests.

      Delete
  7. negiFebruary 5, 2017 at 9:52 PM

    interesting post regards http://www.kidsfront.com/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...
121 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...
9 comments
Read more

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...
61 comments
Read more

A Lesson from Little Prince

I joined the #WriteAPageADay challenge of Blogchatter , as I mentioned earlier in another post. I haven’t succeeded in writing a page every day, though. But as long as you manage to write a minimum of 10,000 words in the month of Feb, Blogchatter is contented. I woke up this morning feeling rather vacant in the head, which happens sometimes. Whenever that happens to me but I do want to get on with what I should, I fall back on a book that has inspired me. One such book is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince . I have wished time and again to meet Little Prince in person as the narrator of his story did. We might have interesting conversations like the ones that exist in the novel. If a sheep eats shrubs, will he also eat flowers? That is one of the questions raised by Little Prince [LP]. “A sheep eats whatever he meets,” the narrator answers. “Even flowers that have thorns?” LP is interested in the rose he has on his tiny planet. When he is told that the sheep will eat f...
8 comments
Read more