South Asian Business news and information

With great excitement, Hindi movie goers are waiting for the upcoming movie of Hrithik Roshan; Jodha Akbar. Based on the love relationship of Mughal Emperor Akbar and his wife, Jodhabai, the movie is going to be one of the most expensive movies ever made in Bollywood. Here are some interesting facts about the movie you would like to know. I have collected them from the following websites:

Hrithikrules.com

Akbarjodha.net

Akbarjodha.com 

Hope you enjoy reading them.   

Ashutosh wrote the script of Jodha Akbar for nine years. He had been planning this movie since the making of Lagaan: Once upon a time in India. However, he did not do it at that time because he understood that making of the movie required lots of research work. Ashutosh Gowariker paid attention to the minutest details while making the movie. For each of the scenes, the director made sketches. Hrithik Roshan was very much impressed by Ashutosh’s home work.

For this movie, Ashutosh did not even bothered to save his last penny. He hired foreign technicians to shoot the war scenes of the movie.

People for Animal (PFA) filed a complaint to the Rajasthan police in November last year against Ashutosh Gowariker. The group said that he violated the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act by ill treating the animals used in the movie. 80 elephants, 100 horses and 55 camels were used for making the movie. According to PFA chairman Naresh Kadyan, the animals were subjected to great hardship during the shooting. Before PFA, The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also sent a notice to Gowarikar's production company about this matter.

Another major legal problem arose when Rajput community filed a case against Ashutosh Gowariker Production Pvt Limited, alleging Ashutosh Gowariker on distorting the actual history. According to India-forums.com

He said that Gowarikar was presenting Jodhabai as the wife of Akbar. 'You cannot make your own history and Ashutosh Gowarikar is making his own history. He is projecting Jodhabai, who is Akbar's daughter-in-law, as his beloved and making a love story out of that. This is totally distorting historical facts,' Rajawat said.

When the case came up for hearing on Thursday, Rajawat told the court that Jodhabai was in fact the daughter of Motaraja Udai Singh of Marwar and was married in 1586 to Akbar's son Salim alias Jahangir.

He said Mughal king Shahjahan was the son of this Jodhabai. But Gowarikar has chosen to present Jodhabai as the wife of Akbar and daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber near Jaipur, which is not historically correct.

Though the Rajput community alleged Ashutosh Gowariker for distorting the history he said that he assembled a group of researchers from Delhi, Lucknow, Agra and Jaipur to do initial reseach about the story.