Not history, it’s chemistry that’s in short supply. Review on Jodhaa Akbar

It is tasteful for its presentation of the stately grandeur of the Mogul/Rajput era. It shows just how astute and industrious, Ashutosh Gowariker, the director, can be, in pulling together a project of such logistical, artistic, and technological complexity. It makes you want to commend Bollywood for raising the bar of its craft to a world-class level, and for trying to revive a genre that is now long forgotten.

But with all that said, you can’t help feeling piqued about what this rather ‘ornate picture’ so sadly fails to capture. No, it is not history. It is chemistry that gets sorely sidelined in this lavish and ambitious undertaking.

Ignoring critical details can hurt you. In trying to be original about his efforts to resurrect the genre, Gowariker picks a hitherto unexplored chapter from the 200 years of the later part of medieval India, without realizing that there were perhaps valid reasons why this episode was never considered worthy of making a romantic drama out of.

The moguls, who were originally of the Sunni Islamic Persian dynasty called the Timurids controlled most of central Asia which includes today’s Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan in 14th century. They started their invasion of India in 1526 when Timur prince Babar won the first battle of Panipat to take control of Delhi. Akbar, the grandson of Babar, inherited the thrown at an early age of 14, from his father Humayun who died in an accident. Akbar’s rule lasted from 1556 to 1605, during which time it expanded to include most of northern and central India. He built an efficient and secular bureaucracy that was tolerant of religious differences and was rather kind to the fiefdoms and kingdoms that were willing to join the empire. His son, Jahangir, the patriarch of a mixed(Muslim-Hindu) generation of rulers to follow, whom we all know as Salim, the Romeo(well, not quite, he lives on, while only his lover, Anarkali, gets executed) of the Romeo-Juliet like saga of K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam(The super successful classic of 1960, perhaps the source of Gowariker’s inspiration and nostalgia) was in-charge from 1605 to 1627, when his son Shah Jahan, the king famous for commissioning the Taj Mahal(1630-1653), took over. The Mogul empire was at its peak during his tenure covering almost all of India. Shah Jahan’s son Aurangzeb oversaw the last chapter in the Mogul rule of India from 1658 to 1707.

The chapter in history the story(by Haidar Ali) covers is about the period in the young and illeterate prince Akbar’s life when he was building alliances with Rajput kingdoms, to facilitate his conquests - in particular, a matrimonial alliance with the daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber(present day Jaipur). The alliance is considered to be the first royal matrimony between Hindu and Muslim dynasties of India. Ignoring controversies that surround this not-so-universally accepted chronicle of history the movie tries its best to simply romanticize this alliance. The questions that are brushed aside, include but not limited to the very name of the Rajput princess(Was it Harka Bai who was later renamed Mariam-uz-zamani by Akbar, or Jodhaa Bai?) and her status as Akbar’s wife(Was she truly his consort, or just another captured member of his harem?). Writer Salman Rushdie's research on this part of history raised a whole lot of other fundamental questions. But setting academics aside, and looking at it just as another story, although visually very sumptuous(cinematography by Kiran Deohans), and rather poised in how it moves, the drama in it lacks punch and conviction. It fails to show the real chemistry, and also fails to build one with its audience. To make matters worse, since the very nature of its central theme of romance has no definitive end, the movie decides to abruptly stop at an arbitrary point in Akbar’s life, like a rambling musical composition without a crescendo.

There are no qawalis and no songs that even remind you of the iconic numbers that Mughal-e-Azam was so famous for. We should also note the irony the fans of the 1960 hit have to contend with, here - being made to watch the'love' story of the villain of that classic love story i.e. Akbar, both stories being stuck somewhere in between history and hearsay. But anyway, the screenplay here(by Haidar Ali, Ashtosh Gowariker) doesn’t exploit the backdrop enough to take advantage of its potential for dance and music. Akbar was famous for his love of arts. The script could have been thoughtful to include the famous composer/vocalist Ramtanu Pandey(popularly known as Tansen), a key member of Akbar's court, to make it a wholesome package. However, our composer AR Rahman makes the most of these limitations with the soulful Meera-like composition of ‘Man Mohana’ rendered by Bela Shende, and the rather exquisite ‘Kehno Ko Jashn-e-Bahara Hai’ by new singer Javed Ali. On the action front, the script does wander off to show us what a great hunter/animal-trainer Akbar was, with a long drawn sequence of taming a wild elephant, although, it conveniently avoids the other much storied encounter with a tigress. Come on, where are those digital effects, and what is a little tigress in front of macho man Hrithik and the modern effects? Talking of which, the war sequences do look quite convincing.

Hrithik Roshan does a decent job of looking and acting emperor-like. Aishwarya Rai is just too stunning as the Rajput princess. It is amazing to watch how just by controlling the way she looks at the camera, with a paradoxical combination of humility and royalty, the director makes this winner of a Miss World pageant look even more winsome. The sets(Nitin Chandrakant Desai is the production designer), are awesome, and they look very grand without looking garish or imposing.

Overall, it is arguably a stellar effort in movie-making by Ahsutosh, in spite of the self-induced odds - of an unwise choice of subject material, and a misguided screenplay. Hope he keeps the standards up, and chooses better next time.