Rani Padmavati: The Burning Queen by Anuja ChandramouliMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The recent few months has seen a lot of interest around Rani Padmavati, with the strong opinions around the film ‘Padmavat’. Writing historical fiction is a delicate balancing act between staying faithful to the ethos of history, while introducing enough new material to interest readers. This is a genre Anuja Chandramouli excels in.
Padmavati is the queen of Chittor, famed for her extraordinary beauty. This is the most prominent aspect of her personality we know of, other than the tragic end she suffers, when she decides to end her life rather than be captured and possibly become another of Alauddin Khilji’s wives.
Anuja does introduce substantial material to illustrate new facets to her personality including her grace, selflessness and balance. In the face of provocation, hardship and finally tragedy – she stands tall, unflinching in her support to her husband King Rawal Ratan Singh. In the face of the eminent threat from Alauddin Khilji who sets his eyes on Chittor, after his conquest of Gujarat, Rawal Ratan Singh has only limited success in bringing together the kingdoms in the vicinity to resist him. There is also a stroke of bad luck as the kingdom is further laid low by an epidemic.
While the end is tragic, it is the memory of Rani Padmawati and Rawal Ratan Singh’s characters which endures. The book also does well to bring Alauddin Khilji’s fascination for Rani Padmavati in a fairly balanced perspective devoid of hype.
As with her other books, the writing is very good, as are the incidents which shape the personalities of the characters. There is a case though for the book to have been more expansive by introducing further new material, incidents and exposing inner thinking processes of its main characters to help us get closer to their souls.
A book I certainly recommend for the strong narrative, the depth of its characters and the impression it leaves about them.
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