South Asian Business news and information

This is the last post of this series. I hope you enjoyed reading them.

In one of the scenes in Mughal-E-Azam, Dilip Kumar softly strikes with a feather on Madhubala’s face. It is considered to be one of the most erotic secnes in Bollywood cinema.

On August 5, 1960, the movie was released at the Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai. Seven weeks before first show, the theatre was booked.

The premiere of the movie was a royal ceremony. Mumbai's Maratha Mandir theatre was beautifully decorated. It looked like a Mughal Palace. The print of the movie was brought on the back of elephant. Invitation letters were written in Mughal style; Urdu message on a velvet scroll. It contained the seal of Akbarnama. Only those who had invitations gained entry into the premiere.

After all the hardwork, Mughal-E-Azam achieved tremendous level of success. For the next three years, the movie generated full house shows every where in India.A record which remained unbroken for the next 34 years. In 1975, Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay broke the record. This made Mughal-E-Azam the second all time blockbuster movies.     

There was a two kilometer long que of 1,00,000 people in front of the Maratha Mandir theatre. The ticket price was Rs. 1.60. In black market, tickets were sold at Rs. 100. The then Chief Minister of Mumbai, Shankar Rao Chauhan, went with his cabinet to see the movie. When the movie was released at Broadway, Dadar, huge crowd of people gathered. At that time, the Dadar Bridge was declared one-way road.  

Interesting enough, people from Pakistan even came to see the movie. For this reason, Pakistani government relaxed visa rules at that time.

At present, Dilip Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar are the only two surviving members of the Mughal-E-Azam team. Naushad, music director of the movie, passed away in 2006. Before his death, he worked on the music of the colorized version of Mughal-E-Azam. 

The fun fact about Sheesh Mahal is that the original Sheesh Mahal did not exist during Emperor Akbar’s time. The Sheesh Mahal of Lahore Fort was built by Emperor Akbar’s grandson Emperor, Shah Jahan. This is a misrepresentation of history. Many famous historical films whether Hollywood or Bollywood, had to deal with the problems of historical misrepresentation. For example, in the 1995 blockbuster historical movie, Brave Heart, it was shown that low land Scots wore kilts. Historically, this is inaccurate.  

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