Tigmanshu Dhulia to helm Mughal-e-Azam director’s biopic

Tigmanshu Dhulia, who won a National Award for his film Paan Singh Tomar (2012), is excited to direct another biopic. This time, his subject of interest is producer-director K Asif

Tigmanshu Dhulia, who won a National Award for his film Paan Singh Tomar (2012), is excited to direct another biopic. This time, his subject of interest is producer-director K Asif, who is most noted for the 1960s classic Mughal-e-Azam.

Director-actor during the shoot of Ghamasaan in Lucknow. (Deep Saxena/HT)

The filmmaker shares that he has been working on the idea for the past few years, and as soon as he wraps up his film Ghamasaan, he is taking a long break to work on this project. 

On his fascination with Asif, Dhulia says, “The film says a lot more than Salim and Anarkali’s love story. Then I came to know about some popular kissey (incidents) about the making of the film as well as K Asif, which intrigued me. Imagine, that man was a Class 5 or 6 dropout; tailoring was his craft, and he made just about two films in his life: Phool (1945), Mughal-e-Azam and Love and God (1986, released 15 years after he passed away in 1971).” 

The filmmaker goes on, “The film is said to be a magnum opus, but from where I see it, that man was a magnum opus — his vision, flamboyance, four marriages, fallout with (late actor) Dilip Kumar (who played Salim), and so many other things. Sometimes, I feel that he was sent by God with a farman (order) to make this masterpiece.” 

The 55-year-old further informs that “renowned journalist and Urdu exponent Rajkumar Keswani had written a lot about Mughal-e-Azam, its making and people associated with the film in his memoirs”. “Sadly, he (Keswani) died in Bhopal in May 2021 but Priti Sinha (Dhulia’s OTT series The Great Indian Murder producer) had taken its rights when he was alive. We (Dhulia with writers Kamlesh Pandey and Iqbal Rizvi) are working on the story,” says the filmmaker, who is also well-known for his role as Ramadhir Singh in filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s cult movie, Gangs of Wasseypur.

Besides his ongoing project, he has revisited his debut film Haasil (2003) with OTT series Garmi and has locked the script for the second and concluding season of TGIM.

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