A journey in to a bygone era: Mughal-e-Azam

Love has given itself over to many interpretations and romanticisations over centuries since men and women realised it exists. Many a ballad and many a tragedy have been woven around it serving as the core of the narrative, and yet there are some that just stay with you long after the words have been sung, the melody faded and the characters turned to mere relics of the past. We move on, seeking contemporary pleasures that are in sync with the times, resorting to tweets and status updates about the inane drama in our lives, snatching bits of gossip from our peers, catching the latest sensational web series on NetFlix and grooving to the latest ditty from Rihanna. In a world where technology and our evenly matched fast-paced lives juxtapose into a perfectly chaotic routine, where do we make space for lilting shayaris, melliflous qawwalis and poignant guftagoo with our beloved? And who is mad enough to propose that we need to give such romantic forms of expression some attention in our time-crunched schedules where there are at least ten chores vying for our attention at any given point of the day?

One man and his motley crew and cast beg to differ and have put aside all and sundry to breathe life in to a long-forgotten era and its reigning love saga that entranced viewers of the past century to declare it the most sublime tale of its time. Seasoned director Feroz Abbas Khan known for his renditions of more gritty dramas like Gandhi My Father in celluloid and Tumhari Amrita on stage went against the grain and decided to lift the veil on an epic tale of unfulfilled desires, undying passion, shocking betrayal, the tilt of power, the cruel hand of justice and the questionable rule of an emperor who deemed to forfeit his son at the altar of honour-bound duty. Only this was a father who happened to be the erstwhile Emperor of Hindustan, the high and mighty Mughal emperor Jallaluddin Akbar and his rebel son Salim who defied his rule to surrender his fate at the mercy of his love. 

People especially of our parents’ generations may swear by K Asif’s 1960’s film Mughal-e-Azam and how irreplaceable it is in their memories of Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Prithviraj Kapoor and Durga Khote, that had Lata Mangeshkar belting out enthralling melodies helmed by Naushad. A remake on screen today would probably be mocked to death so taking up the challenge of moulding the story to adapt to a proscenium stage with live artistes singing and performing the narrative would seem a tad bit absurd. 

The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) and Shapoorji Pallonji thankfully did not agree and lend weight to Mr.Khan’s idea to blow away the dust of time from this work of art, known to be one of the most expensive films of its time that took 16 years in the making.

To put up such a grand act on stage replete with the cherished songs from the original film, with actors rekindling the flames of a long-extinguished romantic tryst between a young scion to the Mughal throne and a lissome and nubile nautch girl at the court, is commendable in itself. But to actually visualise this with a 70 member cast, bedecked in over 500 costumes, with lighting and mersmerising backdrops that add aura and ambience to the ongoing drama, the perfect synchronisation of the dances (whether it’s the whirling dervishes or the kathak dancers that chastise the scorn-worthy love between the two lovers), rendered soulfully by the female leads on stage is beyond imaginable. Not until you actually witness all this happening seamlessly does it dawn on you that it has to be sheer ambition, a gnawing zest to create the extraordinary and an eagerness to exhibit the same without a flaw that propels a director to take up such a project. And to this end, Mr.Khan leaves no stone unturned.

So what we do get in the theatrical adaptation of the famous tragedy even if you have seen the film is a pleasant revival of all that we have seen on screen, but with a more realistic feel of the pace and emotions of the actors performing it. We see the story rendered with technical finesse and an aesthetic prowess that is unmatched on stage till date. We are expected to be moved and swayed by the gentle waft of romance, and equally disturbed by the fractious relations between a family torn by love and loyalty for each other. The musical does succeed in doing all of this but is unfortunately marred by its length and the inadequacy of its lesser-known actors playing the principal characters whose rawness overpowers the back-breaking preparation and talent that serve as their strengths. While roping in celebrities for a venture like this may have diluted the impact of the actual story by turning the focus to the glam factor, it would have probably also fortified the formidable scale on which the stage adaptation is built. Especially for the exorbitant ticket rates that have been set for the show running over 2 hours, people will be looking forward to get a big bang for their buck. At its crux, a play no matter how grand you make its dressing and treatment, leans on the ability of its actors to emote and engage the viewer with a stage presence that is irrefutable.

Having said that, Mughal-e-Azam is a story that needs to live through the ages, as the tenets of human nature ensconced in its tale are immortal. While I am not a great fan of the original story myself, and nothing can probably surpass the magic that Madhubala as Anarkali wove with her enchanting beauty and grace, I still believe that a modern-day version that encapsulates much of the era of the Delhi sultanate with its tehzeeb, gustaakhi, shaan aur shaukat, intehaan and mohabbat is worth a dekko just to reinstate a timeless sense of lost love in a flitting generation with its equally fickle sense of relationships.