Mohabbat joh darti ho woh mohabbat nahin… ayyashi hai, gunaah hai’

(Love that is scared is not love… it is debauchery, it is crime.)

An artist often holds a concept close to his heart and works upon it for several years, before he finally manages to create an immortal piece. The subject of Gandhi stayed with Sir Richard Attenborough for twenty years. Similarly, K. Asif started working on Mughal-e-Azam in 1944, but by the time his dream was realised, August 1960 had dawned. Nursing such dreams is not different from sharing the bed with a snake. A living mission, a writhing, wriggling dream which bites, stings and pinches, and keeps one restless for as long as it stays.

Mughal-e-Azam is a beautiful product of the fertile imagination of some of the most talented minds. In the late 1800, writer Abdul Halim Sharar had written a work of fiction built around Anarkali (pomegranate blossom), supposedly one of Akbar’s favourite dancing girls. This story gained popularity and was adapted into literature, art and cinema. Syed Imtiaz Ali Taj, an Urdu dramatist, is remembered above all for his 1922 play Anarkali, with the purpose of creating a love story that would enchant all. It was staged hundreds of times before being adapted for feature films in India and Pakistan, and finally reproduced as the famous film Mughal-e-Azam, in 1960.

Director Kamruddin Asif, or popularly K. Asif, formally purchased the film rights of the play from Imtiaz. Like Shakespeare who tapped the Lives of the historian Plutarch and used the historical characters to his convenience to create great masterpieces, K. Asif’s team of writers performed the same magic. Asif joined hands with Aman (Zeenat Aman’s father, also known as Amanullah Khan) to create a beautiful script. For the dialogues he put to work great writers of Urdu and Hindi like Ehsan Rizvi, Kamaal Amrohi, Dr Sabdar, Amanullah Khan and Wajahat Mirza for a few years. A situation was allotted to each for writing a scene, and a joint reading was held after that. This churning got the script and dialogues into shape.

The stupendous character of Akbar is the priceless gift of the affection that existed between a visionary director like K. Asif and a phenomenal actor like Prithviraj Kapoor. A product of the stage, Prithviraj was forever breathing down director K. Asif’s neck: ‘How do I essay Akbar?’ During the shooting, Asif had given Prithviraj a few tips: let alone the set, even at home he was to behave like a king, he was never to pick up anything; he was to address the servants in a regal manner, issue diktats; he was to keep a regal bass-note to his voice. Prithviraj took these tips so much to heart that, according to old timers, his voice changed during the course of the movie.

In the movie, when Akbar goes to pay his homage to Sheikh Chishti, he walks barefoot on the hot sand. For rehearsing this, Prithviraj practised walking on the sands of Juhu, it is said. Once, at the Film City, Dilip Kumar, who was directing Sudhakar Bokade’s Kalinga at that time, reminisced, Asif took repeated re-takes of Akbar’s barefoot visit to Sheikh Chishti, to the point that even Prithviraj was a little disturbed.

The movie surmounted innumerable obstacles during its production journey of nine years. There were many mountains to cross. The country was torn into two. Many Muslim artists left for Lahore. Producer Hakeem, a close friend of Barrister Mohammad Ali Jinnah felt it unsafe to live in India. He sold off his ‘Famous Studio’, packed the negatives of Mughal-e-Azam to rust in boxes, and left for Pakistan. Later senior actors like Chandramohan and Sapru passed away. Asif, however, marched on relentlessly.

Despite all the political changes, young Asif refused to be diverted from his mission. The desire to present the majestic image of Emperor Akbar on the silver screen was an obsession with him. Born in the small town of Ittawa in Uttar Pradesh, Asif had come to Mumbai to test his fortunes. His uncle Nazeer was a successful name in the film industry. Instead of standing in a beggar’s line for a feast, it was better, he thought, that his nephew earned a decent living. He opened up a tailoring shop for him. But the nephew continued to do the rounds of film studios. ‘I’ll make such films that I’ll leave everyone gasping for breath!’ he would brag in the vicinity of Ranjit Studios.

Then came to Mumbai a moneybag who was equally fixated with Akbar-the constructivas magnate, Seth Shapoorji Palloni. Akbar was the favourite topic of Shapoor’s wife too. Asif went and met him instantly. “Azam’ meant ‘the greatest of the Mughals”, explained Asif to Shapoorji, and went on to tell him the tale he wanted to film. Shapoorji bought the idea, and brought in his firm, Sterling Investments Pvt. Ltd., to finance the project.

K. Asif made the movie in the manner of a sculptor, sitting with his chisel and hammer and creating an immortal masterpiece. Keeping the original play Anarkali as its spine, the screenplay was made more elaborate.

It was also for the first time that Indian audiences witnessed such an enormous battlefield on screen. The advance of the armies, the combat between the forces of Saleem and Akbar required money and it flowed like water. The Indian Army had lent its cavalry for the battle scenes filmed on the deserts of Rajasthan.

K. Asif put as much money into the movie as others would have spent for twelve. In this context, I remember a story, which was often told to me by the cinematographer of Ganga Jamuna, S.V. Babasaheb. Asif had arranged for a pair of pearl-studded footwear for Akbar that cost Rs 4000. During those days, when a primary school teacher earned Rs 20 a month, it was a huge amount. When Mathur saw these expensive shoes, he was furious. ‘Kamruddin,’ he shouted, ‘why are you getting into such exorbitant expenses in the name of grandeur? You think these shoes are going to be visible to the camera?’ Asif lit a cigarette in his typical manner, and laughed, ‘My dear boy, when the Akbar who is going to put on these shoes gets to know their price, his walk and his delivery will acquire a special swagger. It is not his shoes, but the expression of his face that I want you to capture on film.’

Money was also blown in massive quantities to build the sheesh mahal (glass-palace) set, erected after months of hard work. It became the subject of much comment.

K. Asif lived a very simple life near Gowalia Tank. Mughal-e-Azam was being shot at Mohan Studios in Andheri East, where he would go by taxi. He was known for his helpful, compassionate, prodigal nature. There were enough envious people who created a din during the sheesh-mahal controversy. The expenses had been so stupendous that even a millionaire like Shapoorji was nervous. He began complaining, ‘Asif is pauperising me. No director can shoot in sheesh mahal!’ He decided to take the baton away from Asif. A similar uproar had been created by those envious regarding the novice Coppola during the making of The Godfather. Poor Coppola would get nightmares of the film being handed over to Roman Polanski.

At the request of Shapoorji, the film-maker Sohrab Modi promised to complete the film for him. When he arrived to see the sheesh-mahal set, K. Asif was quietly having a smoke in a corner. As Sohrab Modi was leaving the set, his car developed a snag, and the company car went to drop him home. On way, the driver could not hold himself back. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘Mr Asif is a strange person. Here he insists on fetching diamonds and pearls for Anarkali, plays with rubies and emeralds during the day, and himself lives in a ramshackle house. Just has a couple of pairs of vests and pajamas, and sleeps on a mat. Spends his salary away on friends. Good man, he is.’ When he reached home Sohrab Modi telephoned Shapoorji, ‘Your director Asif is an artist to the bone. If you mean well by the movie, don’t think of turning it over to me or to anyone else. Let him finish it.’

Mughal-e-Azam was released on 5 August 1960, at the Maratha Mandr cinema hall. It came decked up as a newly-married bride. It was released simultaneously at 150 theatres across the country. It is said that there was not enough coloured ink left in the market to make the posters. Excitement was at its peak among the filmgoers. People had come from Pakistan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka to watch the film. People stood in line for three continuous days and night to get their tickets.

The arrival of the movie confirmed the obsession-driven K. Asif as a genius. Shapoorji recovered his 15 million rupees many times over.

When colour arrived in filmdom, Muglal-e-Azam was in the final stages of completion, and K. Asif got a two-reel piece filmed in colour. The result was so satisfying that he went with his latest demand to Shapoorji: “Let’s re-shoot the entire movie in colour. But the budget-limit had long been exceeded. Shapoorji had arrived at the end of his patience, and he would have none of it.

Later, in 2004, the entire movie was given its hues. The close-up scenes look well done; Madhubala particularly looks beautiful in the song “Mohey panghat pey Nandlal chhed gayo re’.

There was no Anarkali in history, but mixing up fact and fiction, history and legend, K. Asif created an unbelievable mix called Mughal-e-Azam and gifted a priceless piece of art to the world.

Films were made yesterday, they continue to be made today, and will be made tomorrow too. But the history of the Indian film industry will have to tarry a bit at this milestone of a movie before it proceeds further.

[Niyogi Books has given Fair Observer permission to publish this excerpt from All Time Favourite Books and Movies: And Their Epic Journey, Vishwas Patil, translated by Nadeem Khan, Niyogi Books, 2015.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.