The Most Meanderingly Long Sunday Morning: My Monotonous Rendezvous with Jodha-Akbar

Is there nothing to talk about the contemporary that Bollywood so often ventures into raising the ghosts of the past? That’s what a regular Hindi film fan would think. No, the filmmakers do have their reasons. While politicians are hell-bent on transforming India into a Hindu-state, mindlessly looking through the existence of numerous other religions, Ashutosh Gowarikar in an attempt to eulogize India’s secularism selects a historical fiction (or should I say a fictional history) by Haider Ali, celebrating the love of a Hindu Princess and a Muslim Samrat. Again, with a growing overseas market, Hindi films while becoming sleek and smart, more often than not resort to the age-old concept of the exotic Oriental that still sells in the West, in spite of globalization and the revolution in Information Technology. Gowarikar had immense scope of featuring a glam-narrative embellished with epical warfare, bejewelled beauties, and palace alleys. But to keep you seated what is most important is a good screenplay. Gowarikar spent so much time on costumes and Troy-type warfare that he failed to capture human emotions that generally hold together pieces of a narrative and hold back the audience.

But alas! With Aishwarya Rai in the lead role, it would be too much to ask for real human emotions. For, she with her synthetic expressions of grief and concocted smiles does not seem to have evolved much from her Devdas days when all possible emotions she displayed were highly stylized. Sad, that with the conscientious Bachchans as in-laws, she has still not learnt the rules of acting. And Hrithik Roshan…! Well, the macho-hero is seductively well-equipped to create dhoom, but he still has “miles to go” before he can even consider portraying a historical figure. Gowarikar must have thought that if Brad Pitt can carry Achilles off so well, why not our Hrithik? Unfortunately, he must have forgotten that the Greek heroes, as the legends represent them, do have physical resemblance with Pitt…but as far as my knowledge goes Akbar barely has anything to do with our well-chiselled Hrithik Roshan. Let’s not deduct marks, however. If you wish to put your country’s history in saleable packets (remember that the motto of the present generation is “Sell yourself…the means could be just anything”…almost sounds Machiavellian), then there is no harm. The final motive is not to make good cinema, but to earn dollars for the industry.

The actors do not matter as long as a good screenplay supports them. But Jodha Akbar is an interminably long journey (nothing metaphorical or meaningful about it…it gives you a feeling of wasting your time in a train that drags through a hot desert) drawing several yawns from the audience you suffers every moment of it. A. R. Rahman’s music occasionally gives respite, but the choreography does not appeal. I was in for a Sunday morning show…and had never realized before that Sundays could be that tiresome. When the film finally and thankfully ended, the morning had died into the blazing afternoon; I was as drowsy as a drooping flower. The film had robbed me of all my spirits, and when it actually ended, I discovered to my shock that I could not piece together the narrative in my mind. It wasn’t complicated, though. It was too much for the brain to register anything. The film is supposedly founded on the love story of Jodha-Akbar which was still unsung in the popular narratives… Gowarikar in a deadly urge to make an exhibition of his foolhardiness fell for a story which hardly interested any of his predecessors. He should have understood that if the love story of Jodha-Akbar had been so remarkably interesting, then, Bollywood hungry for good stories would have made several cinematic versions of the same several times. Poor Gowarikar! Hopefully others would learn from his mistakes and would not repeat the same.