Karimuddin Asif, born in 1922 in Uttar Pradesh, remains one of Indian cinema’s most ambitious and enigmatic directors. He began his career in Bombay under the mentorship of his uncle Nazir and made his directorial debut with Phool (1945), a commercially successful social drama. However, Asif's name is forever linked with his magnum opus, Mughal-e-Azam (1960), a monumental epic that retold the legend of Prince Salim and Anarkali with unprecedented scale and grandeur. The film's production famously stretched over 15