Playing trivial pursuits with the bard

Seven fun facts that connect William Shakespeare to Bollywood of yore and today

April 23, 2016 09:27 am | Updated 04:00 pm IST

The first writer to bring Shakespeare to Indian theatre was Syed Mehdi Hassan 'Ahsaan' Lakhnavi in 1879 through Urdu adaptations of the Bard’s plays for the theatre company Alfred & Co. But it was Agha Hashra Kashmiri who was considered the "Indian Shakespeare" for several plays he wrote for Alfred in early 20th century. Some of his prominent Shakespearean adaptations were Dil Farosh (The Merchant of Venice), Shaeed-e-Naaz (Measure for Measure), and Safed Khoon (a mix of King Lear & King John).

Naseem Banu (mother of Saira Banu) was the first Ophelia in Indian cinema. She debuted with Khoon Ka Khoon (1935) based on Hamlet. It was the first significant adaptation of Shakespeare in the talkies era. It was with this film that Sohrab Modi, who had earned a big reputation as a Shakespearean actor before he took to films, and launched his own film company. Subsequently he made another Shakespearean film, Saed E Hawas (1936) based on King John.

Actor-filmmaker Kishore Sahu’s Hamlet (1954) is considered to be the closest on-screen adaptations of Shakespeare, in spirit, performance, language, and the dialogue in verse. Mala Sinha played Ophelia and Sahu didn’t just act in it but produced, directed and wrote it too.

Did you know a Hindi film soundtrack features Shakespeare as one of the lyricists? Shashi Kapoor's Junoon (1978) had Come live with me (rendered by Jennifer Kendal and Sharon Prabhakar) incorrectly credited to the Bard. The original poem was by Christopher Marlowe. Shakespeare quoted it in one of his sonnets and hence a lot of people end up attributing it to him.

One of the finest writers & directors of our times, in the beginning of his career wrote the screenplay of a film adapted from Shakespeare. But he remained largely unsatisfied with the directorial treatment given to the project and made a promise to himself that whenever he would become a director, he would make another film on the same play. And he did. We are talking of Gulzar who was one of the writers on Do Dooni Chaar (1969), directed by Debu Sen, based on The Comedy of Errors. Later in 1982, he directed Angoor based on the same comedy.

What’s common to Kamal Haasan, Sunny Deol, Aamir Khan, Dimple Kapadia and Amy Dastoor. They all have had a Bollywood break in a film inspired from Shakespeare’s work. Sunny Deol’s Betaab follows Taming of the Shrew, while Aamir's Qayamat se Qayamat Tak , Kamal Hassan's Ek Duje Ke Liye , Dimple's Bobby & Amy Dastoor's Issaq play on Romeo & Juliet .

Vishal Bhardwaj originally titled his Othello adaptation Issaq , but when the film was on the floors, he decided on a nation-wide poll to finalise the film title. The three names which were given as options were a) Issaq b) O Saathi Re & 3) Omkara .

This article has been corrected for a factual error.

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