Upon its release, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat had dominated the news cycle for all the wrong reasons. While fringe groups were burning buses in protest, an argument was sparked among the liberal elites by actor Swara Bhasker who claimed that she felt reduced to a vagina after watching the movie. Shahid Kapoor had reacted cautiously to the post, saying, ""I haven't read it yet. We have been busy with other things, but I think this isn't the right time. Padmaavat represents the film industry and its freedom of expression."
In an interview with DNA on Thursday, actor Deepika Padukone, who essayed Padmavati, reacted to the open letter: "We are not endorsing jauhar. You must see the practice in context to the period in which it was shown. And when you do that, you will realise, it’s so powerful. You do not feel like she is doing anything wrong. You want her to embrace the flames because she is going to be united with the man she loves."
Bhasker had wrote in an open letter published by The Wire, “Surely sir, you agree that Sati and Jauhar are not practices to be glorified. Surely, you agree that notwithstanding whatever archaic idea of honour, sacrifice, purity propels women and men to participate in and condone such practices; that basically Sati and Jauhar, like the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Honour Killings, are steeped in deeply patriarchal, misogynist and problematic ideas.”
The article was met with equal parts bouquets and brickbats. Singer Suchitra Krishnamoorthi fired the first salvo. In a scathing reply, she tweeted, "Funny that an actress who can play an erotic dancer/ prostitute with such elan should feel like a vagina after watching a story of a pious queen . What standards are these ...tch tch." Siddharth-Garima, the writers of Padmaavat, had a stinging rejoinder in store for Bhasker's arguments. Would her sensibilities be hurt when she watched world epics like the Gladiator?
