Purushottam Agrawal’s Padmavat offers a commentary on Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s sixteenth-century epic poem. Through his interpretation of Padmavat, which has inspired many films, most recently Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat, Agrawal hopes to “help the reader gain a better sense of the claims and conflicts of love in general as well as the one in her or his life”. Jayasi’s poem is “not a Sufi allegory”, nor a “call to arms in the name of community honour”, Agrawal says. “Unlike his ‘modern readers’, the poet is not obsessed with the conflict between his hero and the Sultan of Delhi…Jayasi’s sympathies are clearly with Ratansen, not because he is a Hindu warrior, but because is a love-yogi. Jayasi’s Alauddin is cunning and unfair to Padmavati and Ratansen, yet he is not a monster. Jayasi’s characters are not just good guys or bad guys. His Padmavat is first-rate poetry, not an opulent, regressive Bollywood extravaganza.”
Padmavat: An Epic Love Story contains illustrations by Devdutt Pattnaik, the scholar of myth and folklore. Here are edited excerpts on Nagmati, the wife of Chittor ruler Ratansen who has to share him with his newfound love Padmavati. The parrot Hiraman, who sings Padmavati’s praises, plays a prominent role in the narrative.
One day, when Ratansen is away, his queen Nagmati adorns herself and standing in front of the mirror, she asks a variant of the question – “Mirror, mirror on the wall/Who is the fairest of them all?” The difference, however, is that here the question is not addressed to the mirror, (which has in any case satisfied her by giving the desired answer), but to the pundit parrot from the island of Simhal. She questions him and challenges him to reply on oath, ‘You are supposed to be an expert assayer; now, use your touchstone, take oath by the king, and tell me: is there anyone more beautiful in your Simhal? Is that Padmavati (of whom you think so much) anywhere close to me?’
Hiraman initially intends to avoid the tricky situation by giving some diplomatic answer. But Nagmati’s insistence on the comparison to the women of Simhal, in particular Padmavati, takes away all his diplomacy; and then there is also the oath involving the well-being of his benefactor, Ratansen. He bursts out rather derisively – “Where is the question of comparison with the women of Simhal? Of course, in a pond, which is never visited by swans, herons can claim to be swans. But really, can one compare day with night? The Simhal women have fragrant bodies, and as far as Padmavati is concerned, her body has the complexion of purified gold and is blessed with a unique fragrance.”
Nagmati cannot bear the truth and is mad with jealousy and insecurity and decides to have Hiraman eliminated.
She instructs her reliable maidservant to take the wretched bird away and kill it in such a way that not a single soul witnesses the act. The maid takes the parrot, but unlike her mistress, she reflects over the situation calmly: “In the first place, one cannot kill someone admired by the king. Secondly, what wrong has this poor parrot committed? He is a pundit; in fact, he seems to be a renunciate who is here due to some break in his sadhana. How can I kill this parrot on the order of a woman who is not even bothered about her husband’s affection for it? If and when he orders a search for this parrot, I will have to face the music.”
Nagmati is stunned and realises that she has been defeated even before the “battle” has formally begun. Her maid who had defied her order to kill Hiraman comes to help. Nagmati ends up getting scolded from her friendly maid as well. The parrot is handed over to the king. Nagmati is hurt and her disillusionment with her husband comes out in moving words of exasperation, “I thought I meant a lot to you, but obviously, to you, this bird is more important than me. You ordered your wife to commit sati with him if he could not be brought back to life. My dear husband, I loved and served you all my life and was proud of our love, but this is the reward I get. Well, at least now I know the truth – you are with me, but do not belong to me. You are here only in appearance but actually, seem from an alien land. So strange you seem to me now. But, anyway, I will do what you want…”