Anarkali and Salim's love story - Fact or Fiction?

With its core proposition ‘Woh Zamaana Kare Deewana’, Zee Classic aims at reviving nostalgic moments and memories while promising to bring home the timeless magic of classic Hindi cinema. These moments continue to touch us in different ways over generations through characters, stories, plots, dialogues and the most important of all - MUSIC. Keeping this core thought in mind, the channel is celebrating the music of The Golden Era (1950-1975) in an exclusive twenty-six part series titled, ‘The Golden Years 1950 – 1975, A musical journey with Javed Akhtar’. This Sunday, 27th March at 8 PM, roll back to 1953 and experience the musical mania of those golden times.

1953 being one of the initial years of India’s post-independence era saw many important landmarks in the country. In Cinema, 1953 saw the making of some engaging stories, close to life, realistic narratives that still command respect. Do Bigha Zameen by Bimal Roy won many awards for the Best Film.

Anarkali, based on the eternal love story of Mughal Emperor Akbar and courtesan Anarkali was one of the prominent films of this year. Javed Akhtar shares that the entire story behind the film was actually an author’s figment of imagination. Imtiaz Ali Taj, a young author in Lahore got so intrigued by the stories around Anarkali that he actually sketched an entire fictitious play on Salim and Anarkali’s love story, their unstoppable fight against Emperor Akbar and the eventual end. The play became hugely popular and the story gradually became history which we continue to believe even today.
“Ek writer ka confidence dekhiye ke usne sirf Anarkali ki kabr dekhar yeh likhdiya k usko deewar me chunwa gaya tha. Isme koi sachai nahi hai jab ke isiko hum itihaas mante aaye hain.” says Akhtar.

The movie had some classic compositions such as Yeh zindagi usiki hai, Ae Jane Wafa and Mohabbat me kadam yun dagmagaye. To get the best out of music, the director worked with a Hindi poet and an Urdu poet in the same film. Anarkali’s story was again made into another classic Mughal-E-Azam which is an all-time favourite for movie lovers.

1953 was about films high on music. Do Bigha Zameen, Parineeta, Aah, Dil e Nadaan and Shikast were movies with incredible songs whose enduring effect continues to last. Within the limited filmmaking resources available then, there were talents who dared to experiment, invest earnest efforts in bringing out the highest quality of music and who succeeded in making classics, the recipe for which has vanished in history.