Vidya Balan in Pradeep Sarkar's Parineeta (2005) adapted from Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali novel of same name (1914)

There is a strong affiliation between literature and cinema. Many Hollywood and Indian movies, like Satyajit Ray’s trilogy, have been among the great film adaptations of literary works that have received worldwide acclaim. Each of us has our favourite movies due to their impact on us for varied reasons—a strong storyline, touching performances, a great musical score, stunning locales and photography, effective direction, etc. Among my best-loved movies have been “Gone with the Wind” (1939) based on Margaret Mitchell’s novel; “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957 war epic) based on Pierre Boulle’s novel; and “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) adapted from Boris Pasternak’s historic romance, to name just three. Similarly, among the Indian movies, Ray’s “Charulata” (1964) based on Tagore’s story ‘Nastanirh’, Malayalam classic “Chemmeen” (1966) adapted from Thakhazi Sivasankara Pillai’s novel, and the Kannada avant-garde film “Samskara” (1971) based on U R Ananthamurthy’s novel—all National Film Award winners—had a strong appeal to me.

In a well-made movie, the audience can easily visualise the characters and the situations they deal with. As the story unfolds on the large screen in front of them, the hearts and minds of the viewers get intertwined with the characters being depicted. They are in the story's grip till the end and come out happy, or sometimes unhappy, with how the movie ends. An entire novel is shown in a matter of a couple of hours. That is the power of the cinema. Such a visual presentation does not need a viewer to use much of his imagination. On the other hand, with a book, a reader uses his imaginative power to create a mental image of the characters, the locale and the story. As the story develops his thought process is continuously at work as he conjures up possible developments ahead and may even desire how he would like the story to end. A reader could take several days to finish a book. That provides him with a different kind of involvement with the narration altogether. Thus, books and cinema are two dissimilar art mediums that uniquely engage the reader/viewer. Often, it is the amalgamation of these two strengths that creates masterpieces on screen and both—the literary work and the cinema—benefit from this. Film viewership being significantly more than the readership of books, movies effectively popularise literary works among a more diverse group of people. On the other hand, good literary works contribute strong storylines and well-developed characters to film-making.

Film adaptations of regional literary works have the potential to create awareness about them among those living in other parts of the country and overseas. A large number of Bollywood movies have been made from literary works of almost all regional languages - Marathi (Ardh Satya, Ankahee), Bengali (Devdas, Kabuliwala, Namkeen), Gujarati (Mirch Masala), Tamil (Pehla Adhyay), Telugu (Kafan), Kannada (Sookha), Malayalam (Chirutha), Punjabi (Waaris), Rajasthani (Parinati) and even Sanskrit (Utsav). This is not a comprehensive list; there are many more films produced from regional literatures. Today, writers and playwrights like Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, M T Vasudevan Nair, Rajinder Singh Bedi, etc are widely known across the country due to adaptations of their works in other languages. Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s Devdas, written originally in Bengali, perhaps has been made into films in the maximum number of languages in the country; so much so, that Devdas is a nationally identifiable character, like no other. 

Developments in cinematographic effects can make a stunning impact on moviegoers, particularly on large 70 mm screens, adding considerable strength to narration. The beautiful countryside of Salzburg, Austria shown in the enormously popular musical, Sound of Music (1965 film directed by Robert Wise) where the children dance and sing, or the vast heart-breaking deserts in Lawrence of Arabia (1962 movie by David Lean), or the chilling effects in Jurrasic Park (1993 Science fiction by Steven Spielberg), or even the more recent Avatar series (2009 onwards, written and directed by James Cameron) have all made these movies highly memorable. With graphics and animation, the visuals become even more fascinating for the audience.

Despite such significant advantages, some film adaptations have been criticised for lacking fidelity to the original work or the director having taken undue liberties with the storyline or the characters. It is quite common for someone to comment that a film is a poor remake of the novel they read. This stems from the two art forms being unique in their own ways with vastly different modes of storytelling. Sometimes, the author of a literary work disapproves of how an adaptation betrays his work. The most well-known example is R K Narayan’s disapproval of how the climax of the highly popular Hindi film, Vijay Anand’s ‘Guide’ (1965) drastically moved away from what he had written in his novel.

Some filmmakers have argued that they need to have the creative liberties to tap the enormous power of their craft and that an adaptation cannot be fully faithful to the original. An adapted version must be recognised as a creative transcreation. Such transcreations happen differently in the new art forms and spaces modern technology is creating, like laptops, iPads, iPhones, Kindle, and other emerging digital media. This is highly advantageous for an original literary work to reach new audiences with different tastes and cultural lifestyles. And, a classic needs to be reinvented and retold to keep it alive and relevant to modern times.

This feature takes a sweeping look at film adaptations from regional literatures from across the entire country. Presented here are the considered views of noted film critics and scholars on the nuances of adaptations. Other than the Lead article, each of the other 14 essays traces the evolution of film adaptations in a particular Indian language and discusses some of the films that were either trendsetters or have gained wide popularity among viewers. Contributions of some of the most respected film personalities—Directors, Screenwriters and Actors—of each regional language are mentioned, making this a comprehensive enough survey of Indian film adaptations. While discussing the challenges of adaptation and its fidelity to the original work, almost all the contributors agree that cinema is an art form with a distinct power of visual narration and that the Directors need to be given the liberty to present and interpret an existing literary work in the way they want. However, the spirit and essence of what the original author wanted to convey must be retained.

In the lead article, the prominent film critic, Amrit Gangar equates ‘adaptation’ to the Indian term ‘rūpāntar’, a change of form. Given the proliferation of new media today, he says the term more appropriate would be Mādhyamāntar, a change of medium. With advancements in the Internet and digital technologies, the human search for new forms of expression and artistic engagement leads to novel adaptations. He discusses different approaches to film adaptations of Mani Kaul and Satyajit Ray with examples from several of their celebrated movies.

In his significant, second article on “Gujarati Cinema and Literary Adaptation,” Amrit Gangar meticulously presents film adaptations since the first Gujarati silent film, Sheth Sagalsha (1917) and the first two Gujarati talkies—Narsinh Mehta and Sati Savitr— produced in 1932. He analyses many noteworthy film adaptations from literary works over the decades that were trendsetters.

Writing on Odia films, Sanjoy Patnaik, another distinguished film critic and filmmaker, traces the growth of cinema from its early stages during the pre-Partition era and the role played by literature in this evolution. Literature influenced cinema’s aesthetic growth and reshaped the ethnocultural identity of a nation during colonial times. Critically examining deviations in adaptations, Patnaik says deviation from the original literary work is a necessary evil because of its aesthetic transition to another platform. Filmmakers like Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray argued that literature cramped cinema’s distinctive and unhindered growth as an independent art form and pleaded for a creative separation of the two mediums to survive as complementing art forms. Regarding Odia, he discusses the role played by literature and cinema in establishing an independent Odia identity and cites several films.

In an interesting article, Meghachandra Kongbam, a well-known film critic from the Northeast, gives a brief overview of Manipuri culture and literature. He traces the origin and evolution of Manipuri cinema which has a rich tradition of adapting literary works, including dramas, radio plays, and novels, showcasing the deep interplay between storytelling and visual art of the region. He says by offering a broader and more adaptable canvas for cinematic interpretation, novels provide the depth and detail necessary to exploit the visual and auditory strengths of film as a storytelling medium.

In his well-presented essay on Marathi cinema, another noted film critic, Ganesh Matkari says that most filmmakers tend to concentrate on the visual aspect of the film and prefer broader ideas, which can be expressed in terms of visual language. When the director has a base of a literary work, he already has a strong foundation laid by the author to detail out. Matkari says that the golden age of Marathi cinema coincides with a period when most filmmakers believed in the importance of the script to present an independent thought, a separate identity. The film therefore would be a collaborative effort with a significant contribution of the writer. During this period of approximately 25 years, beginning with the first sound film, a maximum number of significant literary works were adapted well for the screen. He discusses several Marathi films that have left a lasting impression.

Yet another seasoned film critic, Avijit Ghosh avers that ever since Alam Ara (1931) the first Indian talkie, literature and Hindi cinema have been uneasy but inseparable bedfellows. He says that the works of Tagore, Premchand and Shakespeare, to name just three formidable men of letters, were adapted as films with debatable degrees of quality and success. However, the 1980s was a fecund period for literary adaptations in Hindi cinema. Both serious and popular literature, primarily from Marathi, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and English languages, were a constant source for moviemaking. Screenplays were shaped from Malayalam, Tamil, Punjabi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, and even Sanskrit, classics. He critically evaluates several popular films of the period and gives a comprehensive list of Hindi films made from literary works in many Indian languages.

In a meticulously researched article, “Import of Telugu Literature into the AV Entertainment—A Glimpse”, Atreya Sarma U presents the salient aspects of Telugu, a classical language, and its multifaceted literature. Episodes from the Ramayana and Maha Bharata epics and stories from Puranas like the Bhagavata have been performed on the stage for over a century. The advent of Radio, Cinema, TV and Mobiles has greatly enhanced the reach of adaptations through different modes. Sarma presents a detailed account of adaptations from Telugu literary works into various Audio-Visual mediums—those made into Radio Plays (on AIR); those that have been Staged, Aired and Filmed; those that have been Aired and Filmed; those that have been presented both on AIR and Doordarshan; those that have been Filmed; and finally, those that have been telecast only on TV (Doordarshan).

Writing on adaptation in Assamese Cinema, Farddina Hussain avers that in academic writings or journalistic reviews; adaptations are mostly seen as secondary and culturally inferior to the literary text. While Robert Stan felt literature would always have anxiety and suspicion over any adaptation, Virginia Woolf had once denounced cinema as a parasite and literature its prey. Hussain says that today the fidelity debate in adaptation studies has lost its ground as we dwell on the plurality of a text conditioned by the reader’s or filmmaker’s intent. Quoting Linda Hutcheon’s view that an adaptation is “derivation and not derivative of a work that is second without being secondary,” she says that Assamese filmmakers have followed this all along. The author analyses Monjul Baruah’s trilogical adaptations of ‘Antareen’, ‘Kaneen’, and ‘Anur’ in some detail.

Dealing with adaptations in Bengali films, Anuska Bag says that Bengali literature offers a rich tapestry of themes, narratives and cultural nuances that have widely been explored in Indian cinema. Works of Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bibhutibhusan Bandhopadhyay, Manik Bandhopadhyay and other contemporaneous prominent writers, have earned mass recognition for dealing with themes such as social reforms, human emotions, political struggles and the complexities of relationships, making them ideal for adaptation into film. She discusses several movies based on their work and also the influence of emerging OTT and other platforms on popular adaptations.

In her essay on Kannada cinema, Sunayana Suresh avers that the 1970s was the best period in adaptations of literary works. Mainstream blockbusters featuring the biggest stars and directors, as well as the parallel cinema thrived during that decade with film greats like Puttanna Kanagal, Girish Karnad and Girish Kasaravalli looked at adaptations of novels and other literary works in Kannada. She bemoans that there has been a deterioration in this space over the decades and literary adaptation in cinema remains only on the fringes now. However, she is hopeful that the literary adaptations will come back soon.

Abid Ahmad, writing on “Kashmiri’s Tryst with Cinema,” traces the evolution of Kashmiri cinema since the first film Meanziraat was produced in 1964. He says Kashmir, with its stunning beauty, has been a very popular location for shooting Bollywood hit films. Though there is no full-fledged adaptation of Kashmiri literature in filmmaking, there have been movies that revolve around the theme of Kashmir and its socio-cultural and political aspects. He lists several Hindi movies in this category.

Discussing Malayalam Cinema, Megha Jayadas says that with its rich legacy, Malayalam literature has always been a source of inspiration for Mollywood filmmakers. The continuous conversions of these literary works into movies have not only boosted the cinematic scenario of Kerala but also brought to life the nuanced, multifaceted characters and timeless chronicles intertwined into the platforms of Kerala's cultural heritage. She takes up several movies to analyse this further in her article.

In the second article on Malayalam Cinema, Nila Rajeev explores the representation of friendly Yakshis in Malayalam films and analyses the Yakshi trope through the lenses of desire, longing, and companionship. She analyses select films such as Bhargavi Nilayam, Yakshi, and Ennu Swantham Janakikutty, which are adaptations of Malayalam literary texts.

In “Punjabi Literature and Film,” the eminent writer and Sahitya Akademi Fellow, Tejwant Singh Gill says that the relationship between literature and films in Punjabi has been very perfunctory. He presents a fairly detailed overview of the evolution and growth of Punjabi literature. He laments that though several Punjabis have made their mark in Bollywood as actors, screenplay writers and lyricists, none of them, except Balraj Sahni, strove to make any movie in Punjabi. With time, certain talented persons, have come to the fore to adapt literary works in films. They hold out the promise of raising Punjabi film from the morass into which it has remained stuck and show its merit.

Writing on Tamil cinema, Eunice Vincie states that the trend of film adaptations in Tamil started many years ago with works of great writers like Perarinjar Anna, Kalaignar Karunanidhi, and Jeyamohan being made into films. She discusses several movies that were based on books, like Jeyakanthan’s Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal, Poomani’s Vekkai made into Asuran, the more recent PS-1 (Ponniyin Selvan -Part 1) made from Kalki, and several others. She asserts that creative freedom is essential for filmmakers and should be welcomed.

Sapna Dogra discusses the adaptation of two popular literary works of the doyen of Indian-English writing, R K Narayan—Guide and Mr Sampath. She says that in no way is an adaptation lower than the original story. Quoting Linda Hutcheon, Dogra says that an adaptation and the adapted work merge in the audience’s understanding of their complex interrelation. A novel may have a few thousand readers, but it is the film that takes the novel home to millions of people across the world.

I profusely thank all the contributors for the time and effort they have put into their articles that make this feature a rare survey on Film adaptations in India.