‘I did not anticipate people saying there was no Jodhaa. That came as a googly!’

• REKHA DESHPANDE: After Lagaan and Swades, what made you pick a historical subject? Does today’s audience possess the sensibilities to appreciate a film like this?

I have always believed that when you make a film, the film must entertain while you are watching it; once you leave the theatre, the film should come back to you, it should have some ‘take home’. That ‘take home’ is usually the message, a social message or a moralistic one. Keeping that in mind, I wanted to tell a love story because this is a genre I had not yet attempted. Whenever I have gone looking for a story, I have never found it. It has always come from unknown quarters. In the case of Jodhaa Akbar, the story came to me from Haider Ali, the actor known from TV’s popular serial, Nukkad. He is the son of actor Kumar, who played Saangtaraash in Mughal-e-Azam. Haider is married to Uma, and he found some resonance between his personal life and Mughal-e-Azam, which is probably why he came up with the story. I was fascinated with one aspect that we have always taken for granted in Mughal-E-Azam: that Jodhaa was married to Akbar. How did this marriage come about? Why was a Hindu Rajput princess married to a Mughal emperor over 450 years ago? Did they fall in love before marriage? If they fell in love after marriage, then what were the circumstances? If you consult the history books about Jodhaa and Akbar, there is no information — that excited me. I was setting out to make an imagined love story between the two. At the same time, cultures and religions came together.

• ANURADHA AGRAWAL: You imagine the romance between Jodhaa and Akbar, two dominant icons from the pages of history. Why did you not provide a disclaimer about the imagined part in the film?

First of all, this was never a dominant love story because no one knew of it. Nobody knew about Jodhaa, nobody cared for her till I made this film. In Mughal-e-Azam, you are interested only in Salim and Anarkali. And Anarkali is fiction — the beauty of Mughal-e-Azam is that the writers created the character of Anarkali to create the love story. I chose Jodhaa and focused on a couple who was there. I was basing my film on history, so I consulted all the history books, be it Abul Fazl, be it Badauni, Akbarnama, Ain-e-Akbari, Multaq Multiari or be it Rajput history. There is not a single book that I have not read. And I discovered that every historian is writing his own account of history; every 50 years, a new historian interprets other historical books. So it becomes difficult to simply go by history. For instance, Jodhaa has been given several names. I gave a disclaimer at the start of the film that to this today there is speculation about her real name. But the film is not about that, it’s not called Jodhaa, it’s not a fact-finding film, it’s about how this alliance came about, how the Rajputs made a difference to the life of Mughals, how Jodhaa and Akbar must have learnt to admire each other

• ANURADHA AGRAWAL: So are you writing history?

No, I making a film. But I think 50 years down the line, the next generation, if they want to see a slice of Mughal history, or if they want a slice of this Rajput-Mughal alliance, they will watch my film.

• Y P RAJESH: Did you anticipate this controversy over Jodhaa Akbar? Do you think its visibility was enhanced by the controversy?

I do not think it has been enhanced. I had anticipated trouble immediately after Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Mangal Pandey. In the case of Jodhaa Akbar, I put the disclaimer in about her name. What I did not anticipate was that people would say there is no Jodhaa! That came like a googly to me.

• HARNEET SINGH: Do you see any signs of a resolution soon?

I am using all platforms, including this one, to connect with those who have objected. I am not claiming to be a historian and my purpose is to entertain. I am trying to responsibly imagine what must have happened at that time.

• MENAKA RAO: Do you think it is alright to protest in a certain way or censor a screening? Where do you think one needs to draw a line?

First, you must see the film. If it is a novel, read the novel. If it’s a play, see the play. You must know what you are protesting against; it cannot be because your friend does not like it, and he is telling you not to watch it. You can protest. But you cannot stop a film being shown, or ban a book. You should not. You can express yourself in other ways, say, a reader’s letter in which you shred the work to pieces. Everything else, no, because we have a Constitutional right to freedom of expression.

• AKASH JOSHI: Would you ever make a film about Shivaji?

Yes, I would like to. However, I am not mature enough to handle Shivaji at the moment. There is so much written about Shivaji and he is there within all of us in some form or the other. Therefore, making a film on Shivaji means to cater to the expectations of a very huge audience — that will be very challenging.

• RAJIV VIJAYKAR: Why did you name the film Jodhaa Akbar and not the other way round?

For me, Akbar is someone we all know; Jodhaa is someone we need to know about. I thought of the proverb, behind every successful man there is a woman, and said, why not turn that statement around and let the woman come first? Let it be ladies first.

• DEEPA KARMALKAR: The elephant scene in the film is spectacular. Tell us how it was shot?

We did a lot of preparation by way of story boarding what I want to achieve and what the stunt co-coordinator, Ravi Dewan, could actually deliver. I auditioned a lot of elephants! All hundred elephants have been certified, checked, because I didn’t want any mishaps on the sets. What I read in the Akbarnama about the elephant fight is amazing — the way Akbar tamed elephants, the way he tamed horses. Hrithik is physically extremely fit and courageous; he knows his own physical timing well and we gave him three months to get used to the elephant. Her name was Rajlakshmi. There were three things she had to do: she had to identify him by his voice, she had to identify him by the perfume he used and she had to identify him by what he gave her to eat. So every morning Hritik would approach her and say, “Rajlakshmi Baby”. She reacted to Hrithik very well — he must have fed her 16,000 bananas!

• SMITA NAIR: You have worked with three of the biggest male stars of our time, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan. Tell us something you learnt about them as a director.

Aamir and Shah Rukh I worked with when I started out as an actor. So I was their colleague. That helped a lot when I was directing them, although at first, there was a lot of discomfort: yaar, yeh actor tha, aur abhi yeh humko acting sikhayega. We overcame all of that. With Hrithik, it was the first time that I was interacting with an already established star I did not know. Of course, I have seen all his movies and I have been an admirer of his. But to actually interact is an altogether different thing. And I realised that Hrithik is a combination of the working styles of Aamir and Shah Rukh. You have Aamir who is extremely meticulous, who wants to know every small detail, because that detail he applies to his performance. It’s his method of trying to find the truth in the shot. Shah Rukh wants to accidentally discover everything, discover the magic in the shot. He has all the information about the script and the scene but he likes to let it just flow. With Hrithik, I thought I would have to work a lot on him, work on the nuances. But he absorbed all the information I gave him, he asked all the right questions — from the length of the hair, to the moustache, to the gait, to the looks. Slowly, piece by piece, we built Akbar, our own young Akbar.

• HARNEET SINGH: Creatively, which of your movies has satisfied you the most?

At cost of sounding arrogant, I will say I am happy with Lagaan, I am happy with Swades, I am happy with Jodhaa Akbar. In Swades, I am told I was too preachy, but that was the purpose of the film. My premise was that patriotism does not need to be taught. Nationalism needs to be taught. If I am getting into nationalism, then I must preach, and since I have Shah Rukh Khan, I must use him and his persona to reach as many people as possible.

• HARNEET SINGH: You have a “common village theory”: you believe we belong to one village and we have just travelled to different metros.

If you look out of the window now, just now, look at the traffic signal. If you see how we cross each other, we are like bullock carts, we go here there, in between each other and create traffic jams, we don’t stand in line, we don’t follow discipline, I think we are a very warm-hearted nation. ‘Arey chalo yaar, tum khade ho jao. Arey koi baat nahi, agey aa jao.’ That is where I say we carry our rural settings wherever we go. During my research for Lagaan, I did a lot of traveling. It was the first time I was entering rural India. I feel rural India is still static. If you look at Champaner of Lagaan or look at Charampur of Swades, they are the same, although one is set in 1893 and the other in 2004.

• RAJEEV VIJAYKAR: I met Haider Ali, and he told me that while the script for Jodhaa Akbar was being written, Swades was released and you were jittery after it didn’t do well. Would Johdhaa Akbar have been different if Swades had been a commercial hit?

After Swades, I was fortunate I could make Jodhaa Akbar in spite of Swadesh not working. I made the picture I wanted to. I had Ronnie Screwala (UTV) with me, Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with me. So jittery about Jodhaa Akbar? No. Jittery now? Maybe, because I don’t know what I am going to make next.

• AKASH JOSHI: Do you run the risk of being branded as someone who just makes serious movies with nationalist storylines, three and half hours long?

No, I do not see any such risk. A filmmaker keeps making the same film again and again. If you take Naseer Hussain, his protagonist was always a Yahoo guy; take Manoj Kumar, take Bimal Roy — take any film maker and you will see he has made the same film again and again. The only person I admire a lot, who probably has not made the same film again and again is Rajkumar Santoshi. My first film Pehla Nasha was a murder mystery, my second was a thriller, Baazi. Lagaan is a period drama, Swades, a social drama, and Jodhaa Akbar is an epic romance. Someday I want to make a horror film, a war film.

• SHIVANI NAIK: Who is your favourite female character from your films? Gauri in Lagaan, Geeta of Swades, Jodhaa or Aamir Khan’s drag act in Baazi?

I like the element of a thinking mind and of a girl who will speak her mind despite social opposition. Gauri does that, and so does Geeta. But I’d have to say Jodhaa is at the top of the list because she is so rooted in history, because those were times when women were in the harem and just waited for the emperor or the king to come by. They were not allowed to go out in the open. Abul Fazl and Badauni weren’t allowed into the harem, so we don’t know what the women contributed to the king. I thought it would be fascinating to show how Jodhaa influences Akbar.

• HARNEET SINGH: Are there any movies you’d have loved to direct?

Several. Munnabhai, Rang De Basanti, Hazaron Khwaishen Aisi. Sometimes I feel the best stories are all taken.

(Transcript prepared by Smita Nair)