26 Writings on Partition and Film Adaptations

Mr. Abu Saleh

 (I) About chapter:

The present module is about a new area of study that broadly falls under the category of literature and films. It is more specifically about the adaptation of partition  literary writings into films. Partition literature as a genre or an area of study began after the partition of Indian subcontinent when writers reflected on and penned the traumatic and unforgettable Indian history of 1947. These writings gave rise to a genre known as partition writings. In this module you will be introduced to this genre of writing, partition, to the theory of adaptation, films on partition, and films that are adapted from partition fiction. Later we will analyse two selected literary text that are adapted into films.

(II)  Partition, a Brief Introduction: 

Partition in general means division of a land based on the geographical and political boundaries. The boundaries are created citing various socio-and political reasons. India also faced partition. It was in 1947 when on the one hand India gained freedom from the colonial rule and on the other, the fate of India was changed by the political decision to partition India into two countries. It was on religious lines that India was partitioned and which left a profound impact: it would not be wrong if one says its echoes are still heard in today’s independent India and Pakistan. At the time of partition millions of people were displaced and horrific mass killings and traumatic events of abduction and rapes shook the country. The partition did not cease with the birth of new country, Pakistan; in 1971, Pakistan split into two, and Bangladesh was born out of what was formerly East Pakistan.

(III)   Films on Partition of India: 

The socio-political history is sealed in art, literature and films. There are various literary writings based on the horrific genocide that occurred during India’s partition. Not all but some of these issues of partition are presented in literature. However, literature alone is not the medium that depicts the displacements and killings of this unforgettable time; films also portrayed them. The following are some of the films that are made in different time periods.

Chinnamul (1950) is Bengali film. It is the first Indian film on the partition of India made in 1951 and directed by Nimai Ghosh. The film in order to depict the real situations of the time “used several people from refugee camps to represents their fictional equivalents”(Indiancine.ma ) the film does not follow any conventional mode of filmmaking as its main intention was to highlight the agony, dilemmas, tensions, fears of the people. To make this realistic film Nemai Ghosh, the director, says six different principles were followed “no professional actors, no make-up (except whiskers), no out-takes, no songs, concealed camera on all occasions, and dialogue with a strongly regional dialect” (Indiancine.ma)

Similarly there are many movies made on the themes and issues of Partition of India in various languages by both India and Pakistan. Here you will find the names of almost of all the movies that were made in India and some of the movies from Pakistan too like Kartar Singh and Khamosh Pani.

Kartar Singh is the first movie that was made on this issue. Similarly you will see that Pakistani writer, Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India is made as Earth 1947 by Deepa  Mehta, an expatriate Indian director, and Indian actors like Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna, and Aamir Khan are seen in the lead roles. It is important to note here that the present module does not focus on any country’s literary or cinematic representation of partition. The major focus of the module is to discuss partition literature and its cinematic adaptation.

The following are some of the movies in which the partition of India may not be a theme, but forms the background and ambience of the film: Chhalia (1960) touches the partition theme. Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) is a Bengali movie which does not directly deal with the partition of Bengal but touches it.

Dharmputra, (1961) in a real sense is considered as the first Indian Hindi movie made on the partition. Later some more poignant movies were made like Garam Hawa (1973), Tamas (1987), Train to Pakistan (1998),Earth-1947,(1998), Hey Ram (2000),Gadar ek Prem Katha (2001),Pinjar (2003), Khamosh Pani (2004),Partition (2007), Sadiyaan (2010), Qissa (2013), Midnight’s Children (2013), Kya Dilli kya Lahore (2014) and Rajkahini (2015) a Bengali film remade in Hindi as Begum Jaan.

(IV)  Literary Works on Partitions: 

One can see that there are various films made on the themes and issues of partition of India in various languages similarly one can find literary works based on it as well. In some of them the theme of partition runs in the background like in R. K. Narayan’s Waiting for the Mahatma (1955). Later plethora of novels were written in different Indian languages in both the countries, like Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (1956) Rajan’s Dark Dancer (1958), Malgaonkar’s Distant Drum (1960), Attia Hosain’s novel Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961), Chaman Nahal’s Azadi (1975), H.S. Gill’s Ashes and Petals (1979), The Night of the Seven Dawns (1979) by Anita Kumar, Anita Desai’s novel Clear Light of Day (1980), Salman Rushdie’s metafictional novel Midnight’s Children (1981), K.A .Abbas’s The World is my Village (1984), Mahmud Sipra’s Pawn to King Three (1985) N.N. Saxena’s Ties-Thick and Thin (1987), Manoj Das’s Cyclones (1987), Bapsi Sidhwa’ novel Cracking India (1988), The Shadow lines (1988) of Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai’s Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988), Shashi Tharoor in his novel The Great Indian Novel (1989), Guru Charan Das’s A Fine Family (1991), Mukul Kesavan’s Looking through Glass (1995), Shiv K. Kumar’ in A River with Three Banks (1998), Manju Kapoor’s Difficult Daughters (1998), Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What the Body Remembers (1999), Meena Arora Nayak’s About Daddy (2000), and Partitions (2011) by Amit Majmudar.

(V)   Films Made on Partition Writings: 

As we have seen there are numbers of literary writings detailing the historical movement of Indian history. They are: Pinjar (1950) is a novel by Amrita Pritam, the renowned Punjabi writer. The movie is also made with the same title by Chandraprakash Dwivedi in 2003. It is about a Hindu-Muslim conflict and abduction of women at the time of partition. Dharmputra (1954) is a Hindi novel by Acharya Chatursen Shastri. The film based on the novel deals with the Hindu-Muslim issues but a love story revolves around it. Train to Pakistan (1956) is written by Khushwant Singh and later in 1998 it was directed by Pamela Rooks. The movie crosses the socio-political dimensions of the partition and highlights the humanity that is abused but remains firm in the wake of partition. Meghe Dhaka Tara Bengali novel by Shaktipada Rajguru and it was directed with the same title into Bengali by Ritwik Ghatak.

Tamas (1975) is a Hindi novel by Bhisham Sahni. The novel was first made into a television series and later came the movie. The film was made by Govind Nihalani in 1988. As a television series it was first serialised on Doordarshan later it was released as a movie. The movie presents the migration of Sikhs from Punjab during partition. Midnight’s Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie touches the themes and issues of partition in a distinct magical manner. It was directed by Deepa Mehta who has also directed the movie Earth- 1947 (1998) written by Bapsi Sidhwa as Cracking India (1988). The movie Garam Hawa (1973) is based on the acclaimed Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai’s unpublished short story. It was made by M. S. Sathyu.

The films like Tamas, Pinjar, and Earth-1947 and Garam Hawa gathered much attention and were widely appreciated not only in the visual form but also as literary writing. Midnight’s Children as a fiction won Man Booker Prize but as a movie could not hold the attention of the audiences. Train to Pakistan as a novel is very well known but as a movie it was not noticed by the audiences.

(VI)    Discussion on SelectedFilms: 

For analysis of the literary writings that are adapted into films we would discuss two movies (i) Train to Pakistan and (ii) Cracking India also known as Ice Candy Man. We will first discuss the literary writing then the adaptation of the novels into films. This will help us to understand the technicalities of two different creative works and difference between them.

(I)   Train to Pakistan: 

The novel, Train to Pakistan is set in a fictitious village called Mano Majra which is situated on the borders of India and Pakistan, newly born countries. From centuries Mano Majra has been a village where diverse community members coexisted peacefully. The novel is divided into four sections (i) Dacoity (ii) Kalyuga (iii) Mano Majra and (iv) Karma. Each section of the novel is closely connected with the other and predicts the upcoming events in the life of the villagers of Mano Majra.

One day in the dead of the night a gangster Mali murders the money lender, Ram Lal, of Mano Majra. Jaggu, local ruffian, is in love with Nooran. Nooran is the only daughter of village’s weaver, a half blind man. Iqbal, foreign educated communist, has just arrived in the village. He has come to gather support for the socialist party of India. There is Hukum  Chand, deputy commissioner of the district, who is involved with a prostitute who is of his daughter’s age. Jaggu and Iqbal are arrested on the charges of the money lender’s murder.

Outside of the village in 1947 India is divided on the lines of religion. The village remains untouched by the outside world and harmony persists until one night a train full of dead bodies arrive at the station of the village. It is collectively decided that all the Muslims of the village should evacuate the village. For their departure arrangements are made. The train to Pakistan is scheduled to leave in the night. A night before this a small group of outsiders enter the village Gurudwara. These men ignite the minds of all the villagers to take revenge for the death of their Hindu brothers and sisters’ and burn the train that is taking the Muslims to Pakistan.

The next section of the novel ‘Kalyug’ reveals the horrific killings taking place at the time of partition in the name of religion. People are migrating from India to Pakistan and vice versa. Jaggu’s love, Nooran is also leaving the village by the same train. Jaggu comes to know about the conspiracy and sacrifices his life to save the love of his life, Nooran. The whole novel presents the horrifying details on the trauma of partition using the fictitious village life and its people.

The Movie, Train to Pakistan:

The film Train to Pakistan begins with Hukum Chand. He is returning to the village, Mano Majra, as a magistrate. He narrates the reasons for Jugga becoming a dacoit. Audiences come to know through the narrator that Jugga’s father was a dacoit and he was sentenced to death. The child, Jugga has witnessed the death sentence of his father. Jugga wants to claim his father’s position and wants to become the leader of the dacoits. Jugga is now fighting with his opponent Mali to get his father’s place in the group as Hukum Chand informs the audiences. Jugga is shown at his Muslim beloved’s home.

Mali and his group rob Ram Lal and kill him. The police suspect the Jugga as one of the culprit and the other Iqbal. Rest of the movie follows the text.

Discussion:

Nevertheless, there are various striking difference between the novel and movie. The novel opens with the peaceful life of the village Mano Majra. The village comes to life with the arrival and departure of trains. The only sound we hear that informs the villagers about the beginning, middle and end of the day is of trains.

Before daybreak, the mail train rushes through on its way to Lahore… blows two long blasts of the whistle. In an instant, all Mano Majra comes awake… By the time the 10:30 morning passenger train from Delhi comes in, life in Mano Majra has settled down to its dull daily routine… As the midday express goes by, Mano Majra stops to rest…When the evening passenger from Lahore comes in, everyone gets to work again…When the goods train steams in, they say to each other,” There is the goods train”. It is like saying goodnight.

The novel first published as Mano Majra in 1956 by Groves Publisher later it was published by Chatto & Windus as Train to Pakistan. The decision to publish it initially as Mano Majra suggests that the novel centres on the village life. The second title of the novel Train to Pakistan vocalizes the partition. Nevertheless, in both the cases protagonist of the novel remains the village Mano Majra that bears the insanity of partition.

Moreover, the division of the novel into four sections that is (i) Dacoity (ii) Kalyuga (iii) Mano Majra and (iv) Karma also suggests the same. The first section ‘Dacoity’ is at the centre in the first section. In the second section the partition and mass killings is Kalyuga, age of vice. The third section shows the reactions and implication of partition on Mano Majra, villagers like how the peaceful life is disturbed and chaos is spreading and people are plotting to kill each other in the name of religion. In the fourth section every one, irrespective of their religious affinities, is left to their Karma or what was decided that cannot be changes and partition becomes the karma.

Thus, in this manner it is the village, Mano Majra, is the protagonist of the novel. Khushwant Singh gradually develops the narrative in order to show that at the time of crisis how minds function and people react to situation. Nevertheless, humanity still persists through the people like Nooran and Jaggu, in other words through love.

The film begins with the old Hukumchand returning to the village, Mano Majra, as a commissioner. On his way to the village he narrates the background of Jugga’s character. Jugga as a child witnesses the death sentence of his father, who was a dacoit. Jugga is also a dacoit and fighting to become leader of the group. He gets injured in a scuffle with his opponent. His opponent, Mali, after killing Lala Ramlal while leaving the village throws bangles in his courtyard asking Jugga to wear it. Jugga has come to meet his beloved to her home contrary to what is shown in the novel. In the novel Jugga and Nooran meets in the dark night near the river. In the film Jugga shows his brave and hero like attitude by getting into his beloved’s home silently and romances with her. In the movie Jugga is shown as a hero as well as an innocent lover who saves his beloved’s life by giving away his own life.

Similarly Hukum Chand’s character is also changed and developed. Initially Hukum Chand is introduced as a strict official. The director gradually shows different shades of Hukum Chand’s character. He is a strict bureaucrat when he arrives at his office. Later he becomes a sensuous and as the narrative moves and partition engulfs the village horror and helplessness comes on his face too.

A great detail attention is paid to develop these two characters. Jugga does all the heroic action and Hukum Chand is either remains the narrator or helpless spectator.The differences are more importantly because “The novelist conveys his narrative thought  through the use of verbal language. The screenwriter conveys narrative thought through visual and verbal means. Because film is a visual medium and tells us much more than the novel possibly could about the physical nature of people, places and things, the filmmaker is more limited than the novelist in the images he presents, but has much more control over how his audience receives such images.” On the other hand a novel is a completely different  genre which “usually takes place inside the character’s head. A play deals with the language of dramatic action. A screenplay deals with externals, with details.” (Daniel in “The Art of Adaptation”) Thus there arises difference not only because of conscious choice but also because of the two different mode of representation. Nevertheless, one can say that the film Train to Pakistan is about partition of India as well as it is the story of Jugga’s sacrifices and love for his Muslim beloved. Thus the film unlike the novel shows Jugga as the protagonist.

(II)   Cracking India/ Ice-Candy Man 

The novel begins with the child narrator’s voice, Lenny. Lenny has polio. Lenny’s ayah takes care of her. Her Ayah, Nanny is a beautiful lady whom men of diverse communities admire. In the novel Lenny is the narrator of the painful events of partition. Lenny is a Parsee girl. Parsees were neutral at the time of partition. Thus, they remain unaffected by the partition horrors. In the novel, not only Lenny’s identity as a Parsee girl but her status too contributes in understanding the religious intolerance and political arguments that are happening all around her. It is through her Nanny that Lenny learns about it. Another character in the novel is the ice-candy man, who transforms many times in the novel and acts as a symbol of changing socio-political scenario of India.

Earth 1947:

The movie Earth 1947 and the novel Ice-Candy Man/Cracking India differ a great deal in various ways. The novel starts with Lenny as a child narrator whereas in the movie we hear a young Lenny’s voice narrating the story. At the outset the movie shows the kind of expectations readers of Cracking India can hope for. The movie is made on the fiftieth year of India’s partition. The film is made keeping in mind the international audiences.

In cinema a story is presented in dramatic sequences and communicates an idea to the audiences. Similarly language also uses words, sentences and so on. In other words there is an organised way of presenting a story in both literature and films. In both the medium the main purpose is to communicate an idea and leave an impact on the audiences. However, one can say that audio visual images leave a greater effect and impact on the minds of the audiences then the readers of book. For example you will never read a book in a language you do not know but you may like to watch a movie and you will be able to follow the story as well. The movie will leave its effect on your memory. It will not be wrong to put it that visual language is a universal language that does not require you to learn it separately. Cinema is that medium even if you do not know the language you will have with you the audio and visual images. Movies based on the horrific incidents like partition where people were uprooted from their home land and innumerable were killed in the name of religion reminds us of the horrific times. Further, they very clearly and closely make us understand how the human mind functions.

The movie is a love triangle wherein the two Muslim men, the ice-candy-man played by Aamir Khan, and Hassan, Rahul Khanna, fall for Nanny played by Nandita Das. It is Nanny who has to decide whom she favours. She responds to the advances of Hassan. On parallel with the love triangle runs the partition narrative that gradually engulfs Nanny’s life.

After the ice-candy-man returns seeing the horrific sight of the train full of dead bodies the film gradually reveals other side of the ice-candy-man’s character. His jealousy for Hassan comes out clearly. Ice-candy-man narrates to Nanny the horrific mass killing incident that he has seen at the railway station when he went to receive his sister. Later he also proposes to Nanny saying that the wild man inside him can become peaceful if she accepts his love. But Nanny rejects the proposal. Later Hassan’s body is found in a sack. At the end a Muslim mob comes to the Lenny’s home and asks to handover all the Hindus of the house. They also ask for Shanta saying hand over the Hindu Ayah to them. Lenny’s mother lies to them saying they are unaware of her whereabouts. Ice-candy-man comes into the scene. He holds Lenny wins her trust and asks her to tell the truth. Lenny tells the truth the mob then takes away the Nanny.

Thus, one can see that ice-candy-man uses partition as an excuse to show his sexual jealousy. Suddenly first Hassan is killed and then coming of ice-candy-man to take away Shanta reveals that how the partition became horrible excuse to fulfill sexual desires. Further, in the film focus shifts from the child Lenny to the Nanny and to horrific incidents of mass killings, abduction and rape that took place at the time of partition. Unlike the novel where Lenny goes with her God mother to find the Nanny and rescues her from the ice-candy-man.

However, there are novels whose adaptation to films becomes difficult then the director has to make a choice. According to Sergei Eisenstein films most readily adapt novels with externalities and physical description. But if any fiction has internal monologue or, stream of consciousness, then adaptation becomes difficult. Eisentstein marks Dickens’s ‘cinematic techniques’, of narration including anticipation of such phenomena as frame composition and the close-up.

Film Adaptation:

“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the powers of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel-it is, before all, to make to see’ Joseph Conrad, Nigger of the Narcissus ‘between the percept of the visual image and the concept of the mental image lies the root difference between the two media”3. Thus, it is the image that both the writer and director create but the difference lies in the creative mode. One does it through words and the other through visual. The word image is open for a reader to interpret whereas the visual images come in a concrete form. However, it does not mean that words do not create images.

Fiction and the Camera Eye: “Concretised form”, i.e. where a great deal of visual material is available in the narrative. “the integrity of the seen object and . . . gives it palpable presence apart from the presence of the observer” eg, in James Joyce or Flaubert. ‘a balanced distribution of emphasis in the rendering of what is looked at, who is looking, and what the looker makes of what she sees’, eg Henry James (Alan Speigel, Fiction and the Camera Eye)

Nevertheless, an often overlooked aspect of film adaptation is the inclusion of sound and music. In a literary text, a specific sound effect can often be implied or specified by an event, but in the process of adaptation, the film-makers will have to determine specific sound characteristics which subliminally affect narrative interpretation. In some cases of adaptation, music may have been specified in the original material. Three modes of involvement: (i) the telling mode (e.g. literature), (ii) the showing mode (e.g. film or theatre) and (iii) the interactive mode (e.g. videogames or theme park rides). While the first two modes immerse the audience in the activity of reading, watching and listening by appealing mostly to their imagination, the interactive mode of engagement allows them to participate physically in the adapted texts, to enter the story and act as one of the characters (Linda Hutcheon, op. cit., pp. XIV-XV, 22-27) The impoverishment of the book’s content due to necessary omissions in the plot and the inability of the filmmakers to read out and represent the deeper meanings of the text. The perception problems related to the visuality of the filmic medium. Each act of visualization narrowed down the open-ended characters, objects or landscapes, created by the book and reconstructed in the reader ́s imagination, to concrete and definite images. The verbally transmitted characteristics of the heroes, places and the spatial relations between them, open to various decoding possibilities in the process of imagining, were in the grip of flattening pictures. Visualization was therefore regarded as destroying many of the subtleties with which the printed word could shape the internal world of a literary work only in the interaction with the reader’s response4. In a certain way all works of art offer multilayered modes of communication that break through the virtually established barriers between the different media. Each work lays the groundwork for many possible adaptations because each art can play with elements of other arts5. Limitations of the ‘Fidelity Approach” and “less judgmental” discourse of intertextuality: stress on how film makers move within the field of intertextual connections and employ means of expression available in film arts to convey meanings. Adaptation is an original interpretation. The combination of known with unknown is the mixture of repetition with difference, familiarity and with novelty (Linda Hutcheon, Art of Adaptation). Unity of artistic communication across media: we begin to notice that many of its elements gain a new life when interpreted in the context of the new medium’s specificity. Oscillation between the different media is of great importance to our perception of the world, for it locates works of art in the energetic field between different modes of communication and beyond the limits of a particular medium6.

(VII)   Fiction to Film: Adaptation;

The script of the movie Train to Pakistan was written by Khushwant Singh along with director of the movie. On the other hand the movie Earth-1947 (Cracking India) was rewritten by Deepa Mehta. Both the movies are the example of adaptation wherein the questions of loyalty, fidelity and so on to the sources text are generally raised.

Nevertheless, one needs to understand that there are different ways of creating a story or plot in a film. Sometime the idea can be original of the director or s/he borrows and adapts from some existing literatures. John Harrington, in his book Film And/As Literature estimated that a third of all films ever made have been adapted from novels, and, if you included other literary forms, such as dramas or short stories, that estimate might well be 65 percent or  more. Almost all of the works of classic literature studied in high school have been adapted into film. For example see the following list of Hindi biopics alone Sardar(1993), Bandit Queen (1994, Zubeida (2001), Bhagat Singh(2002), Mangal Pandey (2005), Guru (2007), Jodha Akbar (2008), Rang Rasiya (2008),3 Idiots (2009), Paan Singh Tomar (2010), The Dirty Picture (2011), Shahid (2012), Bhaag Milkha Bhaag,(2013), Mary Kom (2014), Aligarh (2015), Manjhi: The Mountain Man (2015), MS Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016), Neerja (2016), Azhar (2016), Sarabjit (2016),Dangal (2017)

So, adaptation has always been central to filmmaking. This is a relationship that we live with but while someone adapts from an existing form the comparison arises. Film adaptation is generally subjected to intense scrutiny. Film adaptations from literary texts receive fatal criticism in moralistic way as cinema has done a great disservice to literature. According to Welsh, “The most basic and banal focus in evaluating adaptations is the issue of “fidelity,” usually leading to the notion that “the book was better”.

Adaptations are like re-telling. So, the semiotic adaptation and the visual presentation of the same text should be looked at from different perspectives. Sometimes adaptation is like replication and it stands in its own as an independent work close or far from the ‘source’. It creates a new story and thus, claims cultural validity. Moreover adaptation can be seen as hybrid construction mingling with different media and discourses and collaborations.

Structuralist and post-Structuralist theoretical discussion have subverted the idea of hierarchy between literature and films. They have significantly changed the theory and concept of adaptation in a positive way.

“Derridean deconstruction, for example, undid overly rigid binarism in favor of notions of “mutual invagination”. Deconstruction also dismantled the hierarchy of “Original” and “copy”. In a Derridean perspective, the auratic prestige of the original does not run counter to the copy; rather, the prestige of the original is created by the copies, without which the very idea of originality has no meaning. The film as “copy” by analogy, is not necessarily inferior to the novel as “original”. The Derridean critique of origins is literally true in relation to adaptation. The “original” always turns out to be partially “copied” from something earlier….” (Robert Stam et al, Literature and Film…, 08)

Critiques of Adaptation:

Following are some of the major significant points that make significantly portray the difference when a literary text is adapted into a film. They are:

• The impoverishment of the book’s content due to necessary omissions in the plot and the inability of the filmmakers to read out and represent the deeper meanings of the text.
• The perception problems related to the visuality of the filmic medium. Each act of visualization narrowed down the open-ended characters, objects or landscapes, created by the book and reconstructed in the reader ́s imagination, to concrete and definite images.
• The verbally transmitted characteristics of the heroes, places and the spatial relations between them, open to various decoding possibilities in the process of imagining, were in the grip of flattening pictures. Visualization was therefore regarded as destroying many of the subtleties with which the printed word could shape the internal world of a literary work only in the interaction with the reader’s response.

Inter-Arts:

In a certain way all works of art offer multilayered modes of communication that break through the virtually established barriers between the different media. Each work lays the groundwork for many possible adaptations because each art can play with elements of other arts8. This makes it difficult to adapt a literary writings into films. It does not create hierarchy but significantly places the argument and difficulty or incapability of transforming an artistic work from one medium into other.

Critiques of Adaptation: 

Following are some of the major significant points that make significantly portray the difference when a literary text is adapted into a film. They are:

• The impoverishment of the book’s content due to necessary omissions in the plot and the inability of the filmmakers to read out and represent the deeper meanings of the text.
• The perception problems related to the visuality of the filmic medium. Each act of visualization narrowed down the open-ended characters, objects or landscapes, created by the book and reconstructed in the reader ́s imagination, to concrete and definite images.
• The verbally transmitted characteristics of the heroes, places and the spatial relations between them, open to various decoding possibilities in the process of imagining, were in the grip of flattening pictures. Visualization was therefore regarded as destroying many of the subtleties with which the printed word could shape the internal world of a literary work only in the interaction with the reader’s response.

Inter-Arts:

In a certain way all works of art offer multilayered modes of communication that break through the virtually established barriers between the different media. Each work lays the groundwork for many possible adaptations because each art can play with elements of other arts. This makes it difficult to adapt a literary writings into films. It does not create hierarchy but significantly places the argument and difficulty or incapability of transforming an artistic work from one medium into other.

Response to Criticism:

• Limitations of the ‘Fidelity Approach”
• “less judgemental” discourse of intertextuality : stress on how film makers move within the field of intertextual connections and employ means of expression available in film arts to convey meanings
• Adaptation is an original interpretation

Adaptation and Pleasure:

• combination of known wit unknown, mixture of repetition with difference, familiarity with novelty.
• Unity of artistic communication across media: we begin to notice that many of its elements gain a new life when interpreted in the context of the new medium’s specificity.
• Oscillation between the different media is of great importance to our perception of the world, for it locates works of art in the energetic field between different modes of communication and beyond the limits of a particular medium.

Thus, there is nothing original in a true sense. Everything that we read and see has  some elements of some other creative work. Hence every new artistic creation that comes out is an addition but not ‘the original’. To this Julia Kristeva calls intertextuality, the term she introduced in her work “Word, Dialogue and Novel”. According to her a text is a dynamic site not a static product as the literary words, she says “an intersection of textual surface rather than a point (a fixed meaning), as a dialogue among several writings”. She further says, “each word (text) is an inter section of other words (texts) where at least one other word  (text) can be read” Thus, words contain other words. As they are not self-contained and they are always in dialogue with time and history. In other words texts are always created with pre-existing meanings. Thus meaning is both outside and inside of a text. In other words meaning is with the readers and outside, that is, within the time or society of one’s own milieu. As Kristeva says “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another” hence, every partition narrative that is written and told is drawn from that particular historical period. Film adaptation is not about rewriting a story nor does it remain at the stage of intertextuality. It is an intermedial space wherein a literary piece, in this case, gets into a visual form. Here two different medium communicate with each other.

All the partition narratives share a text of pain and mass killings. Further any writer or director when makes a movie she/he does not make any thing ‘original’. They recreate the words (texts) that already exist. They rather add to the existing corpus of literary works, both literary and cinematic. In other words on the text called the partition of India various narratives are told and retold time again in many modes, literary and visual being examples.

(VIII)  Summary :

In this module you are introduced to the subject of partition literary writings, films made on the partition narrative and to the theory and concept of adaptation, intertextuality and Intermediality. In this we have discussed the literary writings on partition, then the films made on partition in general, and then the films adaptation of literary writings. At the end we have analysed the two texts, Train to Pakistan and Cracking India, and their cinematic adaptations. For more on this module, please find the e-text, learn more and self-assessment tabs.

Reference

• Amit       “Movies       Based       on       the       Partition       of       India       and       Pakistan” http://www.amitwrites.com/movies-partition-india-pakistan/
• Dercksen,       Daniel.       “The       Art       of       Adaptation”.       The       Writing       Studio http://writingstudio.co.za/the-art-of-adaptation/
• Earth 1947. (dir,) Deepa Mehta. Perf. Maia Sethna, Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna, Aamir Khan, Kittu Gidwani. 199. Zeitgeist Films. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEJdS7_RC4Q
• Gautam, Radha S. Chapter-I “Introduction” in “Representation of History: a Study of the Partition Event in the Selected Novels” Unpublished PhD Thesis Submitted to the Veer Narmad                      South   Gujarat                                   University,              2014. http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/handle/10603/50381
• Stam, Robert. “Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation.” Roberta Stam et al. (ed.) Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Ed. Stam and Alexandra Raengo. London: Blackwell, 2005.
• Stam, Robert. Film Theory. US: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
• Train to Pakistan. (Dir) Pamela Rook. Perf. Mohan Agashe, Nirmal Pandey, Rajit Kapur, Smriti Mishra, and Divya Dutta. 1998, Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS7jl- OsxhQ
• Welsh, James M. “Introduction: Issues of Screen Adaptation: What Is Truth?” in The Literature/Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation edited by James M. Welsh & Peter Lev. Scarecrow Press, 2007.