The forbidden love of Pakistanis for Indian movies was allowed into the open on Sunday with the public screening of a 1960 classic beloved on both sides of the border.

"Mughal-e-Azam," or "The Great Mogul," a historical romance with a tragic ending, may have been made in Bombay, as Mumbai was known until a few years ago, but was set in Lahore at a time when Muslims ruled India.

"I've seen it a dozen times on video, but watching 'Mughal-e-Azam' on the big screen was special," said Abdul Waheed, a long-haired, bearded pensioner of 75, after buying his ticket for the first screening in Pakistan of the 1960 classic.

Pakistani cinemas are banned from showing Indian films.

But members of the film industry hoped the exceptions made for "Mughal-e-Azam" and "Taj Mahal," a brand new epic from Bollywood that will be released in Pakistani cinemas later this week, will lead to a general lowering of barriers.

While the showing of "Mughal-e-Azam" in Pakistan was the result of a request by the son of the film's director, the late K. Asif, backers of "Taj Mahal" earned goodwill by donating millions of rupees to a relief fund for the victims of last October's earthquake in Pakistan.

"It is good that the government has allowed the screening of this historic movie. It will not only help revive Pakistani cinema, but it will also strengthen the peace process between Pakistan and India," Nadeem Mandviwala, the film's distributor, said at Gulistan cinema in downtown Lahore.

Common cultural heritage

While sporting links have flourished thanks to a mutual love of cricket, Pakistan and India have conspicuously failed to make the most of a common cultural heritage, despite more than two years of peace talks between the nuclear rivals.

India's most popular art form the movie is lapped up in Pakistan, though it is only available illicitly, through pirated videotapes and discs, and some independent cable television channels have begun showing them late at night.

The story of a doomed love affair between Prince Salim, the wayward son of Emperor Akbar, and a slave girl called Arnakali, "Mughal-e-Azam" is often characterized by critics as India's answer to the US Civil War epic, "Gone With The Wind."

It took nine years to make, but the project would have been started sooner had the Muslim family who first put up money for the film not decided to opt for Pakistan in the partition of India that accompanied independence from Britain in 1947.

Despite the mass exodus of Muslims 59 years ago, there are around 145 million in India today, almost as many as in Pakistan, and they remain prominent in Bollywood.

The film's romantic leads were both played by stars whose Hindu-sounding screen names belied their Muslim origins.

Dilip Kumar was born Yusuf Khan, in Peshawar, capital of modern-day Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

Madhubala, whose face was as iconic to Indian audiences as Greta Garbo's had been in the West, was born Mumtaz Jehan Begum Dehlavi.

Source:China Daily