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

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...
12 comments
Read more

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...
7 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
47 comments
Read more

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...
6 comments
Read more

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 comments
Read more