Weekend

To day in the weekend blog I am writing about a Bollywood film which was released six decades back in 1960. This film is hailed as the greatest milestone in Indian cinema. People connected with film industry, during the making of this film labelled the director of this movie as mad person with comments that this director will see to that the producer of the movie is finished financially. The reason for this was, in those days a normal Hindi film would cast maximum Rs 5 to 7 lakhs, this movie when completed costed producer Rs 1.5 Cr and every one in the industry was worried whether this film will recover its cost on not. This film from the time it was concepted took 16 years to complete. But when this film was released , the audience were left spell bound because they had not seen any thing like this film before on Indian screen.The film was made partly in colour, its two songs were shot in colour. The film in its first run did the business of Rs 11 Cr, when even film doing business of Rs 1Cr was also unheard. As per industry expert, if inflation and cost of tickets are taken into consideration, the equivalent value of film’s business in today’s term would be Rs 3000Cr, which is much more than the business of Bahubali 1 &2 combined, which is considered as all time greatest hit in terms of business. This film was re released in 2004, when it was coloured fully with some digital process , and still did much better than many  top grade films released during that year. Friends have you guessed the name of the film-yes the film is all time great MUGHAL E AZAM. The film was directed by K Asif, produced by an industrialist Shapoor Pallanji  and it had stellar star cast consisting Prithviraj Kapoor, Madhubala, Dilip Kumar, Ajit, Nigar Sultana and others in pivotal role, the songs were written by Shakeel Badayuni and music was composed by Naushad . And today I am writing about some unknown facts about this film:

1. When the film’s released was announced, there was unprecedented rush for the  advance booking, in some theatres there were  queues which were huge and can be said miles long.
2. This film was based on stage play Anarkali written by Imtiaz Ali, which was a fictitious love story based in the times of Emperor Akbar, and showed how Price Salim (son of Akbar) falls in love with a Kaneej (servant ) in their palace.
3. K Asif conceptualised this film in 1946, with Nargis as Anarkali, Chandra Mohan as Akbar and Sapru as Salim, but due to partition happening in 1947 the producer of the fil Siraj ali migrated to Pakistan and Chandramohan also died at later stage.
4. In 1953, film Anarkali starring Bina Rai & Pradeep Kumar was released which was based on same story and was directed by Nandlal Jaswantlal. This was a big set back for K Asif but he still went ahead on his pre production work.
5. No regular producer of  that time was ready to produce this film when K Asif told them his budget for this film will be around Rs 1 Cr. So K Asif started approaching people from outside the film Industry and in the end Shapoorji Pallanji agreed to produce this film.
6. Although initially K Asif had no inclination of signing Dilip Kumar for the role of Prince Salim, but  Shapoorji Pallanji insisted for Dilip Kumar. For the role of Anarkali K Asif first thought about Suraiya but she did not agree and then Madhubala was finalised. It is a fact that this film became Madhubala’s swan song, and her life best performance.
7. During shooting of film, Prithviraj Kapoor had to walk bare footed on  the hot sands of desert in Rajasthan for some scenes, which resulted in blisters on his feet. K Asif was so touched by Prithviraj Kapoor action and as there was no complain from the star, that K Asif never wore the shoe/chappal while shooting this film.
8. There is story behind the song ‘Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya’, which Shakeel Badayuni had to rewrite about 105 times to satisfy the director. Secondly in those days recording technology was not that advance, so to get the echo effect in this song in one of the Antra, Lata Mangeshkar during recording had to sing this one antra in small bathroom to get the echo effect. And for the song ‘Ae Mohabbat Zindabad’ which was sung by Mohd Rafi, Naushad used 100 chorus singer along with Rafi for the effect, why this was done because in the film there were more than 1000s of soldiers singing the chorus.
9. During the making of the film, Nigar Sultana who was also acting in this film and happened to be the wife of K Asif divorced each other. After this K Asif started his affair with sister of Dilip Kumar and eventually they married. This was not liked by Dilip Kumar and he did not attend the grand premiere of Mughal E Azam at Maratha Mandir in Bombay. When the film started there was romance going on  between Dilip Kumar & Madhubala which ended during the making of this film only.
10.  When the film was released in colour version in 2004, that time again premiere was held and this time Dilip Kumar attended the premiere show.
11. In the film there was one background song which was to be played when Prince Salim and Anarkali are meeting in Garden. As the song was classical and in the film it was to be shown as this is being supposedly  sung by Tansen, K Asif wanted that some great classical singer to sing and he zeroed on Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, who was not in filmi singing. When K Asif and composer Naushad approached Ustad, just to discourage them  Ustad told them he does not sing for film even if you pay me Rs 25,ooo for the song I will not sing. This amount was too big in those days when Mohd Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar would charge Rs 500 per song. It is said that K Asif immediately removed Rs 10,000 from his Kurta’s pocket and told Ustad this is your advance balance I will pay you when you come tomorrow for recording. Such was K Asif’s passion for making Mughal e Azam, a really class film.
12. There were two songs to be picturised in Sheesh Mahal (Palace made of Glass), a set was erected in studio located in Andheri, Bombay. Glass and mirrors were imported from Belgium for this purpose. But when the set was completed there was big problem how to shoot, because everywhere there were glass/mirrors and with lights on there were too many reflections and images. The cinematographer RD Mathur realised that he had a big task on his hand, and after so many trials and errors  some scheme was finalised to shoot the sequences. As the sequences/songs were to be shot in colour, and there was no colour processing Lab in India at that time. So after shooting few sequences, the raw film was then sent to London for processing to see the results. Even technicians at London were shocked to see the results and specifically came down to India too see how the film was shot.
13. Even after the release of the film set was not dismantled for almost 2 years and selected public had the opportunity to visit the set. I remember seeing this set in 1961, I was 12 years old then, and tell you it was a real treat to watch the set and that memory still lingers in my mind.

So those were the days when passion of film making was so great for some makers and they were never bothered about commerce, for them film making was an art and K Asif was such a person. He made only one or two films before Mughal e Azam, but this one film made him immortal. Even after 60 years and  with modern technology no one is able to match the brilliance of Mughal e Azam.

What you say my friends.

waiting for your feed backs/comments/views.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

22nd Feb 2020.