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Mughal-e-Azam

Romance is a staple of Hindi cinema. No matter what the plot or genre—be it family drama, murder mystery, comedy, horror or superhero saga—at some point, two people will fall in love.

Films in which this doesn’t happen are outliers, or in industry parlance, ‘hatke’. Which effectively means that over more than a century of Indian cinema, we’ve seen millions of romances play out. Boy meets girl has transcended from custom to cliché. And yet I would argue that, despite the advances in technology and storytelling, no film has been able to surpass the exquisite romance of K. Asif’s 1960 masterpiece, Mughal-e-Azam.

The forbidden love affair between the crown prince of the Mughal empire and a kaneez, or slave girl, is a tragedy enhanced by spectacle. Salim and Anarkali (which means pomegranate blossom) aren’t mere mortals. Their actions and utterances shape the course of history. It’s a testament to Asif’s artistry that as we watch, we are so immersed in the sweeping narrative that we forget it’s a fabrication. There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that Anarkali existed. Or that Emperor Akbar and his son Salim, who would later ascend the throne as Emperor Jahangir, battled—literally—because Akbar was so incensed that Anarkali might become empress. Mughal-e-Azam exerts such power that fiction becomes fact.

For starters, the film stars Madhubala and Dilip Kumar, the Platonic ideals of regal Indian beauty. When we first see her, she is disguised as a statue, covered in white plaster. Both Salim and Akbar marvel at the perfection of the statue but we, the viewers, aren’t shown what they can see. When the statue is exposed, we can only guess at the beauty beneath the plaster. But a few scenes later, Asif masterfully unleashes Madhubala in the song ‘Mohe Panghat Pe’. She lifts her veil and bites her lip, flirtatiously, in close-up. Her blouse is dangerously tight and high-cut. ‘Mohe Panghat Pe’ is a rare instance of a religious song playing out as seduction. The prince is smitten and so are we.

This love story has frisson because it is doomed. And because it unfolds in gilded chambers and ornate alcoves. Anarkali sends Salim a note embedded in a lotus that floats downstream from her part of the palace to his. Her sister Suraiya acts as go-between. And the Machiavellian Bahar (played with icy cool by Nigar Sultana) is the rival who derails the relationship at every opportunity because she wants the crown for herself.

Early in the film, Bahar sets up a qawwali competition between herself and Anarkali, to be judged by Salim. Anarkali and Bahar face off in the memorable song ‘Teri Mehfil Mein’. At the end, the prince decides that Anarkali’s stance that love is worth risking ruin for, will only bring her thorns. But Anarkali masterfully sidesteps this ostensible defeat with the immortal line ‘Zehnaseeb. Kaanton ko murjhane ka khauf nahi hota.’

Mughal-e-Azam is filled with mic-drop moments like this one. The dialogue, credited to four writers—Kamal Amrohi, Aman, Ehsan Rizvi and Wajahat Mirza—is so sparkling that generations of viewers have memorized lines. When the colourized version of the film was released in 2009, theatres became like karaoke bars, with viewers saying the lines along with the characters. So when Jodha confronts Akbar, accusing him of being heartless, and he rebukes her saying, ‘Aap sirf maa hai, sirf maa,’ the viewers replied before the empress did: ‘Aur aap sirf shahenshah hai, sirf shahenshah.’

Even when no one speaks, the spell Mughal-e-Azam casts remains unbroken. In one of the film’s finest scenes, Salim and Anarkali meet in a courtyard filled with flowering trees. Blossoms are strewn everywhere. The court musician Tansen, voiced by the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, sings ‘Prem Jogan Ban Ke’ in the background. The prince caresses Anarkali’s face with a feather and then leans in for a kiss. Of course we never see lips touch. Just two bodies leaning into each other behind a feather. And yet this is, hands down, the most sensuous love scene in Hindi cinema.

A love story is only as good as the opposition. And can there be a fiercer opponent than an emperor willing to sacrifice his son for the good of the country? Prithviraj Kapoor, stern and solid like a rock wall, is formidable as Akbar. His rage sears the screen, especially in the film’s most iconic song, ‘Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya’. Originally, this was the only coloured sequence in the film, and it is spectacular. A defiant Anarkali declares her love for Salim—at one point, she kneels in front of him and sings ‘Unki tamanna dil mein rahegi, shamma isi mehfil mein rahegi’—while the emperor looks on, seething. The Sheesh Mahal or Hall of Mirrors echoes, visually and aurally, Anarkali’s undying passion. As she forcefully declares, ‘Purdah nahi jab koi khuda se, bando se purdah karna kya’, she reduces an emperor to a commoner with her emotion.

But Asif isn’t interested in creating villains. That would be too easy. And Mughal-e-Azam was his dream project, over which he toiled for two decades. Instead, in Emperor Akbar, Asif creates a giant of a man who is bound by duty and justice. We see his human side—before they fight each other on the battleground, he approaches Salim and attempts to make peace. But the father and son cannot reconcile. Asif also makes a case for love and individual freedom, especially through the character of the sculptor Kumar, who consistently speaks truth to power.

Ultimately, love must be sacrificed for the greater good. But Anarkali has the upper hand morally and the emperor recognizes this—he tells her that the Mughals will remember her favour.

Mughal-e-Azam is the gold standard for the historical in Hindi cinema. Any director who ventures into the territory is instantly compared and found wanting. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is perhaps the only one who has managed to come close to this level of spectacle and operatic emotion. But even he has never had a Madhubala and a Dilip Kumar lighting up the screen together.

Mughal-e-Azam is as much a myth as it is a movie. If possible, find the original black-and-white film. The colourized version, with its gaudy pinks and too-bright blues, taints the elegance of Asif’s frames. This story didn’t need more visual flamboyance. It is, as it stands, perfect.