The film Mughal-E-Azam began in 1944 and was completed in 1960. With a brief hiatus in between, the film was completed in a span of ten years – the actual shooting days just being 500! At that time, when films could easily be completed within a budget of 12-15 lakhs including the star cast, Mughal-E-Azam was aiming to set records. The budget of the film was around a whooping 1.5 crore during that time. All these facts just sum up was the passion of the film maker K. Asif, the producer Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry and other artisans associated with the film.
The same essence of the film has been captured by Prof. Anil Zankar in his recently released book Mughal-E-Azam (Legend as Epic). Published by HarperCollins, the book takes a microscopic look at the various aspects of film by drawing upon the heritage of rich Indian arts and culture.
The book makes no fuss about the lead character Akbar in terms his rich lineage or his interests in literature, music, arts and architecture. Rather, Akbar is looked upon as an emperor, who is concerned with the welfare of the state and at the same time wishes to transform his son into a wise prince. However, trouble ensues as Saleem is in love with Anarkali, who is a dancer in the court. Like many tragic love stories, the fate of this love story too is in the hands of Akbar, for whom state welfare is always above his son’s whims and fancies.
The book intricately looks at the all the characters in terms of their personality traits and disguised intentions, which forms the core plot of the story. This along with design of the script, language and dialogue usage, music and aspects like cinematography are minutely scrutinized for better understanding of this cult film.
The film is an adaptation of a play titled ‘Taj’, written by Imtiyaz Ali in Lahore. The book also highlights the deviations from the play, which are quite significant. It must be noted that in the film Hindustan, the nation is the main narrator that introduces the context and the story. According to Prof. Zankar, this lent the film a grand status, which wasn’t seen earlier in other films. Also, the amount of research behind the book will make you want to re-read it every time you watch the film to actually understand the grandeur behind making of a magnum opus like Mughal-E-Azam.
The book also significantly highlights the perfectionist attitude of the director K. Asif. The book states one of the instances, when Akbar was required to wear pearl-laden shoes in a shot that were quite expensive, around Rs 3000 (a lot in those days). Much to the discomfort of the production team, Asif insisted on buying the expensive shoes. So, when the cinematographer of the film R. D. Mathur asked Asif for his insistence, he replied, “Your camera may not see the shoes significantly in the shot, but when my Akbar wears those shoes and walks, he will feel every inch an emperor and that expression is what the camera will capture.”
In fact, K.Asif’s admiration for Akbar led to the culmination of a film of this stature, which is being re-told in Prof. Zankar’s book too.
Trivia:
For the battle scenes, one whole division of the Indian Army (about 8000 soldiers) was employed for two months in Rajasthan.
Every raag used in the film’s background score was in tune with the time of the day. Yet no reviewer took note of this fact!
The film released on August 5, 1960 and was premiered at Maratha Mandir in Mumbai
The article was previously published on the website www.mytheatrecafe.com. Here is the link: http://www.mytheatrecafe.com/4673-mughal-e-azam-anil-zankar-harper-collins-k-asif-dilip-kumar-madhubala/
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