LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 25:7 July 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

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Adapting the Bard: Shakespeare in Indian Cinema

Ms. Renu Jain and
Dr. Shalini Sharma

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of the adaption of Bard's work in Indian cinema. The adaptation of Shakespeare's plays in Indian cinema is a multifaceted phenomenon, showcasing the diversity and ingenuity of Indian filmmakers. The qualitative approach is employed to assess the Bard's work in Indian cinema, investigating how Indian filmmakers have reinterpreted and reimagined the Bard's work for local audiences. This study will illustrate how adaptations of Shakespeare's plays significantly influence Indian society. In India, not all natives possess the ability to read or comprehend literature; but, through media, everyone can access the Bard's work and glean life's lessons applicable to the contemporary world. Shakespeare, the most extensively read, translated, and performed individual author in history, is now also the most frequently adapted into film. Shakespeare and the media appear to increasingly influence one another. Shakespeare's film has been increasingly overlooked in academic discourse. This study aims to rectify this imbalance by concentrating on Hindi film and incorporating the specific historical and literary and theatrical interactions with Shakespeare into a broader, more dynamic context.

Keywords:Shakespeare, adaptation, Indian films, Omkara, Maqbool, 10ml Love, Haider

Introduction

Adaptation refers to the capacity to modify one's actions in response to a changed environmental context. A work that takes the storyline, characters, themes, or other elements of one artistic medium and applies them to another while preserving the integrity of the original is known as an adapted work. Any piece of literature can undergo this process when it is adapted for the big screen. Additionally, since the 1950s, the Indian film industry has drawn inspiration from Shakespearean plays. There was widespread acclaim for the Indian adaptations of three well-known tragedies by Shakespeare: Maqbool (2003) from Macbeth, Omkara (2006) from Hamlet, and Haidar (2014) from Othello, all of which were directed and written by the renowned and celebrated Vishal Bhardwaj. 10ml Love, directed by Sharat Katariya, is another contemporary Indian take on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

There are many merits and shortcomings to both books and movies as artistic mediums. Culture, society, and, of course, the desire to make the audience laugh or cry by incorporating elements. They can identify with into the adapted work (such as music, dance, comedy, or humor) dictate the elimination of some elements from the original source and the addition of others. Viewers should approach films adapted from Shakespeare's works with an open mind.

This is the director's cut of the 1963 Uttam Kumar production, directed by Manu Sen and starring Uttam Kumar and Bhanu Bondo Paddy. The Bengali comedy film Bhranti Bilas is based on Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's 1869 play of the same name, which was in turn influenced by William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. The producer is Uttam Kumar. In this film, Bhanu Bandyopadhyay plays a merchant, while Uttam Kumar plays his servant. They go somewhere new, but they don't know their twin brothers are there, so there's a lot of confusion and a lot of laughter. Although the original drama took place in an unspecified but distant past, the film shifts the story to modern-day India. Shakespeare arrived in India with colonialism in order to amuse the foreigners living there. Despite being used in the empire's educational system, he gained popularity through performances, amateur productions in schools and colleges, and translations on public stages.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ms. Renu Jain
Ph.D. Scholar, Department of English and Foreign Languages
SRMIST, NCR Modinagar
jain.renu.renu@gmail.com
Dr. Shalini Sharma
Associate Professor, Department of English and Foreign Languages
SRMIST, NCR Modinagar
shalinip@srmist.edu.in
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