A still from Mughal-e-Azam

Mughal-e-Azam, a historical romance with a tragic ending, may have been made in Mumbai but was set in Lahore at a time when the Mughals 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 of the film in Pakistan.

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

“It is good that the government has allowed the screening of this historic movie. It will not only help revive Pakistani cinema, but also strengthen the peace process between Pakistan and India,” Nadeem Mandviwala, Mughal-e-Azam’s distributor, said at Gulistan cinema in downtown Lahore.

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.

Indian films are lapped up in Pakistan, though 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 Anarkali, Mughal-e-Azam is often characterised by critics as India’s answer to the American Civil War epic Gone With The Wind.

“I just wanted to see Dilip Kumar and Madhubala on the big screen,” one middle-aged housewife beamed while taking her seat along with her family and some 400 other fans, as the lights dimmed and the curtains rose.