The newly released Jodhaa Akbar is a reasonably good film, though by no means a great classic like Mughal-e-Azam. The reason is that while there is a venerable tradition of introducing imaginary scenarios and conversations in historical books and films, this film portrays some scenes which are completely unrealistic and which tend to mitigate the overall impact of the film. Whereever the film depicts actual history or extrapolations of actual history it is eminently superior as compared to when it presents complete distortions of history.

Some of the scenes which were based on actual history were:

(a) the elephant taming scene in the film: Akbar is known to have had a peculiar liking for taming mast  elephants. (A mast elephant is a rutting elephant.) He is also known to have had a liking for participating in fights between two elephants in which he would be riding one of the combatants. Of course, these somewhat dangerous adventures were confined to his youth, but even at the age of 54 he was foolhardy enough to try and grasp a wild bull by its horns while on a hunt, whereupon the bull gored him perilously close to his testicles.

(b) Adham Khan killing in the film: Akbar had a soft corner for Adham Khan who was the son of  Maham Angha (who had been Akbar's chief nurse). Unfortunately, Adham was a cruel and corrupt official who was guilty of putting to death in cold blood captives (both hindus and muslims) in campaigns in the deccan. Akbar initially treated Adham with kid gloves rebuking him and hoping that he would reform his ways. Limits were crossed when Adham killed Atkah Khan--a newly appointed high ranking official. Immediately after the killing, Adham tried to enter Akbar's private quarters but the person on guard locked the door and Akbar emerged from another door. In an ambiguous gesture, Adham then laid his hand on Akbar's arm, which might have been either a supplicatory gesture or an assault, whereupon Akbar punched him on the face and Adham collapsed. Akbar then ordered Adham to be thrown from the parapet. The first fall failed to kill Adham, so Akbar ordered the mangled body to be heaved up again and thrown a second time. This time, Adham died. Akbar himself broke the news of his death to Maham Angha and within a month she also died. During the confrontation with Adham Khan, Akbar is believed to have expressed his outrage to him and he is also believed to have used a hindi word of abuse which is still in vogue.

(c) Akbar dancing with the sufis in mystical ecastacy in the film: There is no record so far as i know of Akbar being witnessed dancing, but he has been depicted by court historians as having a kind of mystical experience and achieving 'communion with God' while sitting under a tree. In private conversation with Father Monserrate, a visiting Jesuit missionary, Akbar told the father that at a personal level he was most inclined towards sufism( Monserrate has narrated this in the book he later wrote.) The sufis talk of a kind of mystical ecstacy which may be achieved through spiritual music and they have been referred to as 'whirling dervishes' for the style of dancing they do which was depicted in the film.

(d) Akbar is known to have allowed his Rajput wives to continue following hinduism and  practicing hindu religious rites. This was depicted in the film, but taking some poetic licence only one wife of Akbar is portrayed in the film. The scene where Jodhaa asks him to put sindoor on her maang and shows her how to bless himself with the fire of the aarti she has been performing in her pooja was a nice scene. I also liked the food tasting scene where Jodhaa prepares vegetarian Rajput style food for him in Rajput style personally entering the royal kitchen for this purpose. She is then asked by Maham Angha to taste the food herself before the emperor can eat it (in keeping with a mughal custom that the head cook has to eat the food first as a precaution against poisoning of the emperor). She eats the food, somewhat embarassed, but then Akbar puts her at ease by saying that he would like to eat from the same plate she has eaten from.

The sword fighting scene in which Jodhaa and Akbar are shown fencing with each other appears a clear exagerration though i thought it was acceptable poetic licence. What the royals in the past did in private can be the subject of an imaginative literary work, as in the case of 'The Three Musketeers' which depicts among other things a fictional romance between a british duke and the french queen.

The one seriously flawed scene in the film was where Akbar is depicted as fighting mano a mano with his brother in law with the stakes being the mughal empire. This is a clear distortion of history. Akbar was a shrewd king in political matters and only an emotional nincompoop would risk his life and empire by fighting man to man with a rebel. I suppose this fight scene was designed to make the film more commercial, but it was a really pedestrian distortion of history. There were a couple of other flaws in the film as well.The character of Surajmal (Jodhaa's rakhee brother in the film) is simply annoying and unrealistic especially towards the end and ought to have been edited out.

Lastly, Akbar is shown as treating the Rajputs with the greatest respect in the film. Consequently, i don't quiet understand the protest and fuss a section of the Rajputs are making with respect to this film. It is a historical fact that Akbar married Rajput princesses and that his son Jahangir (the next Mughal emperor) was the son of a Rajput lady who was the first Rajput princess to have married Akbar; she was a princess of Amer (modern Jaipur); whether her name was actually Jodha or not is completely insignificant. (A section of the Rajputs claim that the name of the princess of Amer who married Akbar and was the mother of Jahangir was not Jodha and that Jodha was the name of one of the wives of Jahangir.)