BENCY BENEDICT - AM20ENG005 - II MA ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE

Iyobinte Pusthakam:

A Contrapuntal reading of Shakespeare's King Lear

Project submitted to St. Teresa’s College in partial fulfillment of the

requirement for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in English Language

and Literature

BENCY BENEDICT

II M.A. English

St. Teresa’s College (Autonomous)

Ernakulam

Supervisor

Dr. MARIA THERESA CHAKKUNNY

Assistant Professor

Department of English and Centre for Research

St. Teresa’s College (Autonomous)

Ernakulam

Kerala

March 2022

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this dissertation entitled, "Iyobinte Pusthakam: A

Contrapuntal Reading of Shakespeare's King Lear," is the record of genuine work done

by me, under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Maria Theresa Chakunny, Assistant

Professor, Department of English and Centre for Research, and that no part of the

dissertation has previously been presented for the award of any degree, diploma, or other

similar titles of recognition.

BENCY BENEDICT

II M.A. English

Ernakulam St. Teresa’s College (Autonomous)

31 March 2022 Ernakulam

CERTIFICATE

I hereby certify that this project entitled, "Iyobinte Pusthakam: A

Contrapuntal Reading of Shakespeare's King Lear," is a record of bonafide work carried

out by Bency Benedict under my supervision and guidance.

Dr. MARIA THERESA CHAKKUNNY

Assistant Professor

Department of English and Centre for Research

St. Teresa’s College (Autonomous)

Ernakulam Ernakulam

31 March 2022 Kerala

An Abstract of the Project Entitled,

Iyobinte Pusthakam: A Contrapuntal Reading of Shakespeare's King Lear

BENCY BENEDICT

M. A English Literature

St. Teresa’s (AUTONOMOUS) College, Ernakulam

Reg. No. AM20ENG005

2020 - 2022

Supervising Teacher: Dr. MARIA THERESA CHAKKUNNY

The literary work, King Lear, has a certain ironic quality and Amal Neerad masterfully framed

this irony in the shape of the Mollywood film Iyobinte Pusthakam. This study is an attempt to

make a contrapuntal reading of Shakespeare's King Lear. Iyob the protagonist of Iyobinte

Pusthakam is a third world version of King Lear, abandoned by his children, suffering profound

trauma, and eventually dying tragically.

In modern day Kerala, India's southernmost state, Amal Neerad focused on a family feud

between a father and his three sons over a colonial-era Munnar tea estate. What happens to the

land (Mannu) and Woman (Pennu) in a post-colonial and pre-governmental Indian society set in

the Western Ghats of Southern India? In Munnar's green slopes and bountiful fields, a chain of

events unfolds, culminating in the world's first democratically elected Communist government.

Kerala is represented in such a way that we are forced to reconsider Imperialism, Communism,

Colonialism, Sexual Violence, Indigenous Rights, Classism, Caste System, Christianity,

Paternity, Pre-Marital Sex, Lineage and Marijuana Plantations.

The project is divided into three sections. The first chapter examines the theories employed by

Amal Neerad in the development of Iyobinte Pusthakam in light of King Lear. The second

chapter is an attempt to analyse Amal Neerad's Iyobinte Pusthakam as Shakespeare's King Lear.

Chapter three is the culminating section, in which an attempt is made to establish Amal Neerad

as India's indigenous Shakespeare.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It is a pleasure to thank everyone who contributed to the successful completion of this

project. Thank you, Jesus, for giving me health, patience, and the ability to complete this task.

I am extremely grateful to Dr. Lizzy Mathew, the Principal of St. Teresa's College, for

providing me with all of the necessary resources to complete my dissertation.

Dr. Maria Theresa Chakkunny, my supervising instructor, deserves special thanks for her

time, advice, support, and suggestions throughout my project. Prof. Dr. Latha Nair, Head of the

Department of English and Center for Research, and all of the Department's teachers, especially

my class in charge, Dr. Preethi Kumar, deserve my gratitude for their guidance and support.

I also want to express my gratitude to my parents, who have provided me with all I need

and have surrounded me with great care to help me achieve my goals in life, as well as my

dearest brother, who has been with me during of my working hours.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my best friend, whose support in watching this

film prompted me to research this topic, as well as to all of my dearest friends for their kindness

and affection.

CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 A Glance at the Theories 5

Chapter 2 A Contrapuntal Reading on Iyobinte Pusthakam 10

Chapter 3 Amal Neerad: India’s Indigenous Shakespeare 22

Conclusion 32

Works Cited 33

INTRODUCTION

Art is the heart of every creator. It cannot just be called someone's hard work, it is their

wing with which every creator flew to their dreams and their dreams come true with this little

universal term, art. A creator gave life to literature and another creator gave life to cinema, and

together, literature and cinema became the two chief elements of art with which the world

experiences the depths of art. Literature has been around since ancient times. The development

of prose or poetry that aims to provide the reader/listener/observer with delight, enlightenment,

or teaching, as well as the development of literary techniques utilized in the conveyance of these

pieces, is referred to as the history of literature. The stories linked with gods and goddesses,

brave heroes, legendary epics, tragedies, comedies, and romances, were the ruling themes of

countless literary works.

There are numerous parallels between literature and film. In the history of cinema, people

cannot figure out major differences in the nature of literature and cinema, because they are

growing together from their single mothers, art. Although cinema has a unique hallmark that

literature lacks; it has the power in bringing the viewers to its central idea through the quality of

the visual medium, where literature cannot. Similarly, when literature takes the readers to an

imaginative world, away from the real world whereas cinema shows the world in front of the

viewers. In the present scenario, cinema is more powerful than literature and it is proving its

strength day by day. The way one makes a cinema, the way one sees it, the way one interprets it,

and the way one lives in it has changed within the period. Like ancient times, it is not easy to

give life to cinemas nowadays because the world and the mind structures have also changed.

Adaptations of epic tales, mythological stories, and great fables have always been a chief

principal of many cinemas. This article will discuss how filmmakers have adapted Shakespeare's

plays, with a focus on Shakespeare's plays. A specific mention will be made of acclaimed

filmmaker Amal Neerad and his film Iyobinte Pusthakam, which was based on Shakespeare's

play King Lear. Even though the film was shot against a different backdrop and depicts a

completely different age, there are striking parallels between the two.

The Shakespearean tragedy King Lear is well-known. It was composed in 1605 or 1606 and

first performed in 1606 on St. Stephen's Day. However, it was published in a quarter under the

title of history two years later, in 1608, though it was later performed under the full title of The

Tragedy of King Lear. It is classified as a tragedy because it relates the harrowing narrative of a

king who puts his daughters to the test and discovers that all except one are loveless. He paid the

price for his immaturity by being thrown out of the palace by the daughters who professed to

love him the most.

Amal Neerad skilfully fills his frames with red tight alleys, greenery-filled bushes, and

hedges beneath a blue sky, painting his canvas in rich red, green, and black tones. Iyobinte

Pusthakam's contradictions are hidden by the vibrant colors and imposing presence of particular

actors, who erase the story's laxity. Iyyob, a man who unexpectedly acquires a big quantity of

money from his overseas employer, is the protagonist of the novel. His three sons are his pride

and joy. The first two inherit their father's cold-bloodedness, while the youngest, a shy youngster,

flees when met with an unexpected sight. With a story that straddles the Shakespearean tale of a

tragic father who is mistreated by his children and a ballad-like romance in which the pair is on

the verge of being torn apart.

With the inclusion of music clips and his boyish compulsion for fight sequences where

characters are let loose in a pine forest, in an endless trail of pursuit and annihilation, with a

narrative that straddles the Shakespearean tale of King Lear, Amal Neerad's concentration lapses

or rather flits away. The story of Iyob and his three sons isn't faultless, but it's done with a lot of

heart, with historical intricacies eked out and characters sculpted with zeal. There is a lady who

behaves like a serpent, beautiful and venomous, carrying out betrayal with diabolical grins and

quiet acquiescence to the terrible frustrations of an impotent spouse before shifting into a

sensuous mimicry for infidelity. Padmapriya shines in her role, conveying a sinister allure. Lal's

Iyob is alarmingly similar to Shakespeare's Lear in that he is pulled down from his lordly perch

to loneliness in a dark room, with horrible nightmares jolting him awake from a booze-induced

sleep.

The film's tapestry of familial feuds, romance, and manipulations is held together by this

solidity of people. The strangeness in this shot is disguised as a desire for fashion, to the extent

where a girl who has been exposed to the horrors of the world since childhood wears stockings

from a middle-class English family. Her brows are gleaming, and her face is free of dust and

grime. During the British occupation of India, an Indian police officer displays an Adolf Hitler

photograph in his office and spends his time reading about the tyrant. These scenes would never

work in a well-written period romance. Amal Neerad, on the other hand, can proudly cajole this

picture since putting together a film with such a wide appeal in Malayalam requires more than

daring.

The research will demonstrate how Amal Neerad has done justice to his cinema and how he

has improved the quality of displaying a piece of literature by transforming it into a different

culture than that in which it was written. It examines how Shakespearean excerpts are used in

Neerad's film to convey concerns ranging from colonial-era exploitation and miscegenation

anxieties to current local issues such as land rights, tribal community marginalization, and

deforestation. And then, Iyyobinte Pusthakam's familial and societal wrongdoings, as well as his

quest for forgiveness, represent the greater arc of recent significant national upheavals, division,

and development. The relationship between Iyyobinte Pusthakam and Lear, one of the three

works recognized as an influence by its creative team, is the topic of this article.

This dissertation begins by situating the theory analysis, in which an attempt has been made

to give out a clear view on topics such as Imperialism, Communism, Colonialism, Sexual

Violence, Indigenous Rights, Classism, Caste System, Christianity, Paternity, Pre-Marital Sex,

Lineage, Marijuana Plantations, and other issues, as well as on the filmic-textual interaction

within theoretical paradigms of appropriation and fraternity,' before moving on to the compares

and contrasts of Iyyobinte Pusthakam to other Indian Shakespeare adaptations to see how issues

about familial separation and marriage intersect with caste, race, gender, and patriarchal

authority. This work also does a contrapuntal reading on Iyobinte Pusthakam with Shakespeares'

Lear and examine the film's visualizations of verdant tribal woodlands threatened by

deforestation and its climactic confrontation of man versus nature, the ultimate moral against

endless human greed, in my detailed analysis of Iyobinte Pusthakam's similarities between

nature, family, and nation, and its ultimate moral against limitless human greed. Finally, an

attempt has been made to prove that, Amal Neerad is India's indigenous Shakespeare.

CHAPTER ONE

Theories are the core of literature. Every text contains a hidden theory, which is their

blood, which interacts with other components and transfers oxygen and nutrients from the writer

to the readers. It functions as a classroom, allowing readers to question literary ideas and

principles. They assist the readers in acquiring a deeper understanding of literature by relying on

critical theory to gain more insight into literary materials. Similarly, movies also have the

heartbeat of theories, which serve as a framework for understanding what movies are about and

how they relate to real life. Imperialism, Communism, Colonialism, Sexual Violence, Indigenous

Rights, Classism, Caste System, Christianity, Paternity, Pre-Marital Sex, Lineage, Marijuana

Plantations, and others are among the beliefs that impacted Amal Neerad in the creation of his

Iyobinte Pusthakam.

Imperialism arose in the nineteenth century as a means of expanding territory and sustaining

the Industrial Revolution. For a variety of reasons, powerful nations such as the United States

and the United Kingdom have less developed areas. Imperialism shaped the world we live in

today, and it is the only reason we can afford commodities from all over the world. It is still

prominent in some areas today, and as a result, films and novels have been written about it. The

effect of imperialism was advantageous to imperialist nations since they got resources, land, and

power, but it was often destructive to native peoples. Their culture was shattered, their leaders

were assassinated, and their houses were taken from them. Both history and Iyyobinte Pusthakam

provide examples of this.

Iyyob became the chief of Munnar after gaining a sense of dominance and authority power,

and the people began to obey and revere him. Iyyob of the Neerads had a nasty heart and never

bowed down to anyone. Ivan and Dimitri, his first two sons, encouraged and followed Iyyob's

path. They occupied the hills and the people who lived there were treated as slaves,

marginalized, oppressed, and denied their right to live in their homeland. The main impact of

imperialism that the audience can observe in the film is this. Iyyob orders his son to clean the

grounds where the Munnar people lived; the cleaning was severe, tormenting and beating them,

while Dmitri satisfies his libido in the meantime. Iyyob is also slaying a wild elephant that had

never attacked anyone but was preventing people from working on their property. Even the

animals lacked life in their habitats. Iyyob is also emphatically opposing the coming and request

of another imperialist, Angoor Rawther, who sought Iyyob's permission to tear down trees and

replace marijuana plants. Iyyobinte Pusthakam's imperialism teaches viewers about colonialism

as well.

Exactly, Amal Neerad has eloquently depicted how Iyyob and his sons exploit the people and

the country economically. Iyyob has entire control over Munnar, including its tea plantations and

much of the land. Even though he had a good ruling heart, Iyyob never realizes his genuine

authoritarianism. Both Ivan and Dmitri used the powers Iyyob had given them to their full

potential, and they were like Munnar's live powers. Many protesters attempted to demonstrate

Iyyob's exact authority power, claiming that he is ruling solely based on a mere power of

attorney. Iyyob's influence muffled the protestors' voices, and many never dared to speak up.

Rawther's character exemplifies imperialism and colonialism when he set his sights on Iyyob's

power and made it easier for himself by enslaving Ivan and Dimitri. The arrival and activities of

Aloshy have made things easier for the people, but it has annoyed Iyyob, Ivan, and Dmitri.

Iyyobinte Pusthakam, like many modern films, depicts the theories and themes of sexual

violence. It also depicts a time when women were seen as mere objects in men's daily lives.

According to the sexual assault notion that has been evolving in literature and films. It is the

marginalized and disabled who are frequently depicted as victims. Similarly, in Iyyobinte

Pusthakam, the authority people are assaulting the poor native women. Dmitri is shown as a

womanizer who already has a young, attractive wife whom he tortures and assaults whenever he

feels like it. We can witness the marginalization of women as a commodity right from the start of

the Iyyobinte Pusthakam, and even Britishers are sexually assaulting women. Kazhali is a key

character who goes through a similar experience, falling in love with the ruling Britisher and

eventually betraying Iyyob after the foreigner dies. Similar moments of sexual aggression can be

seen in Iyyobinte Pusthakam, such as Dmitri's yearning for sexual fulfillment, his wife mocking

him, Dmitri traveling in pursuit of his lust, and so on.

Neerad emphasizes his home culture and land in Iyobinte Pusthakam, weaving in Lear's

themes of familial love, blindness, treachery, and grief to pose ethical questions about

sociopolitical issues such as caste and race inequities, environmental degradation, and

neocolonialism. While Shakespearean elements underpin critical parts of the story, the film's

Lear origins are only acknowledged openly in the DVD case's blurb. Neerad's work is featured in

the filmography of Shakespearean and Indian Cinemas as a picture "quoting Shakespeare" due to

the lack of a more overt identification (Trivedi and Chakravarti 332).

While this essay focuses on the film as an adaptation, it should be highlighted that it might

also be viewed as an example of Shakespeare appropriation, especially if we use the phrase to

mean "ownership" (Jean Marsden 1, qtd. in Iyengar and Desmet 4). Neerad successfully has a

colonial text to recreate the story of India's colonization, reclaiming the country via a Marxist

perspective that is both past and present to argue ethical issues. As a result, Pusthakam could be

said to align with Iyengar and Desmet's paradigm, in which "appropriation can convey political,

cultural, and, in our contention, ethical advocacy" because "appropriation carries strong

overtones of agency, potentially for the appropriated as well as for the appropriator" (4). When

talking about Neerad's film, pays little homage to Shakespeare in this film. Instead, Neerad's

Iyobinte Pusthakam controls Shakespeare totally, taking over and integrating Lear for its gain,

much like Lear's own familial battles.

In addition, the director employs Shakespearean moral difficulties to express his ethical

concerns about ownership — earthly, physical, sexual, and spiritual. The narrated reminiscences

of an elderly Communist leader, Comrade Varkey, frame the retold narrative of three sons and

their father (T.G. Ravi). Varkey uses flashbacks to tell the first half of the generational narrative,

detailing how native servant kid Iyob/Lear (Lal) is adored by his British owner Harrison, who

ensures the boy receives an education. Unlike Lear, Iyob has grown up in terrible poverty, and

unlike Lear, he never has an epiphany; his adversity never makes him empathetic to those who

are less fortunate. After Harrison's death, a grown-up Iyob shows his ingratitude by violently

evicting Harrison's tribal mistress and their baby daughter, Martha (Isha Sharvani), from their

mansion, in keeping with Lear's theme. Iyob, the new master, becomes a "brown sahib," or a

local who acts like the colonizer, perpetuating colonial inequity. His elder sons Dimitri

(Chembad Vinod Jose) and Ivan (Jinu Joseph) are as nasty as Goneril and Regan, but his

youngest son Aloshy (Fahadh Faasil) is the film's morally upright Cordelia-Edgar character.

When their moms secretly see one another, Aloshy becomes close to Martha, and their bond

grows until his mother dies, and young Aloshy becomes isolated from his own family.

Pusthakam stands out from most other filmic Shakespeares because of its postcolonial themes

and ethical issues, as well as its representation of a low-caste heroine, which goes against the

grain of traditional Malayalam cinema. I'm not sure if this signals a trend toward a more

articulate expression of local and/or global issues, or if it's just an isolated occurrence. Other

Malayalam-language Shakespeare films, such as Jayaraj's trilogy and V.K. Prakash's 2012

Karmayogi (Hamlet, meaning "the sacrificer"), are equally concerned with emphasizing moral

teachings against greed and envy. These films, on the other hand, are set in mythological ages

and appear unconcerned about contemporary neocolonial and environmental challenges.

Critics reacted well to Iyobinte Pusthakam when it premiered. The cinematic Iyobinte

performances, and background score of the film were all lauded. Amal Neerad's 'Iyobinte

Pusthakam' cleverly combines all the parts of a well-known story and masterfully recreates it

into a tragic and powerful work. It's a picture that takes its time to build itself up and get going,

and it's shot on a grand scale that's enthralling to watch. 'Iyobinte Pusthakam,' at once a

meditative and tense work of art, is the best Malayalam film to have reached the screens in 2014.

Amal Neerad's period drama 'Iyobinte Pusthakam' is set on an ornate canvas that is gruesome

and devastated by the frantic cries of the browbeaten. No one is what they appear in this

beguiling landscape of depravity and violence, and the truth is obscured by a cloud.

CHAPTER TWO

"The aged aren't always wise, nor do the elderly always understand justice"

(Good News Bible, Today’s English Version, Job 32:9)

In 1900 Munnar, British Raj, a communist leader, narrates Iyobinte Pusthakam. The story is

set in Munnar, India, about 1900, and is told by a communist leader. Harrison is a businessman

from the United Kingdom who comes to Munnar to plant tea. He names an able boy 'Iyob' who

he discovers among his employees. Iyob is consoled by Harrison, who supports him in marrying

Annamma. Harrison's wife leaves him and returns to England; he later meets Kazhali and falls in

love with her. When Harrison learns about Kazhali's relationship with Thacho, one of his

employees, he orders Iyob to kill Thacho. Iyob has Thacho surrounded and is about to kill him

when he jumps off the cliff and dies. Harrison then takes Kazhali under his wing as his mistress,

and she becomes pregnant. The First World War has an impact on Harrison's company, and he

travels to Britain, but he dies on the way to Cochin before even setting sail. Knowing this, Iyob

throws Kazhali out of the house and assaults her, then seizes all of Harrison's belongings using

Harrison's power of attorney. Annama meets Kazhali, who now has a daughter, Martha, with

whom she has regular conversations, and she also takes her youngest son, Aloshy, without her

husband's permission.

Aloshy and Martha quickly become fast friends. Annama, on the other hand, falls unwell and

succumbs to her illness. Kazhali and her daughter, Martha, who are watching the funeral from

afar, are heartbroken by her passing. Iyob has three sons: Dmitri, Ivan, and Aloshy. Dmitri and

Ivan are merciless, like Iyob, while Aloshy, like his mother, is caring and sensitive. His two

closest friends are Chemban and Martha. Chemban's parents are killed in their home by a fire

ignited by Aloshy's relatives because of their condition. Aloshy runs away from home as a child

after watching his siblings rape and murder a female servant. He flees to Cochin, where he stays.

After a few years, Aloshy joins the Royal Navy. He comes to Munnar to meet his father and

brothers after the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946 but is disturbed by his father's and siblings'

wrongdoings. He reunites with Martha and Chemban, saving the latter and his wife from the

goons of his siblings. For their safety, Chemban and his family depart.

Martha and Aloshy revive their friendship after escaping from a rampaging elephant. They

develop feelings for each other. After defecting and joining the Indian independence movement,

Aloshy was expelled from the navy, which Iyob discovers. He commands Aloshy to flee in a

rage. When Aloshy sees Martha, he swears to come back for her. He travels to Cochin but is

ambushed by Dmitri and Ivan, who attempt to murder him. Aloshy, on the other hand, lives and

is discovered by Chemban, a childhood friend. Iyob's health deteriorates at this point, and his

sons triumph over him, forging pacts with wealthy Tamil trader Angoor Rawther despite Iyob's

opposition. Dmitri and Ivan learn that Aloshy is still alive and well in Martha's company.

Enraged, Dimitri demands to know why Ivan entered his room without his consent. Then he

noticed Ivan had been spending evenings with Rahel while he was gone. After that, Rahel throws

a metal flower vase into Dimitri's head. Ivan overpowers and kills Dimitri with the vase he

snatched from Rahel. Iyob notices this and realizes that he has been duped by everyone. Rahel is

revealed to be Thacho's daughter, murdered by Iyob, and she seeks vengeance through Ivan. In

an attempt to kill him, she also poisons his food. Iyob flees his house and finds shelter with

Aloshy.

Kazhali holds all of Harrison's assets, according to Iyob, and has been scamming them the

entire time. The police detain Aloshy, but the narrator, who is opposed to Ivan and Angoor

Rawther, sets her to go. Knowing that all of the assets will be gone, Ivan chooses to kill Aloshy,

but after learning of her actual motivations, he despises Rahel. In exchange for Rahel, Rahel

makes a deal with Angoor Rawther to assassinate everyone who stands in his way, including

Ivan and all of the assets. Iyob and Martha attempt to leave through the woods, but Iyob is shot

down by Angoor Rawther.

Aloshy comes across Martha, who is choking in a marsh, and tries to help her. When Angoor

Rawther runs out of bullets while attempting to shoot Ivan, Aloshy stabs him with a ramrod

while Ivan shoots Angoor's accomplice. When Ivan tries to kill Aloshy, Chemban kills him, and

Aloshy kills Angoor. Rahel shoots herself out of desperation. After that, Aloshy and Martha are

seen leaving Munnar. At the end of the film, the narrator is apprehended by the police, and he

says that people like Aloshy would make people's lives far more prosperous than they are now.

Edward Said offered a new technique of reading literary materials in his landmark book

Culture and Imperialism: "contrapuntally." Said maintained that colonialism had a concealed and

unacknowledged foundation in some of the most prominent works of Western literature. Said

coined the term contrapuntal to describe situations in former colonies. The first part of Said's

contrapuntal reading (the term "contrapuntal" comes from music and refers to melodic lines that

are in "counterpoint" with each other but maintain their independence) required readers to

"connect the structures of a narrative to the ideas, concepts, and experiences from which it draws

support") required readers to "connect the structures of a narrative to the ideas, concepts, and

experiences from which it draws support."

The contrapuntal reading's second – and most crucial – section focused on "not only the

building of the colonial condition as imagined by the writers, but also the resistance to it." (

Culture and Imperialism, p. 79)

Said wrote:

“We must therefore read the great canonical texts with an effort to draw out, extend, give

emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented in such

works. The contrapuntal reading must take account of both processes – that of imperialism and

that of resistance to it, which can be done by extending our reading of the texts to include what

was once forcibly excluded.” (Culture and Imperialism, pp. 78 – 9)

With three intertext pieces to pick from, Neerad only incorporates the threads that are

pertinent to his theme. He turns Lear's daughters into boys after the Travancore Christian

Succession Act of 1916, representing a time when Kerala's Syrian Christian women were still

fighting for equitable land inheritance rights (a right eventually restored in a 1986 campaign

spearheaded by Mary Roy). By inserting a redemptive narrative from the Bible's Book of Job, he

softens Shakespeare's bleak conclusion even more. In this moral tale of divine justice, God puts

Job to the test, yet his piety ultimately leads him through unfair suffering, including the loss of

his friends, family, and money, as well as the accompanying bitter depression.

Like Job and Lear, both the father and the youngest child are taken to their lowest point in

Pusthakam before reconciling; yet, each obtains their just desserts. Neerad borrows his Christian

patriarch Job's and other important characters' names from Fyodor Dostoevsky's tragic, final

novelistic exploration of father-son relationships, The Brothers Karamazov. According to

biographer Joseph Frank, Karamazov was inspired by the (Edgar-like) incident of a young man

wrongfully convicted of his father's murder, which was committed by his brother, and

Dostoevsky was preoccupied with the younger generation's search for moral values and they're

"morally bankrupt" fathers' failure to "impart any life-enhancing moral values to their sons"

(707).

These motifs reappear throughout Neerad's time reinterpretation, mixed along with

Job's/identical Lear's flaws and his eldest son's sins. As Neerad presents familial moral failure

and disintegration as a microcosm of the colonial nation's wider corruption and division, the

family's selfish, violent squabbles are reflected in larger themes of societal unrest and revolution.

Pusthakam's South Indian setting is affected by an equally tough sociopolitical climate with past

and contemporary local difficulties, just as Dostoevsky's final novel was written and published in

the aftermath of the Russian Emancipation Reform of 1861, which abolished serfdom.

Kerala has been an unusual Indian state with a Communist party routinely voted to power

since its formation in the 1950s from the Travancore, Cochin, and Malabar districts, and the

democratic election of a state Marxist administration. Popular Marxist programs included the

promotion of universal literacy through free state education and a land redistribution scheme that

liquidated large estates to allocate property to the poor. From the beginning, Neerad's film

illustrates Kerala's political leanings and history, using Shakespeare to emphasize Marxist

concerns.

In addition, the director uses Shakespeare's moral dilemmas to highlight his ethical concerns

regarding ownership, including earthly, physical, sexual, and spiritual ownership. The repeated

story of three sons and their father is framed by the narrated reminiscences of an older

Communist leader, Comrade Varkey (T.G. Ravi). Varkey tells the first half of the generational

story in flashback, describing how native servant youngster Iyob/Lear (Lal) is adored by his

British owner Harrison, who makes sure he gets an education. Unlike Lear, Iyob grew up in

abject poverty, and unlike Lear, he never had an epiphany; his struggle never makes him

sympathetic to others in need. Following Harrison's death, an adult Iyob expresses his

ungratefulness by forcefully evicting Harrison's tribal mistress and their young daughter, Martha.

The new master, Iyob, becomes a "brown sahib," or a native who acts like a colonizer,

perpetuating colonial injustice. His elder sons Dimitri (Chemban Vinod Jose) and Ivan (Jinu

Joseph) are as evil as Goneril and Regan, respectively, while his youngest son Aloshy (Fahadh

Faasil) is the film's morally upright Cordelia-Edgar character. Aloshy becomes close to Martha

after their mothers covertly see one another, and their friendship strengthens until his mother

dies, and Aloshy is soon separated from his own family.

Pusthakam's main family divides numerous times, unlike King Lear's first act, which has a

big moment of familial division. At the heart of their conflict are issues of possession, land

ownership, caste, gender, and ethnicity. As a result, when Neerad's film depicts what Poonam

Trivedi refers to as an "overlooked local inflection of caste division" in Indian Shakespeares

(India's Shakespeare 23), it differs from its source material.

Kerala's Christian families (like Job's in the film) frequently trace their ancestors to Hindu

society's lower castes, where upper caste Aryans or Brahmins are stereotypically associated with

fair upper-caste Aryans or Brahmins, while lower caste Aryans or Brahmins are stereotypically

associated with darker complexions and the "scheduled" castes–tribals, "untouchables," or Dalits.

Lower-caste worshippers were warned that crossing a temple threshold would cause their

eyeballs to burst; before the 1936 universal Temple Entry Proclamation, lower-caste worshippers

were warned that crossing a temple threshold would cause their eyeballs to explode.

Indigenous peoples and people of lower castes are often marginalized, abused, and even

murdered across the country. One ethical concern raised by Neerad's 2014 film is the ongoing

land dispossession of Kerala's tribals; that year, 2014, saw months of tribal-led protests for the

distribution of land promised to them since the government's elimination of the feudal/serf

landlord system and estate reallotment in the 1950s. A nationwide proposal to relocate one

million indigenous people from their traditional protected lands and forests was abandoned in

2019 only after widespread objections. The first horrific event that causes Aloshy to go is the

terrible assault and murder of a young low-caste servant girl, which the youngster witnesses.

Neerad portrays Martha and Aloshy as an Adam-and-Eve couple who promote a return to

nature and love one another despite society taboos, in addition to focusing on Job's Biblical

themes of familial annihilation vs. repatriation. Aloshy had established himself as a prodigal son

character by the time the film's flashback ends and the action switches to the present, as the title

suggests. Returning home, the smart navy officer, who rides a motorbike and smokes cigars,

discovers that his family's toxic dynamic has not changed. Dimitri and Ivan are trying to

persuade Iyob, their father, to sell his land to a sandalwood smuggler. Meanwhile, Dimitri's

sensual, two-timing wife Rahel/Edmund has smitten Ivan (Padmapriya).

Martha, Aloshy's childhood tribal maid sweetheart, has been rejected by the family, who have

branded the medicinal healer a witch. Martha and Aloshy's restored love is pure and sincere on

many levels, and it provides a counterbalance to the toxic family's corruption. Martha, who

resembles Edmund from King Lear more than Edgar, is an illegitimate heir of mixed race and

caste. Aloshy's father forbids them from dating because of their different origins. Even though

white women are regularly fetishized in Indian movies, Martha's illegitimacy and his family's

mating with her tribal caste make her unsuitable for Iyob.

Priya Mathew and Rajesh James remark, "Malayalam film has always displayed a distinct

aversion and scorn for lower-class Anglo-Indians who were purportedly produced out of

illegitimate relationships between Europeans and women from the coastal parts of Kerala rather

than upper-class ladies" (32). The majority of Kerala's "Anglo-Indians" practice the Latin

Catholic faith, which is deemed lower-caste (31). In Neerad's Marxist perspective, Martha is

exalted as a Perdita figure, a supposedly lowborn shepherdess lass whose purer nature wins over

both artificial social stratification and patriarchal opposition, culminating in a fruitful union.

By focusing on a couple's transgressive love affair and framing it in contrast to patriarchal

authority, Neerad's film follows a pattern of other Indian films that rejig Shakespearean power

structures to combine gendered conflicts for social and sexual equality and autonomy. Despite

the masculine title, Iyobinte Pusthakam prioritizes women; bastardy and miscegenation are seen

as threats to patriarchal power structures.

The film opens with a violent eviction of Martha's tribal family, which exposes casteist

discrimination and land deprivation. Meanwhile, in other films' Indian Shakespeare adaptations,

racialized anxiety is shifted to marriage and feminine control, where violations frequently occur

as a result of a clash between Westernised or Western-facilitated love and more traditional,

patriarchally organized couplings.

Other "otherings" are commonly substituted for Shakespearean racial inequities in Indian

cinema adaptations, or these are incorporated to exacerbate problems. In Jayaraj's 1997

Kaliyattam (Othello), for example, the hero is an untouchable dancer who elopes with the

Brahmin village head's daughter inconceivably. Similarly, Vishal Bhardwaj's 2006 Omkara

(Othello) features a lower caste hero who transforms into a 'half-caste' as a result of an illicit

servant-master union, and Bornila Chatterjee's 2014 The Hungry (Titus Andronicus) recasts

Aaron the Moor as a lower-class servant entangled in an upstairs-downstairs affair with his

millionaire mistress.

The scandalous offstage love triangle involving English actress Felicity Kendal, entangled

in a scandalous offstage love triangle with a desi actor and a glamorous Bollywood film heroine,

is highlighted in Merchant-Shakespeare Ivory's Wallah (literally,' Shakespeare-fellow') in 1965;

Aparna Sen's 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) stars an Anglo-Indian spinster and Shakespeare

teacher Violet, who hosts an unmar In Iyobinte Pusthakam, Martha's tribal blood binds her to the

Indian Motherland, and the lovers' societal offenses occur amid a critical era of national and

societal development, with the country's Partition and Independence.

Job is contrasted to the pair, who personify natural, physical, social, and spiritual oneness and

preserve colonial imbalances by enabling anti-tribal persecution and devastation of native

tribal-owned territories. Martha's disinheritance is noteworthy for Kerala, which has a matriliny

tradition in which a family's name and land were passed down through the eldest female heir in

an area that was never entirely conquered. Their energies of love and unity are in direct

opposition to colonialism, Partition, and patriarchy's forces of fracture, division, and control. The

egalitarian movement in secular Kerala, where men of all faiths lived in harmony, can be seen as

a metaphor for Communist Aloshy's free choice partnership with Martha, and her feminine

autonomy can be seen as a metaphor for India's new freedom; their energies of love and

union-run counter to colonialism's forces of fracture, division, and control.

Its emphasis on female autonomy may explain why Neerad's film, although its protagonists

are gender-flipped, with names like the Karamazov boys rather than the Shakespearean sisters,

cites Lear as an inspiration. In this aspect, Neerad's painting stands out among current Indian

Lear interpretations, which have mostly transcended the stigma of depicting a large number of

errant daughters.

Preti Taneja's creative rewrite of King Lear in English prose novel form, We That Are

Young (2017), recasts the tragedy in modern-day Delhi, where young heroine Sita is murdered

after refusing to submit to the patriarchal system of arranged marriage, which her two older

sisters have already accepted. Unrequited love causes family trouble in Sangeeta Dutta's film

Lear adaption Life Goes On (2009), set in a London-based diasporic Hindu family. Following

their mother's death, Dia's three daughters are compelled to persuade their father that the family

will not disintegrate further if he accepts what he sees as their sins, such as Dia's choice of a

Muslim partner.

Neerad's assimilation and synthesis of Lear, Job, and The Brothers Karamazov's film are

perhaps so successful because it converts human issues into a sympathetic story of transgression

and redemption, rooted in ethical and political ideals of liberty and fraternity. In

pre-independence India, Iyob is a British government loyalist. When his favorite youngest son

arrives, all grown up, he discovers Aloshy is a navy mutineer and a rebel freedom fighter. Their

political and moral differences come to a head in a confrontation that takes place in the front yard

of the mansion, which is shown as the physical and moral center of Iyob's land-grab crime in

both the film and the trailer.

"Aloshy –nee Communist ago?" exclaims d. [Aloshy, do you consider yourself a

Communist?] Iyob punches and disinherits his youngest son (00:00:56); Aloshy rides away on

his motorcycle, a symbol of rebellious freedom, with serenity. In a subsequent scene, Iyob is

asked why he is splitting the land into halves rather than thirds as he bequeaths his land to

relatives in the public arena of his front yard. Iyob coldly says, like Shakespeare's wounded king

at the commencement of Lear, that his third kid is dead to him. He is completely unaware that

his eldest boys have just ambushed Aloshy's motorcycle, speared the rider, and thrown their

brother off a cliff.

In some ways, Iyob governs his land in a manner reminiscent of the imperialists. Total

economic domination, uncontrolled power and the neo-imperialists (his offspring) are born.

Iyobinte Pusthakam further connects the nation to nature by visualizing its conflicts against a

backdrop of lush colonial tea plantations and acting as a parable of conservation through its

message of championing tribal rights (cinematographer-director Neerad won an annual Kerala

state award for best cinematography). His film, like Lear's, combines internal and external

conflict, as well as biblical concepts of loss through avarice. Unlike Lear, Iyobinte Pusthakam

does not end in tragedy for all of the characters, instead delivering a happy ending. A thicket of

friendly forest growth stops his descent and saves his life, emphasizing the link between

environmental conservation and human survival. Tribals and Martha nurture Tom back to health,

hiding him in their "low fields, / Poor pelting communities, sheep-cotes, and mills" (Lear

2.2.183-184). When Aloshy's brothers track him down, the tribals band together to protect him

against those who have mistreated them by tolerating and encouraging anti-tribal pogroms. g a

Job-like comeback Like Gloucester, Aloshy survived his cliff fall (here, very real).

When comparing King Lear with Iyobinte Pusthakam in terms of tragedy, King Lear is, of

course, a tragic play with a tragic ending, whereas Iyobinte Pusthakam, along with tragedies, has

a pleasant ending. Shakespearean tragedy can be defined as a tale of extraordinary misfortune

and sadness that culminates in the death of a high-ranking woman. To watch Lear portrayed, to

witness an elderly man tottering around the stage with a walking stick, being escorted out of the

house by his daughters on a wet night, has nothing but anguish and hatred in it. Iyob's position

was similar; he was speechless as he watched his eldest son's dead body, and it was this

realisation of what was going on around him that sent his mind and life into a tailspin. However,

Iyob could not substitute Lear, i.e., Shakespeare's Lear could not be acted.

The abhorrent technology with which they imitate the storm in which he goes out is no

more adequate to reflect the horrors of the genuine elements than any actor could be to portray

Lear. The cerebral, not the physical, part of Lear's grandeur. On stage, we see nothing but bodily

infirmities and weakness, as well as rage's powerlessness. While reading and analysing it, the

reader is regarded as Lear: in his mind, sustained by a grandeur that befuddles the venom of

daughters and storms, that which is partially invisible in Iyob.

CHAPTER 3

William Shakespeare's greatness, one critic said, lay in his "comprehensive soul".That is the

most eloquent summary of a dramatic talent who has never been surpassed. No dramatist can

create living characters unless he gives the best of himself to his art's children, scattering a

largesse of his own qualities among them, giving, for example, to one his wit, to another his

philosophic debut, to another his love of action, to another the simplicity and constancy that he

finds deep within his own nature.

There is no thrill of sensation transferred from the printed page that was not first alive in the

author's mind; nothing was alive in his mind that was not strongly and truly felt. Shakespeare's

plays cannot be written in a cold-blooded manner; they require the man's entire energy, as well as

every last ounce of his sympathy and experience. Shakespeare's greatest achievement as a poet is

King Lear.

In recent years, there has been much debate regarding the right language to use to define the

relationship between the Shakespearean "original" and its film adaptation. "Adaptation" is a

valuable concept for Julie Sanders because it denotes an "effort to make texts relevant by

proximation and updating," as well as a "transposition" that "takes a text from one genre and

delivers it to other audiences in cultural, geographical, and chronological contexts." (Burnett)

Another school of thought contends that no single taxonomy can account for the numerous ways

in which Shakespeare is remade in new forms: there is no all-purpose phrase, the argument goes,

not least since film frequently blurs the distinctions that we, as critics, seem so eager to maintain.

In some ways, it doesn't matter whether this form of identification is avoided because a film

product's Shakespearean qualifications are typically acquired through the manner of reception in

the field of circulation. As a result, there can be no fixed hierarchy between a play and its

surrogate languages. We are urged to be receptive to various verbal registers, narrative

techniques, and emotional contours in the instance of Shakespeare on film in his

non-Anglophone expressions when there is no English lexicon to respond to. These aspects

evoke the plays, but not in a perfect equivalent, implying that we are more interested in how

Shakespearean ideas are mobilized than in issues of nomenclature.

To put it another way, in adaption studies, we do well to consider the extent to which

Shakespeare variably describes readers capriciously envisaged roles in terms of cultural (and

economic) capital. Another crucial assumption is that adaptation effort is creative. Art is found in

the act of translation and the multiplication of meanings that it entails. An important premise,

according to Colin MacCabe, is that films gain "true value" through the "adaptation process."

When a film is made from a play, a new text is created from an old one, and we become aware of

how the two interact. The individual works, either as outward adaptations or as internal echo

chambers of the various media, might be perceived as allegories of the never-ending and

unresolvable struggles for dominance, according to Fredric Jameson. We can begin to

comprehend how plays and films strengthen and enlighten one other as a two-way battle with

areas of contestation and complementarity in between.

The personal and societal components of the position in Shakespeare's Lear and Neerad's

Iyob contributed to the unity of tragedy, whose numerous stages correspond to a closely-knit

growth in the external action. The first stage of this development, which takes up roughly the

first two acts and scenes, is concerned with the introduction of uncontrolled passion as a

disruptive force into Lear's and Iyob's minds, and the resulting overthrow of ordered balance in

themselves, their family, and the work, which covers the central part and proves Amal Neerd as

Shakespeare of India.

In what follows, Haider (Dr. Vishal Bhardwaj, 2014), an Indian and Hindi-language Hamlet

version. In terms of time, the film takes place in 1995, and the cultural and geographical

backdrop is Kashmir (a territory whose sovereignty is still contested by India and Pakistan) at the

height of a tense and critical period in the two nations' relations. This reworking is quite

beneficial. The rebranding of Haider/Hamlet as a student of British India's "revolutionary poets"

placed him in a resistant category as a possible opponent of Indian nationalism, while also

raising doubts about commitment and connection.

Similarly, Kashmir locations like the Jhelum river and the Martand Sun Temple, which are

adorned with statues of river gods (the "Bismil" song and dance number, or the

play-within-the-play, takes place here), help to highlight water metaphors and concerns about

cleansing and corruption (bodies of "militants" are dumped in the river, leading to

Khurrum/Claudius' despair that he is "drowning in guilt"). Hamlet's language is crucial to the

entire "translation."

The film's exploration of the plight of the "disappeared," the figuration of Ghazala/Gertrude

as an emotionally needy user of "theatrics," and scenes set in a video store (where film titles,

either "remakes" or those concerned with types of "terrorism," provide ironic models of action)

all harken back to the play's preoccupation with acting, deception, and drama. In particular,

Haider recasts the archetypal Hamletian metaphor of Denmark as a jail in a montage of border

posts, grilles, and detention centers. Then, in keeping with its imaginative approach, Haider

invests in vocabulary that is uniquely its own, such as when Haider/Hamlet, in a Shakespearean

soliloquy, parodically delivers passages from the Armed Forces Special Powers Act at a Srinagar

traffic light.

"To be, or not to be" emerges in a variety of forms, the most powerful of which is the

political slogan "Do we exist or not?" whose venomous allegation highlights a strong Indian

policy aimed at eliminating so-called political fanatics. In keeping with this theme, the film

entertains not one, but numerous "ghosts," raising problems of belonging, identification, and

"home" in the process. Variations on this theme, which may be seen in words like "I have to go

home" and "You are at home," are fundamental to Haider's anatomization of the territorial

dispute that underpins its imaginative potential. So, how does the Shakespearean work in this

adaptation? As the film's reception history shows, Haider has divided opinion and has been

banned from viewing in Pakistan.

Yet, as a number of the film's adaptive strategies demonstrate, from the figuration of

Halaal/Old Hamlet as a doctor to the discovery of Roodhaar/The Ghost as a multi-faith symbolic

spokesperson ("I'm the soul... a temple and a mosque... Shia... Sunni... Hindu"), the film's

loyalties are in fact with a movement away from hostilities and toward the embrace of a

Gandhi-inspired PAC Notably, the film's dialogue repeatedly repeats a nonviolence mantra,

revealing a reversal of Shakespeare's revenge imperative. Shakespeare's ability to reach local and

worldwide audiences demonstrates not only the strength of international filmmaking but also

how adaptation has a place in a reforming political consciousness. The snow-covered graveyard

of the last acts, strewn with remnants of a brutal struggle, is not the "home" to which this

Shakespeare adaption strives.

Theater actors and authors have frequently ventured into the world of film, carrying with

them the magic of the stage. Several well-known plays have been made into films by Malayalam

filmmakers. In addition, William Shakespeare, the world-famous Bard, has impacted several

films. Director Jayaraj is at the top of the list, having turned three of Shakespeare's most famous

plays into films. There had been others further down the road.

Adaptations of well-known literary and theatrical works were prevalent throughout the silent

era and have remained a mainstay of nearly all national cinemas throughout the twentieth and

twenty-first centuries. Dracula and Sherlock Holmes novels by Bram Stoker and Arthur Conan

Doyle have been adapted in a variety of national contexts, but Shakespeare's plays have been

adapted in film form as a large-budget Hollywood musical (West Side Story (Jerome Robbins

and Robert Wise, US, 1961)), a historical epic set in feudal Japan (Kumonosu-jo/Throne of

Blood (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1957), a Bollywood musical (Angoor (Gulzar, India, 1982)), and

children's animation The Lion King (Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, US, 1994)), are a few.

Adaptations frequently occur in cycles connected with a specific time and place, such as the

heritage film cycle in the United Kingdom in the 1980s or the Jane Austen adaptation cycle in

the late 1990s . Adaptations are said to account for up to 50% of all Hollywood films and are

consistently ranked among the highest-grossing at the box office, as seen by the commercial

success of recent adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling's writings. (Hall)

Mollywood director Jayaraj is at the top of the list, having turned three of Shakespeare's most

famous plays into films. The following is a list of Malayalam films that are loosely based on

Shakespeare plays.

Suresh Gopi and Manju Warrier star in the Jayaraj film, Kaliyattam, which is possibly the

first Shakespearean adaption in Malayalam. In this rendition of Shakespeare's Othello, the

players portray a married couple. Kannan Perumalayan, a Theyyam artist who marries Thamara,

is played by Suresh Gopi (a teenage Manju Warrier). He is enamored with her and plays the role

of Shakespeare's envious Othello. Lal, like Iago in Othello, plays the devious character who

instills thoughts in Perumalayan about poor Thamara and another artist, Kanthan (Biju Menon).

In that early point of her career, Manju Warrier's Desdemona was well received, and Suresh Gopi

won both the State and National Awards for Best Actor for his portrayal in Kaliyattam.

Kannaki (2001), a film directed by Jayaraj, is a rough adaptation of Shakespeare's Antony

and Cleopatra. Nandita Das is the titular character, Antony to Lal's Cleopatra. Manickam is a

cockfighter who is buddies with Choman (Siddique) and has feelings for Kannaki. Kumudam

(Geetu Mohandas), Choman's sister, is equally smitten with Manickam. The antagonist Gounder

is played by Manoj K Jayan. Kannaki, a strong-willed and willful woman, gets a Malayali

rendition of Cleopatra, a difficult woman figure.

Karmayogi (2012) was a reworking of Shakespeare's Hamlet, according to director V.K

Prakash. Indrajith takes on the role of the bereft son who has recently lost his father. Rudran

(Indrajith) plays an introvert who swears retribution, much like Hamlet, who is constantly

gloomy over his father's murder and his mother's betrayal in marrying the murderer's uncle.

Indrajith's Hamlet has Nithya Menen as Ophelia, Padmini Kolhapure as a mother, and

Thalaivasal Vijay as Claudius, the wicked uncle.

Rajeev Ravi had Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in mind for his directorial debut, Annayum

Rasoolum (2013), when he transitioned from cameraman to director. In this unsettling love story

set in Kochi, Fahadh Faasil takes on the role of Rasool while Andrea Jeremiah takes on the role

of Anna. Among the nostalgic music, forbidden love, escapades, and the final catastrophe, there

are many silent exchanges. However, it does not end in the same way as Romeo and Juliet do.

Veeram (2016) is another Jararaj film, this one is a Macbeth adaption and the fifth in the

director's 'navarasa' series of films. It tells the narrative of Chandu Chekavar (Kunal Kapoor), a

warrior from Malabar in the 13th century. Kunal Kapoor, who trained in Kalaripayattu for the

film, claimed that playing Macbeth was every actor's dream.

In that marvel filmmaker Dileesh Pothan's film Joji (2021), Macbeth was once again roughly

adapted. Fahadh Faasil plays the title character, which seems tailor-made for him given his

penchant for non-confirming roles. In the film, Lady Macbeth is played by Unnimaya, a great

actress. Although some critics were critical of the adaption, the film received mainly excellent

reviews for its production. (Staff)

Jayaraj's fascination with William Shakespeare dates back to his boyhood when he would sit

fascinated, listening to Kerala's Kadhaprasangam concerts. It's a pre-television oratory art form

in which the narrator uses music and humor to keep the audience engaged in his stories. And it

was during these nights that he came across Shakespeare's stories. The small one's mind was

engraved with pictures of Othello, Macbeth, Antony, and Cleopatra. "Othello's tragedy

tormented me for many nights." Why would a man so devoted to his wife murder her?" Many

years later, when Jayaraj reproduced these European myths in the setting of Kerala, they

reappeared. Kaliyattam, an innovative reworking of Othello with Theyyam colors and Kerala

folk themes, received both critical and popular acclaim. Nandita Das played Kovalan's

strong-willed wife in Kannagi, a spin-off from Antony and Cleopatra. Now, his latest film

Veeram is a recreation of Macbeth's vengeful narrative, a trilingual picture starring Hollywood

technicians. It will be the opening film of the BRICS Summit's first-ever film festival, which will

take place in New Delhi on September 2. "I have witnessed European audiences enthralled by

Kaliyattam. "It's a wonderful feeling when an international audience enjoys your interpretation of

Shakespeare," Jayaraj says. (Editor et al.)

Veeram relates the story of a practice in which men were sacrificed for the whims of rulers.

It's a great mix of sadness and ambition, and who else but Shakespeare could have echoed them

better, Jayaraj argues. "He is always relevant. He is always relevant." No one has a better

understanding of the human mind." If the Theyyam tradition and Tamil tales linked

Shakespeare's narrative to Indian surroundings in his first two films, Vadakkan Veeragadha, a

ballad tradition from Kerala's North Malabar, serves as the backdrop in Veeram. The film is set in

13th century Kerala and portrays the narrative of the courageous soldiers known as chekavars. "It

was not at all designed to combine Macbeth and the Vadakkan Veeragadha tradition. It hit me

like a tonne of bricks. Its origin is difficult to trace. "It's as though these creative impulses come

from some unseen source."

Recreating Macbeth was no easy task, especially when he had to look up to the likes of Akira

Kurosawa and Roman Polanski for inspiration. "At Throne of Blood, Kurosawa portrays the

ghosts through a medium in a cemetery." The three witches are represented in my film by the

manthravadinis, who are local witches in Kerala's ritualistic heritage. Japichu Kettal is the name

of the procedure, which is popular in Kerala." The Birnam forest transforms into the Tulu

woodlands of Karnataka, where the chekavars used to go for further education in Kalari, and

Macbeth transforms into Chandu, who lives on in Kerala mythology. "Rather than a mechanical

adaptation, we attempted a type of trans-creation, an interpretation of the original text." That's

one of the advantages of adopting a narrative from a classic. You can use it in any situation."

They have, however, made liberties with the clothes. "The chekavan's outfit isn't particularly

vibrant. So we spruced it up a bit to give it a more rustic feel. It isn't a documentary, after all."

The late Kavalam Narayana Panikker, a theatre director and poet best renowned for his

Malayalam adaptations of Shakespeare and Sanskrit plays, also has a song in the film.

M.K.Arjunan, who is recognized for his melodies, will compose the song. The script and

dialogues were written by Dr. M.R Varrier, the most authentic voice for the North Malabar

dialect and language. "The Valluvanadan dialect is used in the majority of Malayalam films that

tell the Vadakkan Veeragadha stories" (spoken by people in South Kerala). These folks do not

speak English as their first language. Veeram will be the first film to include the North Malabar

dialect in its whole."

They went on the lookout for actors with the necessary physical height to pull off Kalari. "We

needed folks who were physically fit and flexible." Kunal Kapoor was a perfect choice. Shivaji

Nambiar, who would be a valuable contribution to Malayalam cinema, is also being introduced.

All of the actors, including the women, have undergone extensive Kalari training." In 45 days,

the film was shot in Hindi, English, and Malayalam. "Right now, you call up the actors, and

they'll belt out the sentences in all three languages," Jayaraj jokes.

Jayaraj's dream child is the story. "For the past five years, I've been traveling with the

storyboard wherever I go. I'm fortunate to have producers that have given me complete creative

control." The Hollywood technicians consume a significant portion of the budget. "Malayalam

films are known for spending 90% of their budget on their actors. We, on the other hand, have

spent it on technical perfection."Directors of large-budget historical films are sometimes

chastised for reducing filmmaking to a lifeless spectacle. Is Jayaraj concerned about a backlash

like this? "We didn't try to hypnotize people with gimmicks or VFX effects." The screenplay

calls for a certain amount of grandeur. Cinema is a serious involvement for me; it is something

that must reach the human mind. I'll always be dedicated to meaningful filmmaking."

CONCLUSION

The tale of King Lear, perhaps the most complicated and purposefully designed of all

Shakespeare's great tragedies, is just like this. The entire action of the tragedy could be defined

as a projection of the competing conflicts that are supremely present in the minds of the primary

protagonists st. As fathers, Lear and Iyob instill in their children contrasting reactions that mirror

various and contradictory aspects of their inner selves. Their deliberate inclinations as

imperialists free powers of social disorder that can be contained only by complete exhalation.

The various subsidiary issues of the play & movie radiates as partial reflections of a common

image, at once contributing depth and variety to the central situation and deriving from it the

subsistent unity which alone can give the complete story its full meaning, are derived from

conflict, whose dual aspect is thus concentrated in one mind.

Interestingly, Biblical symbolism is smoothly blended throughout Iyobinte Pusthakam with

Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and tribal magic traditions into a sensitive retelling of the rise and fall

of family pride and greed, portrayed against the backdrop of a colonial tea plantation. Fatherly

and filial sacrifice, loyalty and insurrection, Marxism and colonialism, interracial and inter-caste

union, man versus nature, and man versus the beast inside are all explored in Neerad's epic

picture. Neerad expertly weaves these elements together in a cinematic synergy that embodies

Lear's concluding message of mutuality and harmony: "When thou dost beg me benediction, I'll

kneel down /And ask thee forgiveness." As a result, we'll live, pray, sing, and recite old stories"

(Lear 5.3.10-12).

WORKS CITED

Amar Akbar Anthony. Dir. Manmohan Desai. M.K.D. Films, 1977.

Angoor [The Comedy of Errors]. Dir. Gulzar. 1982. Video Palace, 2008. DVD

Buckley, Thea. Riull.Ull.Es, 2022,

https://riull.ull.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/915/25530/RCEI_%2083_%20%282021%29_09.pdf?s

equence=1.

Burnett, Mark Thornton. "Adaptation, Shakespeare And World Cinema Literature/Film

Quarterly". Lfq.Salisbury.Edu, 2022,

https://lfq.salisbury.edu/_issues/first/adaptation_shakespeare_and_world_cinema.html.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. David McDuff. Penguin, 1993.

Editor, Readers#039; et al. "Filmmaker Jayaraj Talks About His Enduring Fascination With

The Bard And How Macbeth Inspired His Latest Movie Veeram". Thehindu.Com, 2022,

https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/A-mix-of-history-folklore-and-Shakespeare/article

14599953.ece.

Good News Bible. Today’s English Version. Mumbai: St.Paul’s, 2008.

Hall, Lucida. "Research Guides: Film Studies: Shakespeare On Film".

Researchguides.Dartmouth.Edu, 2022,

https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/filmstudies/shakespeareonfilm.

Iyyobinte Pusthakam, Directed by Amal Neeras. Performances by Isha Sharvani, Fahad Fazil,

and Lal. Distributed by August Cinemas and A.R Releases.2014

Iyobinte Pusthakam Official Trailer. Dir Amal Neerad. YouTube, 24 September 2014.

(https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=IbD5Baz0kOI). Accessed 06 January 2022.

Kaliyattam. Dir. Jayaraj Rajasekharan Nair. 1997. Moserbaer, 2014. DVD.

Kannaki. Dir. Jayaraj Rajasekharan Nair. 2002. Moserbaer, 2008. DVD.

Karmayogi. Dir. V.K. Prakash. Horizon Audio & Video, 2012. DVD.

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Eds. Jowett, John, et al. The Oxford Complete Works of

Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Staff, TNM. "From ‘Kaliyattam’ To ‘Joji’: A List Of Malayalam Adaptations Of Shakespeare".

The News Minute, 2022,

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/kaliyattam-joji-list-malayalam-adaptations-shakespeare-

147349.