Padmaavat - My personal take on the movie

I saw the movie in 3D IMAX Theater. Here are my impressions, to get a full picture, I urge you to read the links appended below, without which, any opinion would be incomplete. 

It is a well-made movie, the palace sets are incredible, and even the jungle scene, the falls and the battlefield were all done fairly well. However, Bahu Bali still leads the pack in extraordinary sets and graphics.

Bhansali has done something no other movie producer has done for Indians, particularly Hindu Indians. When we see Mogul Movies or Roman Movies we walk out impressed with the grandeur of the lifestyle of those kings. Bhansali has filled that vacuum for Hindus of India by making grandeur sets, palaces, and clothes.  Modi tried to paint ancient India with Superior surgeries and vimanas that most Indians did not buy, Bhansali has created a positive glorious past for the Hindu Indians in his two movies I have seen and has done a good job of it. Every community needs to feel proud of the past. 

The movie is a typical formula film set in the historical mix of fact and fiction. It is all about a man chasing a woman. He is obsessed with her beauty and will do anything to get her. The movie can be seen from many dimensions including the one-sided romance, How many of us will put everything at our disposal to get that woman or man depending on our gender?  It can be seen as another Laila Majnu, Shereen Farhad and Romeo Juliet story, but one-sided romance.  

Alauddin is shown as a nut case in the movie and that is the prerogative of the producer, he has got to make money and he did not claim it to be factful either, it is not documentary but a piece of fiction and imagination of a writer.

When the king gets the Queen's arrow in his heart, in the beginning, they remove it together and within no time he proposes to marry her and she accepts… that was little too quick and too unbelievable for the Desi American youth, where it takes time to know each other and have to date for a while before taking that step.  No wonder, there was a gasp in the audience (Desi Kids) and someone made a comment in our row in the theater as unbelievable. But it happens in India, in our youth we easily fell in love with someone in school or college and loved her or vice versa without even talking to her or him. It is an Indian movie and that is our culture.  

Alauddin's obsession of Padmavati reminded me of a song line from film Gumraah,  "Kitne diwane thay hum, aap ko pane ke liye" from the song Aap aaye to khayal-e-dil-e nashaad aya. Fortunately, Alauddin never got in a position to say, " Ghair ka ho ke bhi a husn mere saath to hai." 

I did not see this as an anti-Muslim film at all.  In fact, if someone were to be upset, it should be the Brahmans for the role of Brahmachari. He reminded me of Poornayya (Tippu Sultan) and Mir Jaffar.  There were three clear instances where he is blamed for the fall of Chittor, and all the chaos he created in revenge.  Maya Angelou had said, if you insult someone in public, that person will be obsessed with revenge, in fact, most people hold onto grudges of insult and patiently wait to get even. 

To the credit of Bhansali, he has evoked reason and logic in many spots. When Padmavati gives a speech to the Dasis about Jauhar, a good dialogue was delivered.  She says something to the effect of the conflicts between Ram and Ravan, Kauravas and Pandavas and then Khiljji and Rajputs is another one. Conflicts are nothing new.  Bhansali reduced the conflict to like any another conflict. He must be lauded for doing that.

There was another dialogue where Alauddin says that the time for expanding the boundaries of his Sultanate is paused now, and Padmavati is his focus.  Bhansali could have him recite that Krishna Deva Raya (Vijaynagar empire), the Pallavas, The Guptas, Mauryas and Rajput Kings all expanded their boundaries and I have done my share. Of course, it is his film. Samajne wale zaroor samjehingey, jo na samajh hain, they will always get it what they are set to get; ill-will. 

Another good scene is Padmavati's call to escape when Alauddin's army was praying Namaz. Reverse the scenario, the Karni Sena and BJP would have created havoc.

Alauddin asked the colors be applied to him because the day was Holi – it is a good gesture of respect for the Hindu culture. Reverence for Hinduism is different than fighting for Land or the Beauty.  I don't know if that touch of a message is enough for people to see it or more needed to be done.

Bhansali is just showing what happened once in our history. The practice of Sati was real but is not practiced anymore. There is severe opposition to it, please read the article by Swara Bhasker listed below

Bhansali did not claim this to be facts of history, he acknowledges right at the beginning that it is a fiction adopted from Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s novel. We have seen so many movies, and no matter who makes it, it will be always be tainted by the producer. I would have been upset and taken some action if he had claimed to be history or facts of history. He did not. 

Overall it is a good movie.

The struggle to present correct picture continues unabated, and no doubt it is frustrating. Restoring confidence and hope in the new generation of Muslims is still the need of the day. Each one of our kids is capable of doing anything they want if they set their minds to it. 

Related:

Padmaavat – where are Muslim Protests - Aijaz Zaka Syed
https://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/01/padmaavat-where-are-muslim-protesters.html

Padmaavat – Story of Vagina by Swara Bhasker
https://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/01/padmavat-reduced-to-vagina.html

Padmaavat – story behind story by Dr. Syed Amir
https://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/02/padmaavat-story-behind-story-when.html

Mike Ghouse
(214) 325-1916
Washington, DC

Padmaavat: Where are Muslim protesters?

In the article appended below, Aijaz Zaka Syed wrote, "What really worries me — as it should every Indian who loves his/her country and desires its wellbeing is the hate and ill will all this is generating between the Hindus and Muslims. Being taught those textbooks and perpetually bombarded with hate in films and on television, even Muslim children would grow up hating their own ancestors."
This is a real concern, indeed, this is precisely the experience of Native Americans. In one of our Programs of Holocaust and Genocides, we focus on Native American Genocides, and one of the young men says similar words.  Watch this at 7th minute in the video https://youtu.be/uneRYgYfgWI

As Muslim Indians, we care about the state of our nation and will do everything to restore her back to our pluralistic traditions, where we respected the otherness of others and accepted the God-given the uniqueness of each one of us. If you cannot respect a fellow Indian, what will you respect then? Let everyone live his own life and you live yours. 

One of the comments that reflect the thoughts of many a Muslims came from Safia Faruqi of Lucknow, "We are uninterested in how Khilji is portrayed. We do not identify with any of these kings. We are neither proud of them nor apologetic about them. We should, in fact, stay away from such meaningless things. We would be playing into their hands and furthering the agenda of polarization." 

In a message to my fellow Indians, I had posted a question;  "Should Muslims condemn the wrongdoers who happened to be Muslim Kings? After all, they did not do any good for Islam or Muslims except fulfilling their own greed like any other king of the time."

Another good response came from Tariq Farooqi, who wrote, "So what should Indian Muslims do?  There is no need to defend these kings as they were defending their empires and not representing Islam or Islamic virtues.  Muslim masses suffered as poorly as their Hindu counterparts.  While they could point to historians in stating that the movie is a fictional account of love between a king and a fictional woman, the Bhakts have taken over and started burning theaters and damaging surrounding infrastructure.  We can stay away from this madness and condemn the cowardly and unbecoming violence of the mobs."

Indeed, I am working on pulling Indians of different hues together and develop a working program to build a cohesive India, where every Indian takes pride in who he or she is.
Mike Ghouse 

Padmaavat: Where are Muslim protesters?

Courtesy - Saudi Gazette

Aijaz Zaka Syed

If anyone should be going ballistic over Padmavati — sorry, Padmaavat — the spectacular cinematic tribute to Rajput valor (obviously decent, virtuous Hindus) and crass demonization of Emperor Alauddin Khilji (the archetype of marauding, meat-gorging, horny invaders!), it is Muslims. Why’s Karni Sena, pray, going on the rampage, burning down multiplexes and malls and turning the whole country upside down?

This when bowing to the diktats of these defenders of Hindu pride, the filmmaker has already changed the title from ‘Padmavati’ to ‘Padmaavat’. It was only after the Supreme Court intervened that the film got released after repeated delays albeit it remains a ‘no show’ in many northern states.

Those who have watched the film found it so utterly reverential to the Rajputs and so demeaning to Khilji that it’s perplexing why the assorted nuts have been thirsting for Bhansali’s blood.

As Anjana Kashyap of India Today puts it, it is as if the Karni Sena whispered Padmaavat’s plot into Bhansali’s ear!

So what if Padmaavat is a deliberate distortion of history, just as many such period films, including Jodha Akbar, and television serials in the recent past have been?

In fact, the beautiful Rajput princess Padmavati never existed except in the imagination of Awadhi poet Malik Mohammed Jayasi.

And most of the valiant Rajput chieftains, except Rana Pratap Singh, never put up a fight against the Delhi sultans and Moguls. Many of them joined the ‘enemy’ against their own. Hindu Rajputs and Muslim Moguls even inter-married. Indeed, Mogul emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan had been the sons of proud Rajput mothers.

As for Khilji, he was anything but a savage barbarian and womanizer. Poet Amir Khusro, a contemporary, offers a detailed account of his reign. India’s first emperor, it was Khilji’s bravery that spared the country ruination at the hands of the Mongols.

Far from presenting historical facts accurately, Bhansali doesn’t even do justice to Jayasi’s romantic epic. Which is fine, I suppose. Filmmakers and storytellers enjoy a creative license. They hardly claim to be faithful chroniclers of history.

But should they degenerate into deliberate vilification of a whole community as bloodthirsty savages who live to kill, rape and eat, as Padmaavat and movies of this genre suggest?

It is not just cinema. Of late, there has been a deluge of such dramas on television too with everyone making the most of the hate fest roiling India these days.

Perhaps taking cue from the reigning order, these ‘historical’ storytellers claim to present the stories of Indian heroes. Almost always they are pitted against “fanatical Muslim invaders” with their regulation endless beards and violent tempers.

Even in a period drama like ‘Porus’ on Sony that tackles Alexander the Great’s attack, which happened centuries before Christ when the Muslims didn’t even exist, there are ubiquitous references to ‘foreign invaders’ who look and speak like you know who.

From willful and dangerous distortion of history in films and television to misrepresentation of historical facts in textbooks, there is a desperation to turn back the clock and rewrite the past, playing havoc with impressionable, young minds.

Medieval Muslim rulers are routinely panned as bloodthirsty barbarians who kill their subjects, destroy temples and are on an evangelical mission to convert all Hindus.

Although no shred of historical evidence exists to support these claims and fallacies, authored by orientalists, they have been wholeheartedly embraced and are routinely peddled by the Right.

If had been any truth in these claims, India would have been a Muslim country today. Instead of plundering and sucking it dry as the British did, Muslims made India their home, taking it to the heights of glory. India became the richest and largest economy in the world under the Moguls. You have to be blind to miss the Muslim imprint on every facet of Indian life.

Churchill said history is written by the victors. One wouldn’t lose sleep over it if this ‘Otherization’ of Muslims had been only limited to historical inaccuracies.

What really worries me — as it should every Indian who loves his/her country and desires its wellbeing — is the hate and ill will all this is generating between the Hindus and Muslims. Being taught those textbooks and perpetually bombarded with hate in films and on television, even Muslim children would grow up hating their own ancestors.

After all this vilification of a voiceless, dispossessed minority, coupled with the propaganda of love jihad and multiplying Muslims, who are loyal to Pakistan and forever lusting after the cow and fair Hindu women, would you be surprised if Muslims are increasingly being hunted like animals?

You reap as you sow. The Parivar’s persistent efforts over the past century have begun to bear results. The Muslims have become total strangers in their own country and driven to the margins of Indian society after more than 1200 years of existence in India.

What’s remarkable about this unprecedented phenomenon is the fact that the Muslims, who ruled India for nearly a thousand years, are at the bottom of the heap, according to every social and economic indicator.

As many government commissions and studies have acknowledged, the largest minority is easily the most deprived and disadvantaged in the country, even more backward than the low-caste Dalits. Still blamed for the Partition and reeling from tragedies like the Babri Masjid demolition, the community has learned to keep a low profile, curiously content in its abject poverty and ghettos.

For a community of nearly 200 million people, Muslims have little presence in parliament and state assemblies. The BJP takes pride in the fact that it did not field a single Muslim candidate in the recent assembly elections for Gujarat and Haryana. Again, not one Muslim was fielded in Uttar Pradesh, which boasts more than 20 percent Muslims in a population of 200 million.

There are around 2 percent Muslims in elite Indian Administrative Services. The same goes for the armed forces and police. On the other hand, they have highest representation in jails, far more than their 15 percent share in population.

Yet this pathetic minority is painted as the ‘clear and present danger’ to India and not just by the Parivar. The Indian media is obsessed with the ‘M’ factor, tapping into the inexplicable insecurities of the majority.

From Pakistan-trained terrorists to madrassas being used as terror nurseries to the specters of love jihad and triple talaq, apparently Indian society is perpetually threatened by its Muslims.

In the face of all this sweetness and light, Indian Muslim leadership appears curiously clueless. Let alone evolving a strategy to tackle the challenges facing the community, few of them appear aware of the world falling apart around them.

It is a depressing state of affairs, to say the least. Not very different from what the Muslims faced in Spain centuries ago after their 700-year long reign that enriched Europe and Western civilization. Today, there is not a single believer left in Spain; nor a mosque left standing. No wonder the Parivar often looks to Spain for inspiration.

— Aijaz Zaka Syed is an award winning journalist and former newspaper editor. Email: Aijaz.syed@hotmail.com 

Padmaavat – My personal take on the movie
https://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/02/padmaavat-my-personal-take-on-movie.html

Padmaavat – where are Muslim Protests
https://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/01/padmaavat-where-are-muslim-protesters.html

Padmaavat – Story of Vagina
https://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/01/padmavat-reduced-to-vagina.html

Padmaavat – story behind story
https://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2018/02/padmaavat-story-behind-story-when.html