Mohenjo Daro

About the film

Mohenjo Daro is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language period action-adventure film written and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. It was produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur for UTV Motion Pictures and The Walt Disney Company India and Sunita Gowariker for Ashutosh Gowariker Productions (AGPPL), and stars Hrithik Roshan and Pooja Hegde. Set in the ancient Indus Valley civilisation city of Mohenjo-daro, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is loosely based on Ali Baba's Sindhi novel "Mohan Jo Daro". This film marked Pooja Hegde's debut in Hindi cinema.

Set in 2016 BCE at the height of the Indus Valley civilisation, the story follows a farmer Sarman (Hrithik Roshan), who travels to the city of Mohenjo-daro and falls in love with a high-status woman (Pooja Hegde), and who must then challenge the city's elite, and fight against overwhelming odds to save their civilisation.

Plot

Sarman (Hrithik Roshan), a young man from the village of Amri, lost his parents at a young age. Sarman kills a crocodile that has been terrorizing his village's fishermen and is hailed as a hero. He asks his uncle, Durjan (Nitish Bharadwaj), to allow him to go to Mohenjo Daro to trade their family's goods, but his uncle refuses. Sarman attempts to sneak away to the city at night with his friend Hojo (Umang Vyas) but is caught by Durjan, who relents and allows both friends to go. He gives Sarman a seal that contains an inscription of a unicorn that Sarman often sees in his dreams, suggesting he uses it only once in a life-or-death situation.

Arriving in Mohenjo Daro, Sarman learns that the city is ruled by the tyrannical Senate Chief Maham (Kabir Bedi) and his wicked son Moonja (Arunoday Singh). He also learns that the unicorn he sees in his dreams is the symbol of the city, and feels the city is oddly familiar to him. While Sarman is trading, Maham proposes to impose an additional tax on the farmers so that the city may grow, but Sarman leads the farmers to oppose the taxes so that their families don't starve to death. Sarman gains access to the upper city by showing his uncle's amulet and meets Chaani (Pooja Hegde), the daughter of the head priest (Manish Choudhary) of Mohenjo Daro. Sarman is enchanted by Chaani's beauty and charm and falls in love with her. Upon meeting, the head priest seems to recognise Sarman. Chaani reveals to Sarman that she has been forcibly betrothed to Moonja. Maham discovers that Sarman and Chaani love each other and that Sarman is the leader of the tax revolt, so he challenges Sarman to fight Bakar and Zokar, his two champions. Sarman proposes that if he wins, Chaani will be released from her engagement, and Maham accepts the terms.

On the night before Sarman's clash with Bakar and Zokar, the head priest reveals to him how Maham was expelled from Harappa for illegal trade with the Sumerians. Maham entered Mohenjo Daro as a trader and quickly rose to become the trade chief. Maham had discovered that the mighty Sindhu River held vast gold deposits, so he decided to place a dam on the river and divert its course to mine the gold. The wise Senate Chief Srujan (Sharad Kelkar), who is revealed to be Sarman's father, opposed this, but Maham won the vote to build the dam. He had Srujan framed and arrested for hoarding gold. Chaani's father and Durjan – Sarman's uncle – were coerced by Maham to betray Srujan, and the former was killed later by Moonja – Maham's son. Maham then took Srujan's place as the new Senate Chief.

Production

Director Ashutosh Gowariker was first inspired to make a film set in the ancient Indus Valley civilization when he was in Bhuj, Gujarat, scouting locations for his then-upcoming Lagaan (2001), and stumbled across the massive excavations in progress at the ruins of Dholavira: "I thought, My God! This is incredible! What happened to this civilisation, who were the people, how did they live?"

Several other film projects later, Gowariker announced the film Mohenjo Daro officially in February 2014 with A. R. Rahman composing the film score.

On taking up the project, in an interview, Gowariker stated that there was meagre and superficial information available about the people in that civilisation, particularly about their lifestyle, food, and feelings. The lack of information about the period troubled Gowariker, and he decided that whenever he would get a story to tell, it will be depicted circa 2500 BC at Mohenjo-daro which, despite being the largest city yet discovered from that ancient civilisation, is today known only by the name—which translates as "Mound of the Dead" in English—ascribed by the Sindhi locals to the site when its ruins were discovered in 1922. "Mohenjo Daro" is not only the official name associated with that ancient city by the United Nations (as a World Heritage Site since 1980), but also the only name associated with it by archaeologists and historians around the world, as well as the general public. Thus, regardless of the literal translation of the words, "Mohenjo Daro" was the chosen title for an audience to identify with the actual reference point despite the fact that the city would likely not been so named in ancient times.

Music

The music for the film was composed by A. R. Rahman, marking his fourth collaboration with Gowariker, after Lagaan, Swades, and Jodhaa Akbar. The lyrics were penned by Javed Akhtar. The music rights were acquired by T-Series.

Key details