Kaliyattam (The Play of God) by Jayaraj

— Polymorphous and Postcolonial Poetics in an Indian Othello-Adaptation

CECILE SANDTEN

Any form of rigid social hierarchy is a form of oppression.1

Branded as impure from the moment of birth, one out of six Indians lives – and suffers – at the bottom of the Hindu caste system.2

S THE INDIAN SCHOLAR of Renaissance literature Sukanta Chaud- huri perceptively writes,

A The Shakespearean presence in India is older and more complex than in any other country outside the West. That is owing to India’s long colonial history, and the presence of unusually receptive elements in the mother culture. The local culture of most states or regions could absorb Shakespeare within its inherent structure and, in turn, be reshaped and inseminated by Shakespearean influence.3

Indeed, Shakespeare translations, adaptations, and performance modes4 in India have had a long history, stretching back to the 1850s in colonial India,

1 Edmund Leach, “Caste, Class and Slavery: The Taxonomic Problem,” in Caste and Race: Comparative Approaches, ed. Anthony de Reuck & Julie Knight (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1967): 5. 2 Tom O’Neill, “Untouchable,” National Geographic Magazine (June 2003): 2. 3 Sukanta Chaudhuri, “Shakespeare in India,” Internet Shakespeare Editions, http: //web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/Criticism/shakespearein/india.html (accessed 5 March 2002). 4 See, for instance, Nazmul Hasan, Shakespeare Translations in Nineteenth Century 306 CECILE S ANDTEN ™ and ranging from reverential to increasingly deglamourized versions of the English playwright’s works.5 In this context of Indian Shakespeare adapta- tions, it is possible to talk, as Chaudhuri does, of “at least a dozen languages and cultural regions, each ramifying into many social groups and artistic prac- tices, over 200 years and more.”6 Although Shakespeare adaptations in India have already received much nuanced critical attention, an analysis of the strategies of adaptation employed in the Othello movie Kaliyattam (The Play of God)7 by the South Indian director Jayaraj Rajasekharan Nair8 suggests that the concept of ‘poly-

Bengali Theatre (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1995); Sudipto Chatterjee & Jyotsna G. Singh, “Moor or Less? The Surveillance of Othello, Calcutta 1848,” in Shakespeare and Appropriation, ed. Christy Desmet & Robert Sawyer (London & New York: Rout- ledge, 1999): 65–82; Shakespeare on the Calcutta Stage: A Checklist, ed. Ananda Lal & Sukanta Chaudhuri (Kolkata: Papyrus, 2001), or Shakespeare in Indian Languages, ed. Dodderi Aswathanarayanarao Shankar (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1999). In his study Colonial Transactions (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1995), Harish Trivedi traces the influence of English literature in India and vice versa, as the colonial influence has not been simply a one-way transaction. According to Trivedi, Shake- speare is the author who is still most commonly taught in “a great majority of the 186 universities in India” (21), yet he is no longer a narrowly national English writer since Indians have – also critically – engaged with his plays for a long time. 5 See Jyostna Singh, Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: Discoveries of India in the Language of Colonialism (London & New York: Routledge, 1996); Ania Loomba “Shakespeare and Cultural Difference,” in Alternative Shakespeares, ed. Terence Hawkes (London & New York: Routledge, 1996), vol. 2: 165–91; Cecile Sandten, “The Empire of Shakespeare in India: Deglamourised, Transformed, Greatly Shrunk,” in Shakespeare’s Legacy: The Appropriation of the Plays in Post-colonial Drama, ed. Norbert Schaffeld (Trier: WVT, 2005): 105–23. 6 Chaudhuri, “Shakespeare in India.” 7 Kaliyattam, dir. Rajasekharan Jayaraj Nair; perf. Suresh Gopi, Manju Warrier, Lal, Bijumenon, Bindu Panicker (India 1997; 130 min.). All subsequent references to Kaliyattam are based on the video release (Trivundram: Welgate Video, 2000). 8 Jayaraj has made thirteen films in Malayalam, the language of Kerala, and some films in Hindi. He is a keen Shakespearean and his best-known film in this regard is Kaliyattam. Rajita points out that “Jayaraj’s love affair with William Shakespeare continues with his latest, Kannagi – a story based on the bard’s ode to passion and war, Antony and Cleopatra,” in Rajita, “As Jayaraj likes it,” India Abroad (12 February