For many, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s drama 𝐵𝑎𝑗𝑖𝑟𝑎𝑜 𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑖 is the celebration of the epic love between Peshwa Bajirao ( @RanveerOfficial) and his Mastani ( @deepikapadukone).

𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭.

#ErosNowSelect | #BajiraoMastani - THREAD.

Instead, it is about Kashi—the Maratha prime minister’s first wife who watches with quiet dignity as the man she has given her whole life to makes another woman his whole life.

(2/10)

In elegant navvaris, flowers in her hair and tears brimming in her kohl-rimmed eyes, @priyankachopra makes a heartbreakingly beautiful Kashi—again and again choosing not what she 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 but what the man she loves 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑠.

(3/10)

When against all counsel, in rebellion of religion and elders alike, Bajirao brings home his Muslim wife, it is Kashi who welcomes her—stoic, but still true to her duties as the Peshwa’s wife.

(4/10)

When the women of the mahal congregate to celebrate the festival of Haldi Kumkum, it is Kashi who, gift in hand, walks to Mastani Mahal. For a moment she slips and goads the woman her husband loves more. But immediately, she recovers her poise and chooses to be an ally.

(5/10)

Naturally, as her heart breaks again and again, indecision flickers.

On the eve of a Ganesh puja, amid the glitz and clamour of an aarti, Kashi learns that Mastani’s life is in danger. If Mastani dies, Kashi gets back her old life. Yet, she chooses what is 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡.

(6/10)

Yet she chooses, in a heart-wrenching scene, to let her husband mistake her for Mastani as he lays dying.

(7/10)

A love so deep and it still isn’t Bajirao-Kashibai? Why? Because, as Kashi observes, “Pati patni ka rishta chahe kitna gehra bhi ho, log toh preyasi ko hi yaad rakhte hai."

And so, this post seeks to ask: Why is it that all the world’s greatest lovers—Radha-Krishna, Romeo-Juliet, Laila-Majnu—come in pairs?

When it is possible, that sometimes the purest love comes from single hearts that beat to keep another in rhythm.

Hearts, that even after being shattered, broken, placed second, go on loving—with very little asked in return.

Hearts like that of Kashibai.

(10/10)

@bhansali_Prod | @TeamPriyanka | #BajiraoMastani | #Bollywood | #SceneSelect