SALIM AND I

Mughal-e-azam is my favourite movie. I have seen it over 10-15 times. I think it is a complete film. It8217;s a love story as well as a delicate relationship between a mother and son, a father and son, and of course a man and a woman. The movie shows a lot of parallel relationships and friendships. For example, the characters played by Dilip Kumar and his right-hand man in the movie, Ajit.

It is a most wonderfully scripted film and the dialogues are very poetic. The story that unfolds behind the royal walls is shot beautifully. The sets are grand and lavish and though everyone gets melodramatic, it somehow fits the scale of the movie. The actors are wonderful and behave like they have lived that life, the dialogues are effortlessly spoken and they appreciate the music surrounding them. There are brilliant performances from Dilip Kumar, Prithviraj Kapoor I cannot imagine anyone else playing Akbar, Durga Khote, who plays the queen and the mother, and of course, Madhubala who plays the muse. It is a good story that translated to a great film. I watched it as a kid, in school and college, and though it is not a movie from my era, I watched it first with my sister and uncles and it was a part of my growing up. I even have a cassette of the dialogues from where I memorised the dialogues that are exchanged between the father and the son.
8212;As told to Sharon Fernandes