Jodhaa Akbar: Ashutosh Gowariker’s most ambitious historical featuring Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai Bachchan turns 15

After Lagaan, Ashutosh Gowariker returned to a period film in Jodhaa Akbar in 2018. But to Gowariker Lagaan was a period film. Jodhaa Akbar is to the filmmaker a historical. Jodhaa Akbar is certainly not a costume drama. It isn’t set in a never-never land. The director felt if in modern times we make a story about the past, it must be correlated to the present. And Jodhaa Akbar is as relevant to present times as arranged marriages. Jodhaa and Akbar shared a perfect arranged marriage. Gowariker was fascinated by how their relationship must have grown after marriage. There was no reference in any books about what happened between them. The director took extreme care to make sure viewers believe in the relationship. Akbar’s marriage to Jodhabai was no common occurrence. It had a nationwide reverberation 465 years ago when society was far more conservative. How did their marriage affect those times? That’s a question relevant even today. Gowariker ensured what audiences saw in the film were Jodhaa and Akbar and not Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai . At least that’s what the director tried to ensure through their looks, body language and behaviour. Gowariker wanted to make his historical as believable as he would like to see it being. Every element big or small, from the texture of the clothes to the sets, dialogues and the protocol, even the incidental sounds of birds and animals, all had to be just right. It took Ashutosh two years of pre-production before he got into his first shot. Hyder Ali, who wrote Jodhaa Akbar, told Gowarikar, “In Mughal-e-Azam the focus was so much on Salim and Anarkali, nobody asked a fundamental question. How did Akbar come to marry Jodhabai in spite of their religious and cultural divide?” Ashutosh immediately reacted to their alliance. He saw an interesting story there that needed to be told. As for the youngsters connecting with the story, Ashutosh had one rule for relatability: he kept out any word or dialogue that the director didn’t understand in Urdu. This historic moment that takes us beyond the dynasties of Mughal history, couldn’t have been possible without Hrithik’s amazing capacity to infiltrate the portals of divinity through dance movements. The body language of the sword-wielding poet-warrior reminds us of Mel Gibson in Braveheart and Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai rather than Prithviraj Kapoor who played Akbar in K. Asif’s undying classic Mughal-e-Azam with such imposing imperiousness. The director consulted the best historians and went through the most rigorous research. The film’s length was seen as detrimental to its full impact and enjoyment. But Gowarikar was never calculating the length. His original edited cut was 3 hours 40 minutes. He finally cut it by 20 minutes more, and no one persuaded him to do so. As we traverse the simply stunning spectacle of Ashutosh Gowariker’s historical epic, often wonder-eyed and open-mouthed, we end up looking at Akbar as interpreted by Hrithik rather than as what the Mughal legend might have been. In terms of the creative and visual terrain covered in the three-hour, 20-minute journey, Gowariker’s vision subsumes a reined-in wealth of ideas and images into an opulent but aesthetic tale of love, romance, war, hatred and secularism. The director transports us into an era when brother battled brother in a bitter rage. But love blossomed in the heart of a secular Muslim emperor who married a fiercely individualistic Rajput princess and allowed her space to be her own person. The narrative patterns Akbar’s chequered life of love and wars through the various characters who influence his mind and heart. To begin with, we see the young Akbar being moulded into a violent person, brimming with ideas of revenge and acquisition by his senapati-mentor Bairam Khan. In a frightening burst of vengeful brutality, we see Akbar ordering his soldiers to throw a stubborn adversary head-first to death. But all said and done, Gowarikar’s Akbar is a man who’d rather live in peace than wallow in war. Alas, Akbar lived in violent battle-friendly times. Then there’s the complex relationship that Akbar shares with his foster mother, played by Ila Arun. But the friction between the foster mother and Akbar’s new bride could be straight out of Indra Kumar’s Beta! Gowariker also purposely brings in kitschy elements from commercial cinema to provide a kind of warm accessibility to his historic tale. The filming of the durbar song Azeem-o-shaan shahenshah is the last word in the spectacle. Breathtaking is the word that often comes to mind in this tale of vibrant valour and vitality. Never before had we seen battle sequences so spectacular and energetic in Hindi cinema. Take the opening sequence where the battle lines close ranks in such passionate movements that the audience almost feels trampled in the middle. Kiran Deohans’ swift but sublime cinematography is of international calibre, at par with Gladiator or Braveheart. A.R. Rahman’s music is a bit of a letdown though. Veering between authenticity and listener-friendliness, it’s a bit of a mellow mishmash signifying none of those enchanting echoes of Jodha and Akbar’s ever-lasting romanticism.

The love story occupies the pride of place in Jodhaa Akbar. The sudden marital alliance between the benign king and the free-spirited Rajput princess, their post-marriage courtship, the misunderstanding that cuts through their growing fondness, and the final and irreversible reconciliation, are portrayed with exquisite fluidity. Not once does the director allow the inherent opulence of his theme to overpower the love that grows between them. Hrithik’s pleading, poetic eyes in a warrior’s face define the historic romance as much as Aishwarya’s swan-like grace and passionate individualism. After _Dhoom_ 2 , this pair surely whips up a Mughlai feast of passion and romance. Jodhaa Akbar could be seen as a splendidly spiced-up slice of history. Or it can be savoured for the chemistry between the warrior and the princess, with hundreds of junior artistes, elephants, rabbits and parrots accompanying the couple’s journey. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram.