Adaptations of great works are an integral part of movie making. Many classics come alive on screen, thanks to some exceptional filmmakers, but some suffer too when compromises are made with an eye on the box office. Two examples stand out in recent times. “Shala”, the award winning novel by Milind Bokil made into a superb award-winning film by the same name, and Rang Rasiya , based on a wonderfully penned Marathi novel “Raja Ravi Varma”, by Ranjit Desai, also hitting the cine screens to mixed criticism.
Both Bokil and Desai are celebrated and award winning authors. Desai’s forte was history and some painstaking research that went into it. His books are a rage among the Marathi readers. A feature of his book on the famous painter from Kerala was the courtroom drama where the protagonist defends himself against charges of having hurt the religious feelings of a section of the society by painting gods and goddesses, in the process taking art out of places and into the homes of ordinary people.
Vikram Pande, who has translated Bokil and Desai’s books into English, is disappointed with the manner in which the courtroom drama has been dealt with in Rang Rasiya . “The courtroom drama, the highlight of the book, as well as the movie, lacked the punch. Raja Ravi Varma argues his case brilliantly showing reasons why his art needs to reach the masses and how he was helping the gods to reach people’s homes when people are not allowed to enter the temples. In the movie, unfortunately, Randeep Hooda, looks ill and subdued. It simply lacked the intensity with which Ranjit Desai described the scenes. While Ketan Mehta has used the court case as an anchor and the movie revolves around it, he did not get the points across which are shown in a beautiful manner in the book. It was the first case of an artist being booked for obscenity and the way Raja Ravi Varma defends freedom is exemplary,” says Pande.
Bokil, 53, is among the most significant contemporary Marathi writers. Jayaprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti movement made a huge impression on him during his student days. He started his writing career with a short story in 1981 and 13 years later came up with his first book, “Udakachiya Arti”, a collection of short stories. “Shala” brought him fame even as some of his other books, “Ekam”, “Rann/Durg” and “Samudra” made waves.
“Shala” (meaning school) is a subject close to everyone’s heart. The book, a story of adolescence, is dedicated to all those who went to school. Asserts Pande, “I believe Shala was extremely well done. Not only did the director stick to the script, he showed the social milieu during the mid-1970s very well and more importantly depicted the idea of romance and innocence of a 9th standard boy and girl extremely well. It was a tough task for me as a translator to get the tone of the 9th standard school boy into my writing. The Marathi movie has done a commendable job. In Shala the director worked closely with the author. In Rang Rasiya , the director could not have met the author as Ranjit Desai had passed away much earlier.”
Rang Rasiya has colour and the aesthetic appeal. But Shala appeals to the viewer because of its realistic treatment of the subject. The melancholic end of the two books is similar though. Raja Ravi Varma wins his case but loses his muse (Sugandha, played by Nandana Sen). In “Shala”, which is set in the suburbs of Bombay in the 70s, with references to the Emergency in the narration, the boy and the girl part and the author leaves no indication is they meet in the future. As Bokil says, “I believe, a writer is basically a melancholic person and although he or she may have moments of exhilaration, good literature often ends on a melancholic note. This is because you realise life is not perfect.”
Bokil loved the movie based on his novel. It is as he had visualised. But the same can’t be said of Rang Rasiya , which deviates from the book at a few stages. It certainly needs adept handing to give a subject the look of perfection as close as possible.
