Sanjay Leela Bhansali - A Power Brand

It is simply amazing to see my amazing India in so many amazing shades of bright and dark!

At one end we have super intelligent brains brimming with their talents and creativity whereas on the other end we still have people who fight on trivialities like religion and casteism.

A few days back there was a widespread furore over the story of this movie made by the one of the ace directors : Sanjay Leela Bhansali. I am personally a fan of SLB for his creativity and perfection in making traditional / epic films, detailing every aspect of the particular culture / bygone eras and taking us through a colourful journey of fantasy with utmost entertainment.

So this new movie made by him was planned to be oroginally named as "Padmavati" and is supposed to be based on the real life story of the outstandingly beautiful and brave Rajput Queen Padmavati of Chittorgadh in Rajasthan. But some local group in Rajasthan lashed out at the movie accusing it to be distorted from real history. So they went all out to stage protests against the release of the movie. The makers of the movie were therefore forced to change the title and cut out the “I” in the spelling – renamed as PADMAVAT and it seems that even some scenes of the movie were changed. Not only that, it is declared to be fictitious in the preamble of the movie. Still the strong possibilities of damaging acts by these local groups made the moviemakers to seek for special police protection in cinema theatres. No wonder we witnessed a Police inspector in his uniform entering at the beginning and leaving after the end ; with all of us in the cinema hall  to ensure everyones safety. To my honest opinion, I found it very much in sync with the real history as narrated by one of the guides when I had visited Chittorgadh a couple of years back. Anyways, the reason of so much of drama around the release of movie still remains elusive.

Back to SLB , he has made three movies with the same starcast of Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh till date. In the first movie Goliyon ki Rasleela both are shown as love-birds from the same background but divided by their own people. In Bajirao Mastani, Deepika was the Muslim lover and second wife of Hindu Peshwa acted by Ranveer Singh and both were again separated by their own people. In Padmavat, however, the tables turn with Deepika  acting as the Hindu Rajput Queen who detests the Muslim ruler Khilji acted by Ranveer Singh in a villanous role who ends up separating her from her loved ones. For a change, its nice to see them enacting characters which differ from their real life equation and relationship. Good to have Challenging Roleplays with Changing times.

On another note, Due to some other engagements throughout the weekend I went for the early morning show at 8am but even at such an early hour it was total housefull. Not a single seat vacant. This sends a strong message across the industry ; that Sanjay Leela Bhansali is a strong Power Brand in Indian Film World just like Amitabh Bacchan, Rajnikanth, Aamir Khan and Prabhas (Bahubali fame). Be it creative masterpiece of SLB or the publicity received due to the protests or the eagerness of people to look back into history , whatever be the reasons; we all love watching the master craft of this creative and gifted director , a very few of his kinds in the industry who can project the events in history on screen with unmatched liveliness.

Hope to watch more of  SLBs artistic creation in future!