Notes
Feb Movie 13-15---: Screening of Mughal-e-Azam in class. Watch with the following questions in
mind: 1) in what ways does the plot of the film appear to confirm or/and contradict your
readings on slave-women, or slave-biographies that you have done ? 2) what aspects of your
readings are not touched upon in the film? 3) offer historically valid and plausible explanations
for the interpretations that the films modern director makes of the historical past. These 3
questions will constitute the essay you will write at home and submit in class on February
20. An A grade in this essay will be given for again doing all three tasks well discerning
relevant historical details of film and readings, comparing and contrasting between printed and
film sources for historical reliability, and for polished prose style.
-Celebration when a child is born
-Chief gives women a token
-makes a significant promise
-Prince: these scales are not your play things, they are an emblem of the emperors justice
Take this and let it float
-Grandeur of Mughals began to waver
-Akbar the Great
The future of India seemed bleak
Does not want the future of the country in the intoxicated princes arm
Take him
-Mansingh = Rajput takes prince away to trade him
-Queen of India? no merely a mother
Emperor- a mothers weakness would make a queen forget her dignit
Queen0 can a mother not weep?
Emperor- if all the mothers wept about ther sons on the battle fields, then India would
drown
-Emperor- distribute gems among the poor eual to the weight of the armour
-Prince Salim became a victorious general on the battle field
-Prince does not want his wounds cleaned
-Prince sends saga of his life to the majesty
-messenger tells the emperor that the prince is vicotorious again
-Emperor announces that Salim has become Heir to the thrown due to his valiance and courage
on the battlefield for 14 years
-Salims mother tells all the women to prepare an extravagant welcome for her son
--Bahar is given orders she is an inner servant
-Lord Krishna = Hindu God inside a muslim palace
-Bahar wants to become queen (she was the messenger- she is a slave, she is dreaming of
becoming queen)
-Salim returns, everyone is on elephants coming in
-All the women so far are greatly adorned
-Queen is wearing ivory bangles
-Salim comes to see his mom, calls her name right away
-celebration, people dancing
-Slaves help Salim get cleaned up and dressed
-The female slaves sing to him
-Royal astrologer says that Salim should wait to see the statue
-when he finally sees it, he says that the sculpter was right and that the statue is beautiful
and he would praise it like an idol
-That was not a statue that was an actual woman standing there because he did not finish the
statue yet
-bahar wanted him to kill the statue
-The statue moves and says she is a human being
Emperor asks woman who is statue why she didnt move, and she said she wanted to see
how a man is made into reality
She gets the title of Anarkali and emperor tells Queen to let her be one of her maids.
-Anarkali sings beautifully for all of them, as the other women dance around her
-Nobody has record for where Anarkali came from
-bahaar is in love Salim
-her with sister thinks that the prince is in love with her too
*Question Time*
Why is the director positioning Bahaar to say she cant daydream about being with the King
-bahaar must be humble in order to be pure
-Dont we see lots of different women in there?
-What is staged is a Drama be aware that the film is made in 1960
-This was not made by a historian
-So historically, Bahaar really has no place
-Figure out how much of what youre seeing on the screen is supported by your readings
-Get lots of marks for arguing the case
-Three part question that you are being asked to write on how far do your readings support
what you are seeing, and how far does this film contradict your readings
-Bahaar = Queens favorite
- We are asked to imagine north India first of the Mughal palaces
-Word about people in love gets around
-Suraiya tells the prince that her sister has lost her senses and the Prince sends her a letter
-Anarkali cannot read the letter right away
-she finds out that the Prince wrote the letter to Anarkali
-The prince says that he can meet her in the garden, and that he awaits a lotus flower in
the stream as her answer
-Prince receives her reply: it apparently isnt good because she refused
-because she is only a maid, and he is a prince
-But we are also human
-SO CONFUSED
-he talks to Anarkali
-Anarkali opens the Quoran and takes an omen to see the prophesy
-WHAT IS RELATION BETWEEN SUREIYAH AND ANARKALI??? Are they actual
sisters???
-Bahaar talks to Anarkali
-Melodic and Dancing debate that Prince will judge
-Prince will decide who is more skilled
-Sarcasm and taunting in it
-Bahaar gets the flowers, Anarkali gets thorns
-Sureyiah doesnt cover hair because she has no honor
-Anarkali meets Salim in the garden
-The emperor catches her with him
-Anarkali faints
-Emperor doe not say a word
-Anarkali is locked up in chains
-The mom does not want Anarkali to be freed
-Salim tells her that if she is not freed tonight, Akbar the Greats plans will be ruinedhe will
kill himself?
*QUESTIONS*
At one point she seems to be no, I can never be with you, but then she becomes confident in
having relations with him. What created this transition
Her sister giving all the messages back and forth
Why does Anarkali Succomb?
-The Prince goes to her when she refuses to go meet with him the first time
Salim is a governor?
-He is a governor or province
-Every slave who was a cammander of a force had the right to levy taxes and raise troops
-The Mughal system grew from this that every commander had the right to collect taxes
from a particular province.
-implication is that Salim is failing the imperial administration by falling in love
Is it ok for women like Saraiyah to not be acting appropriately?
Was there significance to the songs?
Does a King really care about who his son ends up with?
-Is it that the King is concerned about who his son ends up with, or is he concerned about
his property?
-This slave is actually the emperorsdoes that pose tension
-WHOSE SLAVE IS SHE????
-the emperors!!!
-this begins to explain a lot of the conference
- You are taking away MY slave??
-Conflict is about conflict, proprietry, princely administration
-