One of the problems that critics face when evaluating a Bollywood film as an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is the fact that most Bollywood films are romantic musicals about doomed lovers and a Romeo and Juliet story is often based on the legend of Romeo and Juliet, or similar legends of star-crossed lovers such as Laila and Majnu, Shirin and Farhad or Heer and Ranjha, rather than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. For example, in Josh (2000), Mansoor Khan’s adaptation of West Side Story (itself an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet), the lyrics of the song ‘Apun bola tu meri Laila’ [I said you are my Laila] are subtitled as ‘I said you are my Juliet’, thereby indicating that the Romeo and Juliet fable is interchangeable with the Laila Majnu fable of star-crossed lovers to many Indians and films based on the legends are not to be confused with actual adaptations and translations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in Bollywood. The star-crossed lovers trope is used in one way or another in most Indian films and there are several variations of it in Bollywood, and indeed, in all the other film industries in India. For instance, one popular situation is when a rich girl falls in love with a poor boy such as in Raja Hindustani (1996) or Kaho Na Pyaar Hain (2000) [Tell me You Love Me] or when a rich boy falls in love with a poor girl as in Mughal-e-Azam (1960) or Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001) [Sometimes Laughter, Sometimes Tears] and the matter of class and social status becomes the obstacle to true love. The other most common variation of the trope is the forbidden love between a Hindu and a Muslim against the backdrop of historical or present day communal tensions as in Bombay (1995), Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) [Revolt: A Love Story] or Veer Zaara (2004). There is a third variant made famous with films such as Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) [I Have Loved] and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995) [The Braveheart Will Win the Bride] which foregrounds the unfairness of a patriarchal society where the father’s word is law even though he opposes the marriage of the lovers for reasons that lack moral authority.
However, the tragic genre is largely absent in Indian drama and literature because of a popularly held belief that ‘a drama should not end in separation or bereavement’. This is on account of the Indian definition of drama which emphasizes entertainment as the primary function of drama and therefore suggests that ‘art should shun the grim, sordid or puzzling aspects of life’. The protagonist of a later popular film echoes this sentiment by summing up the ethos of most Bollywood films till the turn of the century:
Aaj mujhe yakeen ho gaya doston, ki hamari zindagi bhi hamare hindi filmon ke jaisa hi hai.. jaha pe end mein sab kuch theek ho jaata hai.. ‘Happies Endings’.. Lekin agar end mein sab kuch theek na ho to woh the end nahi hain dosto.. Picture abhi baaki hai. (Om Shanti Om)
[Today I am convinced that our lives are like our Hindi films, where everything ends on a positive note. Happy endings. And if everything does not turn out well in the end, then that is not the end, there is more to the movie.]
This Bollywood genre convention, however, makes it easier to identify an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, of which there are a few in Bollywood. I would agree with Courtney Lehmann and argue that ‘what distinguishes a truly Shakespearean version of Romeo and Juliet from the hundreds of ‘wannabes’ that seek access to the play’s effective capital…is a profound sense of the tragic inevitability that fuel’s Shakespeare’s play’. For any film to be accepted as a ‘true’ adaptation of Romeo and Juliet furthermore, the lovers, I would put forward, must die in the end, and the tragic fate of the lovers must be sealed from the start. Nothing in the dramatic climate should indicate that all will be well in the end. The sense of tragic inevitability that characterises Romeo and Juliet loses power if the lovers achieve a generic Bollywood happy ending. A love story with a happy ending is unremarkable; as the protagonists from Ek Duuje Ke Liye emphasise, ‘Prem adhura reh gaya to hi hamari kahani banegi’, [If love remains unfulfilled then only shall we become legend].The absence of this factor immediately disqualifies most Bollywood films about star-crossed lovers as ‘true’ adaptations of Romeo and Juliet.
The second factor that I would include as a consideration when scrutinizing adaptations of Romeo and Juliet is the backdrop of the family feud. The family feud and the feeling of sheer hate that seems to motivate the family feud in Romeo and Juliet is what, in my opinion, vitally sets apart Shakespeare’s lovers from other legendary lovers. It is Maria’s anguished cry in West Side Story that stays with us: ‘You all killed him! And my brother, and Riff. Not with bullets or guns but with hate!’ The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet comes from the lasting sense of futility that the audience is left with when young love is sacrificed on the altar of destructive hate: ‘Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love’, (1.1.166). This aspect of Romeo and Juliet is most effectively translocated in India by recontextualising the story against a historical time period as in 1942: A Love Story or by drawing upon historical reasons for conflict between two groups of people based on religion, caste or political affiliation that naturally leads to the othering of a minority group by a majority group of people within India. Therefore, any film based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, should, I would put forward, include an opposition at a familial and social level and not opposition from a single person, such as the father figure or a romantic rival, as is often the case in Bollywood films.
The final criteria that should be considered, in my opinion, is the translation of lines, mood, or images from Shakespeare’s text into the language of film, and an awareness of other well-known adaptations of the play. The former factor, I feel is, essential in the case of non-Anglophone adaptations of a Shakespearean play. Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood [1957] for instance, has been hailed by Harold Bloom as ‘the most successful film version of Macbeth’, despite not using a single word from the Shakespearen text. What I would like to highlight as the measure for a film to be considered as an adaptation, however, is its Shakespearean spirit, and not just a resemblance in plot. A film such as Saudagar (1991), which has certain similarities in plot and characters with Romeo and Juliet, but reflect very little else of Shakespeare’s text can, therefore, be excluded from a list of true adaptations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Conversely, films such as Ek Duuje Ke Liye (1981) and 1942: A Love Story (1994) which quote lines and images from the play text, but do not strictly follow Shakespeare’s plot can still be considered adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. With regard to the awareness of other adaptations of the play, Cartmell defines a ‘successful adaptation’ as one that comments on its own construction ‘through intertextual links to other screen adaptations of Shakespeare’. It is the fulfilment of this final criterion by which, I would argue, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak sets itself apart from other Bollywood adaptations of Romeo and Juliet. It does this by not only directly referencing Ek Duuje Ke Liye and West Side Story, along with extra and inter textual links to other films and legends, but also theatrical traditions of interpreting Shakespeare’s text such as the use of music in the play or the tradition of depicting the Montagues as bourgeois enemies of the noble Veronese house of the Capulets. I would suggest, therefore, that it is QSQT that is by far the best and most successful adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in Bollywood to date.
(This article is a section from a paper on Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak that I am presently writing.)
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