Mughal-e-Azam -: Legend as Epic Paperback – September 18, 2013

This well researched book deals with force of passion and anklets of death'smusic in the medium of films of iconic stature. This book raises issues related to illusion versus reality, history versus fiction, love versus revenge, elite stratification, state and class verses plebeian identities, values of justice and fire of state versus surreal love lores. The tradition of mixed languages, the relation of narrative to screen play, the reality and legend of Akbar, the fiction of Anarkali are brought together by Asif on the basis of a novel written in 1922 by Taj. The latter delved into the histories and legends, the tradition of evolving languages during 1870 to 1940 and the fable of Anarkali through the music of Indian classical ragas. Its uniqueness lies in its peep into music, language, story, screen play, costumes, making of exorbitant sets, shoes, technical aspects of film music fusion and sky rocketing budget of this iconic film. Just a draw back too. The human element of the artists, their preparation, distillation into performances is missing. One knows that when the film was being made the main love birds were on opposite side of a real life divide and yet their on screen rendering of the scene where Saleem goes to the quarters of the Kane's for the first time is an iconic scene. Remember the feather and the candle (anklet and fire).That and many other aspects need to be brought out, apart from how studio dummy horses were used for Prithviraj and Dilip Kumar and trans posed on the battle scene. The fire of state craft consumed love through death that gave the song: pyramid Kiya to darna Kya: Freedom.