'The dramatic achievement of Mughal-i-Azam is that it brings out the major confrontations from within the characters themselves. However, the priorities all belong to the male cast and the only woman who has a mind of her own is the vamp. Anarkali, the heroine, doesn?t have a life of her own, she is confirmed as inferior to the vamp in wit and literary refinement, and at no point gives us reason to suspect that her intelligence matches that of her lover. Her crowning grace is an extraordinary moral courage to stand by her man even at the risk of her own life. In fact, risking her life seems to be her usual mode of existece. She is the perfect toy ? a female robot intricately programmed to please her man, and she comes with an in-built self-destruct menu in case things get out of hand for the user.' -Anarkali: Fact or fiction?, Images, Dawn Newspaper, May 2005