Jodha-Akbar is a recent release from Bollywood. The story is about a 15th Century Muslim ruler of India who married a Hindu rajput princess. The marriage was a contrived relationship established for political harmony amongst different then existing kings; which later on grows to bloom as a inexpungiable exemplary love-story! The relation was, although intended to be a trendsetter, it was one of very few genuine attempts to establish friendly accord between Hindus and Muslims.
Bombay, another 1995 classics from Bollywood, whose story is set against the backdrop of riots those took place after Babri masjid demolition. Shailabano is a small town girl who gets attracted towards Shekhar a well educated wanna-be journalist from Bombay. The plot is same, a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl trying to stand their ground in the hot political arena.
It was really a co-incident that I ended up watching both the movies on the same weekend! It doesn't take a Real smart person to notice the congruence of the plot! Tying a nuptial knot across religions. Jodha, a Hindu girl gets married into a Muslim family and Shailabano, a Muslim girl gets married into a Hindu family. Jodha takes an idol of lord Krishna with her when she moves to Akbar's palace where as Shailabano takes her Koran with her when she elopes to Shekhar's apartment. Both families preserve their own religions in married life (,although Jodha later on got converted to Muslim religion there was no forceful proselytizing.)
As mentioned earlier, Jodha's story starts with political tinge and then evolves into a love story where as Shailabano's case is a love story in the beginning and then gets engulfed into the religeo-political war! Ultimatum is, both relations survives the turmoil. Back in 15th century Muslims were ruling India and in 20th century, although labeled secular, Hindus are leading the political arena.
Similarly there are differences in stories as well. Akbar is the King where as Shekhar is a middle class common man struggling at times! What Akbar did was an exemplary thing for religious harmony, where as Shekhar was reinstating social faith in love!
So is it like no matter when the storyline is set, India the oldest religion-melting pot, has been embracing cross religion harmony!?
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1 comments:
Rahman is an important common link between the two movies - someone so global yet so culturally sensitive.
btw, did you watch Bombay on the same weekend? :-)
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