Jodhaa Akbar

If Ashutosh Gowarikar is proud of his latest magnum opus, a badly contrived story of an imaginary historical romance, he is a film-faker too. And the khullamkhulla crusade and tirade against his ilk continues.

I don’t have any problems about the film’s historical accuracies and inaccuracies. In fact, it is as accurate as it can be. The characters depicted in the film did exist and Akbar was married to the daughter of the king of Amber and she was the mother of Salim, who succeeded Akbar and was later known as Jahangir. If her name was Jodha or something else, none could ever be sure about it. Many Rajput kings gave away their daughters to Akbar to buy his friendship and peace. Even Mughal historians could not recall the names of his countless wives. None will ever know if one of them was called Jodha. It is also a fact that Bairam Khan acted as his regent and there existed a kind of petticoat cabal led by his mother Hamida Begum and Maham Anaga, his chief nurse.

Everyone, from bards to biographers and learned historians, twists and turns such historical tales a wee bit here and there while presenting it from his/her perspective. Why single out a filmmaker for criticism on this count? Those who are clamoring for Ashutosh Gowarikar’s apology over the ‘misrepresentation’ of history are idiots. They don’t know their history and are barking up the wrong tree. Jahanghir’s wife was Man Bai, daughter of Raja Bhagwan Das of Amber, and a niece of his mother. Did Jehangir have another Rajput wife named Jodhabai? He might have had. Who knows and cares? Manbai and a more famous Nur Jahan find mention as his wives in the history books. And the Rajputs who are claiming to be long lost relatives of Jodhabai should be hiding their faces in shame instead of burning the film's posters since their ancestors were renegades who sided with 'vidharmis' and traded their daughters for pelf, power, and a share in the invader's loot. And no self respecting Rajput and kshatriya will marry in their families.

The problem of the film lies elsewhere. A historical film calls for a lot of hard work at every stage of its creation. If you are not prepared to do the slogging, better not make the film. An interesting and catchy title and availability of stars are not good enough reasons to embark on such arduous, demanding, and stormy voyages. You must be propelled by a compelling cinematic vision. Ashutosh lacked it and that became the nemesis of his film.

His film falters badly on almost all counts, from screenplay to dialogues, characterizations, performances, costumes, mise-en-scene, and cinematography. I do not say this because I have some otherworldly artistic yardstick in my cynical and ultra-critical head. Why should I do it when we have ‘Mughal-e-Aazam’, the inspiration behind the subject of Gowarikar’s film and its title, as our gold standard?

If ‘Mughal-e-Aazam’ is the glorious pinnacle of Indian filmmaking, ‘Jodha Akbar’ is its pitiable pits. It is a caricature that reduces the grandeur of the era, and the subject of the film to a pedestrian ‘Dhoom 2’ kind of a love story. In fact the romantic scenes in the film come out as copies of ‘Dhoom 2’ if you substitute the revealing costumes of the central characters with historical attire. If Ash and Hritik play basketball in 'Dhoom 2' to take measure of each other, they have an overextended and sloppily shot sword fight in Jodha Akbar.

Akbar comes across as a ramp model, dressed in dandified designer wear, the wont and style of the modern day fashionistas.  Gowarikar should have taken the services of some old darzis to stitch the emperor’s clothes with additional padding to give Hritik the much needed ‘shahi’ touch. Though he underlines all kinds of elements including Rajasthani vegetarian food with great emphasis, he fails to do the essentials. He has not worked enough on the character of Akbar. Much of this folly emanates from his anxiety and penchant to portray his principle protagonist as an epitome of secularism. This standard Bollywood touch can really be so damaging at times.

Who was Akbar?
He was crowned the emperor of India at the age of thirteen, and was virtually brought up in the war zone following the Timurid tradition. By the time he was nineteen, he had plotted the downfall of his powerful regent Bairam Khan to take complete command over his empire, fought wars continuously, subjugated great opponents through the use of his sword, military prowess, and shrewd diplomatic moves and was married to a Rajput princess to create a political alliance that served his expansionist cause well.

Gowarikar’s Akbar is a comic caricature in comparison. Do I mean to say that Hritik is a bad actor? No, no. You cannot blame Hritik for this. Blame Gowarikar for the shallow interpretation of a multilayered character. Even a Dilip Kumar could not have salvaged anything out of this poorly contrived Bollywood script. Conversely, it would have turned out to be an Oscar-winning role had it been developed rightly.

The film opens with a close-up of a chubby and chocolaty kid, the child Akbar, scared, and suffering from indecision when asked to behead Hemu, the captured emperor of Delhi, while his regent Bairam Khan pleads with him to do the needful to become a true Ghazi by eliminating an infidel. There are two versions of the story. One says Akbar struck Hemu with his sword while Bairam Khan gave the finishing touches. The other version, obviously a concocted and sanitized one, says that Akbar refused to kill the vanquished enemy, and let Bairam Khan do the needful.

Now think cinematically. Which version would have added more grit, gore, and a dramatically interesting dimension to Akbar’s character? Probably the first one, yet Gowarikar chose the sanitized version. And we all know why. He trivialized the young emperor’s character in the process, leaving nothing worth being explored and discovered than ‘Dhoom 2’ kind of commonplace romance between two top line Bollywood stars sans that fleeting brush of lips. 

It is a blasphemy to compare Gowarikar’s infantile extravaganza, the most expensive film ever made, with ‘Mughal-e-Aazam’, and I am committing it to reassert and to remind our film audiences and wannabe filmmakers of the high standards of Indian filmmaking. Every character in that masterpiece of a film was developed and cast with painstaking care. Apart from the main players like Akbar, Jodhabai, Saleem, Anarkali, Mansingh, Durjan Singh, Bahar, and the Sangtarash, even minor characters like darbaris, eunuchs, dasis, and palace guards were carefully chosen, suitably attired, and correctly presented. They were not caricatures. Even the young prince Saleem played by Jalal Agha who appears in just one scene, was so aptly cast. This is the least Gowarikar could have done as the film’s director.

It is not just poor characterizations and the resultant weak performances; Gowarikar has screwed up in other areas of filmmaking as well. The scenes of war, proceedings in Akbar’s darbar, royal processions, the conspiratorial air in the inner quarters and harem, these are all badly handled and have little cinematic value. He devotes more footage and energy on showcasing the ornate ceilings of Jodha’s bedroom. The lighting, production design, and camera work are used for blatant beautification of Jodha’s face and the sets instead of giving you a sense of history, royal decorum and dignity, and the grandeur of the period. It is more of a stagy costume drama than a film.

Its story and screenplay is a patchy mishmash of a variety of disjointed plots, scenes, and sequences. It hovers around insipid war scenes, childish conspiracies among darbaris, usual saas-bahu jhagdas, miyan bibi ki nok jhonk aur maan manuhar, aur Jodhabai ke bed room scenes. The editor of the film uses a lot of black dissolves to add them up to create a semblance of a sensible narrative structure.

Though Gowarikar tries to insert some unknown facets of Akbar’s life in the film, he fails to weave and integrate them in his mediocre screenplay and characterizations. There is a scene where Akbar joins the singing and dancing dervishes and almost goes into a mystical trance. It is a fact that Sufism heavily influenced Akbar. Gowarikar’s depiction looks ludicrous and comic since the screenplay does not provide a credible context to the scene. The killing of Adham Khan, son of his foster mother Maham Anaga, on Akbar’s orders is another instance of directorial failure. The horror of the cold-blooded killing is only apparent to Jodha as she flinches every time Adham Khan is thrown down the terrace. The audience finds it funny and laughs at it.

The film also has a scene of Akbar taming an obviously tamed elephant. And the fight between Akbar and his brother-in-law Sharffuddin in the middle of a desert is as memorable and sublime as what we see in the B grade movies of yore. What a fight? This Akbar vs. Sharfu bout should be included among the classic fake and faltu fights of the WWF. Gowarikar should have cast the great Khali in Miyan Sharfuddin’s role for better effect and comic impact. Jodha Akbar will also be remembered for some particularly horrible looking faces that include those of Bairam Khan and the darbar announcer. Gowarikar is probably trying to convey another little known fact in a subtle manner about how beautiful Rajput women preferred to die than be touched by monstrous-looking Muslims.

Such subtlety is missing in the film’s dialogues. You have slightly modified versions of ‘kutte, kameene, main tera khoon pee jaunga…’ kind of words tumbling out of the great emperor’s mouth in a tone and tenor that would make Dharam pa ji proud. We also have Big B’s lifeless introductory narration in the beginning of the film, a bad adaptation of Mughal-e-Aazam’s great opening sequence of ‘Main Hindustan hoon…’.

How can I forget the scene where Akbar practics with his sword and Jodha watches his rippling, shining, and shimmering muscles in extreme close up and warms up to Akbar's muscly charm? UTV should have got Talwalkar's to sponsor the scene as they got Tanishq to sponsor Jodha's jewelry. Was this 'deh darshan' one of the conditions of Hritik for doing the film? Or was it done to give an eyeful of the handsome hunk to turn middle aged women on?

So what is it that is being liked about the film by the dumbo multiplex audiences? Is it the length of the film, or the knowledge it imparts of how Mughal emperors wooed and screwed their women? Is it the rippling muscles of Hritik or Jodha’s jewelry or the sword fights in white robes? Is it the way a demure Hindu queen reforms a Muslim emperor by using her heavily ornamented persona and naaz nakhras? Is it the saas-bahu jhgada between Jodha and Maham Anaga? Is it the idea of Akbar’s Hinduisation? Is it Sharfu Miyan’s rebellion and his do do hanth with Akbar Badshah? In my view, the pure stupidity of the proceedings in the film perfectly matches the non-sensibilities of these ullus.

Let all doubts be dispelled jahanpanah; the age of owls and assholes has finally arrived with the advent of the multiplex and mall culture.   

RKS