A parallel drawn between Fountainhead and Padmaavat

I have been few of the lucky ones, I believe, to have watched the movie Padmaavat and read the 13th century poem (You can book the Google) . I also had watched the movie Fountainhead based on the book written by Ayn Rand who brought up the philosophy of “objectivism”. Trust me, this book is amazing and cliched for a reason and you have to read and assimilate it to understand it. I was watching Padmaavat for the second time (This time with subtitles :P. Perks of being a South-Indian, I don’t follow Hindi so well inspite of being in Indore for 2 years :))

I was amazed by the similarity of the characters by both of these works. The strongest characters in the book are depicted through Howard Roark and Dominique Francon. They are my personal favorites because it is said that ” The struggle you are in today is developing the strength you need in for tomorrow ” . Both these characters have played a huge role in shaping my life today. I personally believe that reading gives life more life and I think I found myself a little more after reading this book 🙂

Talking about Padmaavat-the story revolves around Padmaavati, the Queen of Chittor and the Princess of Singhal, Maharawal Ratan Singh, the King of Chittor and Allaudin Khilji, the reigning sultan of Hindustan. Although the movie portrays a lot of scenes based on the atrocities of Khilji , my personal favorites have been the Padmaavati and Ratan Singh. This is purely based on the character and not based on the performance. I know that many of you will disagree with me here. But let me reason with you. Khilji has played it dirty from the beginning. I know that’s how the world works or at least that’s what we are told. Khilji decides to own someone else’s wife because she is beautiful . Do you see a similarity in Fountainhead? Isn’t this what Gail Wyanad did by asking Dominique Francon who was then Mrs. Keating’s wife to marry him? I’m not drawing similarity between Wyanad and Khilji. Trust me, both of them are poles apart. But what is common between them? Power.They are both vehemently attached to power. This was the same reason why they climbed up the ladders( Khilji being the Sultan & Wyanad owning the Banner) and the same reason for their downfall ( Khilji’s subsequent depression after Padmaavati and the other women committed Jauhar and Banner’s downfall)

There are two characters that I vehemently hate in both the works — Ellsworth Toohey in Fountainhead and the character Raghav Chetan in Padmaavat. They are the modern men. It’s a facade.They might have a very good image in front of the people but they have hidden agendas. Mr.Toohey acts like a person who thinks he can control people but unfortunately he couldn’t control Mr. Wyanad. He wanted Banner’s full control and in his power but instead he was out of a job. Raghav Chetan went to Khilji thinking that he will take revenge but instead got beheaded by Khilji as that was one of the conditions laid down by Padmavati. What do they have in common? Ego. The most important lesson that we learn from here is that no one is capable of wearing a mask for too long 🙂

Now, let’s get down to my personal favorites — Padmavati and Ratan Singh vis a vis Dominique Francon and Howard Roark. Both Padmavati and Dominique Francon are strong women. They value and stick to the promises given by them to the men in their lives and respect them and their independence. This can be seen in the scenes where Dominique Francon doesn’t question the decisions of Howard Roark even though she doesn’t agree with it or rather she trusts him with it because she respects him deeply.This is the same case in the scenes where Padmaavati doesn’t trust Khilji but doesn’t question Ratan Singh and his decisions of letting Khilji alone in Chittor before leaving to Delhi and his decision of going to Khilji’s tent outside Chittor before returning to Delhi. Both the women have stood up for the men they love. Dominique Francon has shown this by testifying for Howard Roark in court and Padmavati by going to Delhi to rescue her beloved husband Ratan husband from the gruesome hands of Khilji.

When it comes to Howard Roark and Ratan Singh, both of them are amazed and at the same time have given space to the women in their lives. They haven’t forced them to make a decision for them and have respected their feelings. Roark has never blamed Dominique for her criticism about him in public newspapers as this was related to her work.Similarly, Ratan Singh has never blamed Padmavati for her beauty which I’m sure would have been the case today (as is evident the case from the million incidents of rape incidents that we have read, seen or heard in India)

The idea of this article is to not to just draw a parallel between these two brilliant works. The idea is to open your eyes, look around and understand what the world has come to. If the world were full of Ratan Singhs and Padmaavatis and Dominique Francons and Howard Roarks, won’t world be a better place?Will it lack creativity? No. Will it have peace? Definitely yes 🙂

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