We confess we are a tad intrigued by Deepika Padukone’s latest statement. Speaking about coming together with rumoured beau Ranveer Singh for the third time after Ram Leela and Bajirao Mastani, she declared, “It is very weird! Sanjay (Bhansali) sir brought the two of us together for two love stories and then he decided to put us in some kind of hate story. We are almost like the beauty and the beast in Padmavati!” While Ranveer, wearing animal fur and tearing at meat, does suggest a beast-like intensity, Beauty and the Beast was a love story through and through – something Padmavati surely isn’t!

During her various promotions, Deepika has been pointedly underlining the fact that she, as Rani Padmavati, and Ranveer Singh, as Alauddin Khilji, don’t appear in a single frame together in the film. She did it on ‘Bigg Boss’ too and Salman Khan took up the point, sarcastically repeating it umpteen times for the benefit of any sena workers who could have been watching!

https://twitter.com/PeepingMoon/status/932274859073089538

However, the release of the film has been supposedly voluntarily postponed; it will not hit screens on December 1, after all. The film’s leading lady, who has faced criticism from fringe elements, continues to support the film strongly. “We are extremely proud and confident of the film we have made,” she states. “When the heart is in the right place, no one can stop a film. While working on the film, as artistes, we were in a different zone. I only spoke up last month after I finished the film and came out of that zone. That’s when I wondered for how long are we going to remain silent? For how long would the entertainment industry be made a scapegoat for everything that happens in this country? I believe we are constantly answerable to everyone for some reason or the other. Why attack cinema which is full of love and which brings people together? Why curb people’s freedom of expression? How long can we allow some people to get away with what they have been doing?

Tough questions which most are happy to avoid answering…