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Journalism of Courage
Ever since the period drama Padmavati directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali was announced, there has been a great buzz about the film. Be it the Deepika Padukone’s ethereal look or her pairing with Shahid Kapoor, the film has kept everyone talking. But recently, the film drew more attention for all the wrong reasons, after the set of the movie and its director were attacked in Jaipur. Members of the Karni Sena, on January 27, entered the set of Padmavati assaulted the film-maker and damaged cameras and other equipment while raising slogans and hurling abuses at the crew.
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While the attack has again raised the issue of cinema industry being the ‘soft target’, the film fraternity has stood in support with the film-maker. Known for its unabashed takes on contemporary issues, Amul topicals came out with a hilarious take on the issue.
As the attackers claimed that the film is distorting history and wrongly telling the tale of the Rajput queen Padmini, the dairy company reacted to the incident their latest ad. “Hairani Padmavati?” says the satirical ad with the tagline “A slice of history”.
Read | Padmavati: Tampering with a heroic tale unacceptable, tweets Olympic wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt
“The film is presenting wrong facts about Padmavati. Our basic protest is about distortion of historic facts which will not be tolerated,” Vikram Singh, a Karni Sena activist had told PTI after the attack. What’s bizarre is that the film is still in its shooting phase and no one really has any idea what the film is going to depict.
Though Bhansali has confirmed that there will not be any romantic scenes between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji, that has not stop protesters from creating a ruckus. In fact, many historic researchers claim, queen Padmavati could be just a fictional character and not an actual person. The character of Padmavati was first mentioned in a 16th century poem Padmavat, written in Awadhi by the Sufi poet, Malik Muhammad Jayasi.
