Bollywood has some big projects on hold and everyone at the moment is well aware and excited about this. Not only is Bollywood now filled with leading superstars and their action-packed movies, but it is also making progress in historical and mythological drama movies. There have been a lot of announcements recently regarding movies that are based on mythological epics, and it is interesting to see them coming up and especially now with all the latest technologies involved.
So, there are a lot of new Bollywood movies that are lined up and most of the major ones are mythology-based. From adaptations of Ramayana to stories of Mahabharata, mythology seemingly will now be brought to life. But, one thing that’s even more interesting is that filmmakers are going forward with single-character stories for these massive big-budget movies and on top of that, they are going ahead with the female characters.
Two stories that are eye-catching at the moment, besides everything else is the story of Draupadi and Sita coming alive on screen. These female idols are two of the biggest characters in Indian mythologies and a film based on them is sure to garner a lot of attention. “Draupadi” from Madhu Mantena will be starring Deepika Padukone, whereas “Sita: The Incarnation” from writer KV Vijayendra Prasad is supposedly starring Kareena Kapoor, though nothing has been finalized yet for the same.
What’s interesting is that both these movies will show how the Mahabharata and Ramayana unfolded according to the female characters. For ages now, we have seen how Mahabharata and Ramayana were both about the male characters battling it out, beating the evil out but nobody has given a thought on how it looked from the female character’s point of view.
We have all learned growing up and heard stories of Draupadi’s “Vastraharan” in front of all male characters. We have seen her marrying five men and all of them sharing her as their wife. We have also seen how Sita was abducted and we have also seen how Ram beats Ravana in the fight. While many say the fight came up to protect Sita, but a while later we see Sita going through the “Agnipariksha”. All of these are always shown from the way males wanted the stories to be told and heard.
Now, making films based on the female characters’ stories, and bringing out the emotions and thoughts that might have gone through their heads at that time is something we are all looking forward to. There’s a reason this is needed, as one needs to know that these stories didn’t only include men fighting with each other, protecting their pride. It also very much included the women in the stories and what they went through when they saw all of this happen in front of them.
Sita and Draupadi weren’t just princesses in their families; they were much more than that. Sadly though, we have never seen how and what happened to them much, besides knowing how they “dutifully” served their husbands. These films have a big responsibility, to change around the notions of how Sita and Draupadi were seen in these epics, and given the expected cast and the creators, we are madly hoping that they do enough justice to these legendary characters.
This is needed because both Sita and Draupadi weren’t just meant to be wives, but they were and always will be women who were much more than simply being a dutiful wife or mother and their stories need to be known, now more than ever.