Chittorgarh was once ruled by King Ratan Sing, a Rajput ruler. The Rani during that time was Rani Padmini. She is referred to as Rani Padmavati in the movie Padmavat.
Allauddin Khilji had a battle with the Rajputs at Chittorgarh and won the battle and took over Chittorgarh. While the reasons for his invasion have been debated by various historians there is one popular masaledar story which we will talk about as the other stories and reasons are boring and common.
The broad story is that Padmini (the queen) was extremely beautiful and Allauddin Khilji wanted to win her and probably marry her. The only way that was possible was by conquering Chittorgarh. Yes. All for a women.
He setup a siege around Chittorgarh for more than 8 months. When he knew that Chittorgarh was impossible to conquer he decided to leave after at least see the beautiful lady. Apparently no man apart from Ratan Singh (the king) had seen her and enjoyed her beauty. So Allauddin Khilji went as a guest to Chittorgarh and agreed to remove the siege if Ratan Singh allowed to him to see the queen. A pretty simple request in my opinion. Now comes the important part.
It is said that he was sitting in a room and Rani Padmini was in her water palace. To make him not see her face directly, Rani Padmini sat on the stairs of her water palace and looked into the water. The reflection of her face was seen in a room right across the water palace on a mirror and Allauddin Khilji saw her face from the mirror. Impressed by her beauty he could not resist himself.
He badly wanted to posses her. So he used improper and immoral methods and kidnapped Ratan Singh. He also violated the rules of battle and killed Ratan Singh in a duel to conquer Chittorgarh. All is fair in war for lust.
Now let’s dissect this scene a bit. The room he was sitting was on the 3rd floor. This meant it was about 30 feet from the ground. The water palace’s steps were around 50 feet away from the main palace. This means the diagonal distance is about 60 feet.
So, Allauddin Khilji saw a double reflection of a face (once from the water and once from the mirror) partly covered by a Ghoonghat from a distance of 60 feet and fell for her beauty.
One cannot see a face properly at a distance of 60 feet. A partially covered face even more difficult to see. A face getting reflected from water, 60 feet away, that impossible unless you had a telescope. A partially covered face getting reflected from water and then again from a mirror at a distance of 60 feet! Give me a break.
It is also said that it was one of Rani Padmini’s saheli (maid) who sat there and it was not the Rani herself. Even Raja Ratan would not have been able to spot the difference with such poor visibility.
According to me one of two things would have happened.
1. Allauddin Khilji indeed magically saw the face inspite of all this complex far distance reflection. If it was true, he need not have waged war at all as what he saw was the saheli and it would have been easy to posses her compared to the Rani.
2. (My preferred reason) He was not able to see the face properly (obviously duh!) and waged war because he got pissed. The Raja could have just denied showing the Rani’s face. Showing it this way would have only irritated Khilji more. I can completely understand this irritation and it makes more sense to wage a war for this act of the Raja.
In all this, I start questioning if this idea of protecting the women from being seen by other men was really required. We gained nothing but a block buster movie which also did not get released in Rajasthan. The Rani along with many other women (thousands in number) committed suicide by jumping into the fire (Jauhar) and the Raja also died. It would have been simpler to either send the saheli to Khilji or show Rani Padmini’s face properly.
Endless thoughts 