Future of postcolonial studies

Hello friends, this is a blog about the summary of two articles:  globalization and postcolonialism by Ania Loomba. 

Ania Loomba is an Indian literary scholar. She is the author of Colonialism/Postcolonialism and works as a literature professor at the University of Pennsylvania. There are several major critics who observes globalization and postcolonialism and make argues for that. So let's have look on it. 

1.Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies :-

If we think about the article: Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies, we often think about how globalization and postcolonial studies are connected with each other. Globalization changes India in a way the whole world. Yes there are positive changes also, but we can not ignore it's negative changes that are harmful for our country as well as for the whole world. There is always hegemony or dominance of something over someone. In the past the three pivotal events happened and these events changed India a lot. And this is LPG,

• Liberalization

• Privatization

• Globalization

Entire society becomes money / material centered. Globalization was for liberalism, equal opportunity, equity and for freedom of choice. But it was work for rich people. In this first article, from the very beginning the writer pointed out one major event and that was the 9/11 September, 2001 terror attack on the US. The September 11 attacks, often referred to as 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Wahhabi Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. It was an attack on the Collapsed section of the Pentagon. This event is considered a game-changer in the discussion on Globalization in the 21st Century. For reading the full article click here. 

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's "Empire" argues that the contemporary global order has produced a new form of sovereignty which should be called 'Empire' but which is best understood in contrast to European empires.  

In contrast to imperialism, Empire establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within it's open, expanding frontiers. Empire manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks of command. The distinct national colors of the imperial map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow.

•  Hardt and Negri

We see that the Empire argues, whereas the old imperial world was marked by competition between different European powers. Hardt and Negri suggest that the new Empire is better compared to the Roman Empire rather than to European colonialism, since imperial Rome also loosely incorporated it's subject states rather than controlling them directly. Here we can also see the argument that global mobility of capital, industry, workers, goods and consumers dissolves earlier hierarchies and inequities, democratises nations and the relations between nations, and creates new opportunities which percolate down in some form or another to every section of society. 

One of the other important critic Arjun Appadurai also claims about this globalization. In his work "Modernity at Large", catalogues of 'multiple locations' and new hybridities, new forms of communication, new foods, new clothes and new patterns of consumption are offered as evidence for both the newness and the benefits of globalization. 

Here Klaus Schwab observes that,

"Globalization 4.0 has only just begun, but we are already vastly under - prepared for it".

We have to note the point here: globalization has both positive and negative effects. Critics of globalization do not deny the fact or the transformatory powers of the phenomenon, or the many ways in which it indeed marks a departure from the old world order. There is no doubt that globalization has made information and technology more widely available, and has brought economic prosperity to certain new sections of the world. Everybody is only consumers in the Market. Here P. Sainath (Palagummi Sainath) observes, far from fostering ideological openness, has resulted in it's own fundamentalism. 

Market fundamentalism destroys more human lives than any other simply because it cuts across all national, cultural, geographic, religious and other boundaries. It's as much at home in Moscow as in Mumbai or Minnesota. A South Africa - whose advances in the early 1990s thrilled the world - moved swiftly from apartheid to neo-liberalism. It sits as easily in Hindu, Islamic or Christian societies. And it contributes angry, despairing recruits to the armies of all religious fundamentalism. Based on the premise that the market is the solution to all the problem of the human race, it has its own Gospel : The Gospel of St. Growth, of St. Choice…

• P. Sainath

If the earlier period of colonial globalization simultaneously integrated the world into a single economic system, and divided it more sharply into the haves and the have nots. So the new empire both facilitates global connections and creates new opportunities, and entrenches disparities and new divisions. 

Here is another report from 'The New York Times' (Friday October 17, 2003) speaking of huge demonstration in La Paz which defied military barricades to protest a plan to export natural gas to the United States : 

'Globalization is just another name for submission and domination' NICANOR APAZA, 46, an unemployed miner, said at a demonstration this week in which Indian women… carried banners denouncing the International Monetary Fund and demanding the president's resignation. `We've had to live with that here for 500 years, and now we want to be our own masters.'

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and once Chief Economist at the world Bank, also uses the phrase 'market fundamentalism' in his critique of globalization as it has been imposed upon the world by institutions like the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) :

The international financial institutions have pushed a particular ideology - market fundamentalism - that is both bad economics and bad politics; it is based on promises concerning how markets work that do not hold even for developed countries, much less for developing countries. The IMF has pushed these economics policies without a broader vision of society or the role of economics within society. And it has pushed these policies in ways that have undermined emerging democracies. More generally, globalization itself has been governed in ways that are undemocratic and have been disadvantageous to developing countries, especially the poor within those countries.

• Joseph E. Stiglitz

Examples :- 

From that context we can take the example of the movie "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a 2012 political thriller drama film directed by Mira Nair. It is based on the 2007 novel of the same name (The Reluctant Fundamentalist) by Mohsin Hamid. The film is a post-9/11 story about the impact of the terrorist attacks on one Pakistani man and his treatment by Americans in reaction to them. Mohsin Hamid's novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007, engages with the complex issues of Islam and the West, fundamentalism and America's War on Terror. As a “counterhistory” to post-9/11 Islamophobia, the novel contests common notions of terror as an unreasonable ideology of retribution and redemption by exposing the trajectories of imperialism. Analyzing The Reluctant Fundamentalist from the political perspective of a 9/11 novel, we can rethinking on the Clash of Civilizations theory and to elucidate the linkages between new American imperialism, fundamentalism, globalization and terrorism. Here is the trailer of the film :-

It is a film about how we  for some particular person or their community. But also the character of Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed) portrayed as a very good  man. Who had a very bad experience in America after the 9/11 attack. But he is not a person who believes in taking revenge. He believes in non - violence. We can also see how American armies and citizens, all Pakistani, are terrorists. Even Changez Khan doubtable for the terrorism at the airport. In short the film portrayed market fundamentalism and globalization. 

• Ghayal Once again

In the movie we can see the effect of globalization. It is a 2016 Indian action drama film written and directed by Sunny Deol. It is a direct sequel to the 1990 film Ghayal. It is directed, written and headlined by Sunny Deol who again plays Ajay Mehra. Here you can watch the movie :-

Four teenagers accidentally record a murder involving a famous personality and fall into trouble as a result. Ajay, a journalist, decides to help them in their quest to defeat the murderers. 

• Sonali Cable 

This is a film about privatization. Sonali, who runs an Internet providing agency in Mumbai, gives her all to save her business when a large corporation, Shining Broadband, tries to maintain its monopoly in the city. Here is the trailer of the movie,

This is what happens around us ! The privatization is now going to harm small businesses. If everything will become private our life is not going to be easy. In India we are seeing that government is selling airports, companies to private companies. So they can easily flee from thier responsibilities. Then can easily reply to the people that this or that is not our job now. So the question is, if privatization is creating problems for people, then the government should take responsibility for serving the people. The government should think about it. Privatization is good for some places but privatization should happen in an area with basic needs. Like in 

• Security system

• Health care

• Education

These are our basic needs. If country wants to make nation strong, they should make storng that things first. Then and then nation become strong. If we talk about the recent example of privatization, we come to know that our finance minister Nirmala sitaraman announced National Monetisation Pipeline. The government on Monday unveiled a four-year National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) worth an estimated Rs 6 lakh crore. It aims to unlock value in brownfield projects by engaging the private sector, transferring to them revenue rights and not ownership in the projects, and using the funds so generated for infrastructure creation across the country. To read full article click here. 

• Madari

Again this is a very interesting film to see in the context of globalization. It is a 2016 Indian social thriller film directed by Nishikant Kamat. It is produced by Shailesh R Singh, Madan Paliwal, Sutapa Sikdar, and Shailja Kejriwal and co-produced by Nishant Pitti from Easemytrip. Here you can see the movie :-

Nirmal, a man who lost his son due to the negligence of the government, seeks revenge and kidnaps the ten-year-old son of the home minister, forcing the administration to meet his demands. The last scene of the film is very much interesting. There is someone behind any action. When corruption happens the whole political party, their members, some government officers all are equally responsible for that. This movie explains it very well. 

• New York

We can see the film with the context of Postcolonial Studies. How our minds are treated to see everything. We all have some kind of pre-review for anything and it comes out when we observe someone or something.

The film New York directed by Kabir Khan. In the movie we can see Three friends lead a happy existence in New York. But their lives are adversely affected due to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11. The same thing we see in the movie The 'Reluctant Fundamentalist'. 

• Honey adulteration with sugar syrup

If we look for real events that happened in India in the context of globalization and postcolonial studies we see the example of Honey adulteration with sugar syrup. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) claims that Honey sold by several major brands in the country has been found adulterated with sugar syrup. 

• Banned on Apps 

There are several issues with banned apps. Like, Twitter and What's App, because of their private policies. We all have some private information in our apps. If the government wants any information from that app, the app has to change the private policies. But the right of privacy is a fundamental right according to the Constitution. So that was the issue about that. The point is Twitter was not banned at all. But it shows the control of particular authority over someone. 

2. The Future of Postcolonial Studies :-

When we talk about postcolonialism, we think that there is no need to ponder upon or study postcolonialism now. Because we are not in control of colonial peoples now. But this is not so. We are in great need of studying postcolonialism. When we talk about anti - colonialism, it is part of colonialism but postcolonialism goes beyond anti - colonialism. When someone says, Britishers have gone then what is the need of studying postcolonialism ? So we gate answer that they are gone physically, their impact is still alive. Their thoughts are still in our mind, which controls our thinking. We are still colonised by these things. Our minds are controlled by the colonies which ruled over our country. 

For some postcolonialist, both within and outside literary studies, such rethinking has been prompted by their engagement with new challenges, such as those posed by environmental studies. Thus Dipesh Chakrabarty finds,

Reading in theories of globalization, Marxist analysis of capital, subaltern studies, and postcolonial criticism over the last twenty-five years have not prepared him for the task of analysing the planetary crisis of climate change.

• Dipesh Chakrabarty

For decades now, the environment activist Vandana Shiva has exposed the connection between colonialism and the destruction of environmental diversity. She argues,

The growth of capitalism, and now of trans-national corporation, exacerbated the dynamic begun under colonialism which has destroyed sustainable local / cultures; these cultures were also more women - friendly, partly because women's work was so crucially tied to producing food and fodder. Other feminist environmentalist are more sceptical of such an assessment of pre - colonial cultures, which, they points out, were also stratified and patriarchal; however, they agree that question of ecology and human culture are intricately linked. Especially in the so-called third world, they state, one cannot talk about saving the environment while ignoring the needs of human lives and communities.

•  Vandana Shiva

Chittaroopa Palit, one of the leaders of the NBA, says that she and her comrades ‘learnt a lot about the structures and processes of globalization through these struggles’. Especially valuable was the lesson that, 

"Though international political factors, such as the character of the governments involved, the existence of able support groups in the North that play an important part, they cannot supplant the role of a mass movement struggling on the ground. Soon after the SPD government in Berlin refused a guarantee to Siemens, the German multinational, for building the dam in Maheshwar, it agreed to underwrite the company’s involvement in the Tehri dam in the Himalayas and the catastrophic Three Gorges Dam in China—both just as destructive as the Narmada project; but in neither instance were there strong mass struggles on the ground."

Examples :-

If we look at globalization and postcolonialism through various examples we can recall many examples in the form of advertisements, films, documentaries, literature, and news. 

There are several films which describe the changes of globalization, privatization, and postcolonial criticism. Like,

• Kerala restricts Pepsi

One another very important example of environmentalism and postcolonial studies we can see the accident of Kerala restricts Pepsi from over using ground water. Kerala to restrict use of groundwater by Pepsico; traders may stop sale of Pepsi, Coke. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan welcomed the move of traders and said the government would extend support to the initiative to check the threat to exploitation of water, pollution and lifestyle diseases. With Kerala in the grip of a severe drought, the government today said it will further restrict the use of groundwater by soft drink major Pepsico at Palakkad even as traders have planned to stop the sale of Pepsi and Coca Cola in the state. For further reading click here

• Nestle's Maggie ban in India

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I think I'm in 10th standard. And Maggie was banned in India. I'm surprised by why it happened . People spread a lot of wrong information like, Maggie is using cow meat ! Even my parents don't allow me to buy Maggie's packets ! It was in 2014 when food safety regulators from the Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh reported that samples of Maggi Noodles had high levels of monosodium glutamate (MSG) apart from high lead content above the permissible level. So we see the concern of globalization and postcolonial studies.

• Ban on Pepsi & Coke in India

It happened in India. We can read it with concern of globalization and postcolonial studies.

India banned Pepsi & Coke owing to pesticide issues. A court in southern India on Sept. 22 lifted a ban on the manufacture and sale of soft drinks by US giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi, amid claims that their beverages contained pesticides. The government in Kerala state had imposed the ban on August 11 after claims by a New Delhi-based environmental group, but the Kerala High Court ruled that the state government did not have the authority to do so. "The ban order issued by the state government was not within the legal powers that rest with the government. Thus we set aside the government order," chief justice V.K. Bali and justice M. Ramachandran said in their ruling. To read the full article click here. 

• Sherni

Human beings are becoming more and more selfish. We are cutting trees to make roads and buildings, but we forget to think about animals and other insects.

In this movie we see  nature and man fight against a forest officer as she and her team of locals and trackers attempt to capture a disturbed tigress. If we cut trees and disturb the way of animals it is obvious that they come into the village ! 

This video can clear the concept in our mind. 

 

• Chardham Yatra Project

If we talk about the reasons behind cutting down trees we can see the government's mega projects. One of them is the Chardham Yatra Project. 

They destroyed lots of things. Cutting down trees, destroying houses, and the land of farmers was gone for that. 

• Narmada Bachao Aandolan 

When the Sardar Sarovar Dam was built on Narmada river, some environmentalists carried the Narmada Bacho Aandolan. If we look at contemporary literature written in that time, there is even no reference of this event in Dhruv Bhatt's work "Tatvamasi". The novel remains completely aloof from the agitation in the village and around Narmada Dam by social activists. 

So this way we can understand both articles. If we don't find the solutions not only India but the whole world can be in trouble. So we have to try to save the environment as well as our government should try to control privatization. 

Midnight's Children Novel & Movie Adaptation

Hello friends, today I'm going to discuss the novel "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie and the movie adaptation "Midnight's Children" directed by Deepa Mehta and narrated by Salman Rushdie. This task is assigned by our professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. This blog describes the comparison between the novel and movie adaptation. Let's have a look at some of the topics which are similar and different in both forms. 

👉 First point to ponder upon is narrative technique. How was the narrative technique of the movie adaptation and in the novel ? So let's see how the technique was. 

It is remarkable that what many consider as Salman Rushdie’s landmark work in fiction, Midnight’s Children, was first adapted to film only in 2012, 31 years after its publication. It was also the first of his works to be filmed. This is noteworthy given the novel’s cinematic self-awareness and the writer’s overt interest in acting and cinema, which he has reiterated over the years.2 Besides publishing, Rushdie has had a long career in the creative economy  in the 1960s as a television script writer in Karachi after acting in the Cambridge Footlights Revue; in the 1970s as a freelance copywriter in advertising agencies and as an actor on the London fringe; and in later years as a script writer and performer of cameo roles in films.

Cinema, as a subject matter and a distinctive artistic language, resurfaces time and again in the pages of Rushdie’s essays, short stories, novels, and other writings. As many critics have pointed out, the writer’s emotional connection to cinema has translated into cinema itself being put to work as a mediating device in his oeuvre, with his characters often making sense of themselves and the world and coming to terms with their own place in it through cinema.

∆Here is the trailer of the movie :-

Midnight's Children is the story of Saleem Sinai, and how by virtue of being born at the very same moment of his country's independence at the midnight of August 15th, 1947 he is "handcuffed to history." Saleem and 420 other children are bound by magical powers which bind them to each other, but ultimately to their country. Rushdie explores the emergence of not only modern day India, but also of Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

When Midnight’s Children was published it brought Rushdie extensive literary approval, and has later come to be understood as an example of the

“theoretical preoccupations of 

postcolonial studies - not only manifesting high postmodernism’s aesthetic difficulty, 

experimentation, and play but also verifying the poststructuralist emphasis on writing and 

textuality.” 

In his work on Midnight’s Children Neil Ten Kortenaar claims that national history writing is a 

“well-defined narrative form: established origins, turning points 

and climaxes, and an agreed chronology of significant events.” 

Rushdie’s novel is in Kortenaar’s work discussed from different angles, subjects such as hybridity and magic realism are treated. However, through Kortenaar’s chapter, The Allegory of History, national allegory in the novel is a fundamental topic. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms allegory is a story with a second distinct meaning, the principal technique of allegory is personification whereby abstract qualities are given a human shape. It involves a continuous parallel between different levels of meaning in a text. 

However, in the novel the preceding chapters to Tick Tock are told in retrospect and Saleem’s abundance of stories make it difficult, not only for the reader, but also for the naïve narratee Padma, to follow his jumps in time and space, as well as his many other digressions. After journeys that have brought Saleem to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Delhi, he retires when he has rediscovered his ayah Mary Pereira in his childhood city, Bombay. She now owns a pickle factory and is able to provide him with whatever he needs, and he has the time and opportunity to pickle his memory and write down the story of his life. The setting in the pickle factory where Saleem recounts his stories are said to be a parallel to the frame story of Arabian Nights. This isevidently an intertextual element used to make suspense both in Arabian Nights, also famous as One Thousand and One Nights, and in Midnight’s Children. But in the film the character of Padma is missing, so the responsibility to understand the situation comes over the watchers.  So we can see some threats in the film. 

👉 The second point is about characters. There are some characters which are left out in  the film adaptation. It is hard to describe every Characters in the film. So the narrator used the major and important Characters in the adaptation. 

These are the main characters.

• Satya Bhabha as Saleem Sinai, 
• Shriya Saran as Parvati, 
• Siddharth Narayan as Shiva, 
• Darsheel Safary as Saleem Sinai (as a child), 
• Anupam Kher as Ghani, 
• Shabana Azmi as Naseem, 
• Neha Mahajan as Young Naseem, 
• Seema Biswas as Mary, 
• Charles Dance as William Methwold, 
• Samrat Chakrabarti as Wee Willie Winkie, 
• Rajat Kapoor as Aadam Aziz, 
• Soha Ali Khan as Jamila, 
• Rahul Bose as Zulfikar, 
• Anita Majumdar as Emerald, 
• Shahana Goswami as Amina, 
• Chandan Roy Sanyal as Joseph D'Costa, 
• Ronit Roy as Ahmed Sinai, 
• Kulbhushan Kharbanda as Picture Singh, 
• Shikha Talsania as Alia, 
• Zaib Shaikh as Nadir Khan, 
• Sarita Choudhury as Indira Gandhi, 
• Vinay Pathak as Hardy, 
• Kapila Jayawardena as Governor, 
• Ranvir Shorey as Laurel, 
• Suresh Menon as Field Marshal, 
• G.R Perera as Astrologer. 

In the opening scenes we can observe differences in the way the versions address the audience: the novel’s narrator uses the first person to provide, in a deferred and roundabout way, his story; in the film, there is also direct speech, but the narrative proceeds much more unswervingly. The other two versions do not construct a rapport with the audience in such a straightforward way by direct address. In movie, the audience is shown both the historical background on screen and the event of the twin births on stage. Only after these opening scenes does the narrator step in, either as a voiceover or as a character onstage.

The novel and the film thus seem to initially create a more personal rapport with their constructed audiences. It is significant in this respect that the character of Padma, the novel’s original immediate addressee and audience  the person who listens to and comments on Saleem’s narrative, and the second main character in the novel, after the protagonist is included in the first two adaptations, but in the film she is supplanted by Rushdie’s voiceover.

Padma’s role in the film was originally offered to the actor Nandita Das, who had worked with Mehta in Fire and Earth, but Das abandoned the project for personal reasons. Rather than looking for a substitute for the role of Padma, this setback was compensated by introducing the voiceover. The choice has been regarded variously as a success and a failure by critics, for example, from the gender perspective. There are indeed grounds for interpreting the substitution of a female voice with a male as problematic; this change may even be attributed to the authorial ego. However that may be, it creates a fundamental difference between the versions. 

👉 No Padma: The author–audience bond :-

What happens, then, when there is no Padma, as in the film? How does the narrative proceed when she is not there to probe Saleem to get on with the story  

“You better get a move on or you’ll die before you get yourself born”  

or to question the validity of his claims 

“All the time […] you tricked me ?” 

To begin with, Padma’s questioning (and doubting) voice disappears. In the 39 instances wherein the film’s narrator appears, only four present questions, while the remaining are declarative statements. In three of these, the questions are immediately answered by the narrator: 

“Why did she marry him so quickly? For solace? For the children they both wanted so much? My mother, Ameena Sinai, in her new incarnation resolved to forget the poet Nadir and fall in love with my father, Ahmed Sinai” ; “Only exile? In exile, I learned about power”; “Who were we? We were the promises of Independence” 

The single question that is not answered comes towards the end: 

“And what of Shiva, Shiva who was now a wanted man?”

This is also one of the two main differences (including the absence of Padma) between thth film and the novel: in the novel, what happened to Shiva is left uncertain  

“To tell the truth, I lied about Shiva’s death. My first out-and-out lie […] I’m still terrified of him”

but in the film he rides into a truck and dies, which is implicit only inasmuch as his body is not shown. One may speculate that the significance of this change resides in the fact that the film is less open to interpretation and, together with the slightly more optimistic ending discussed earlier, turns the gaze from oppressive past to future.

With respect to the impact on reception of having the author in Padma’s role, the use of Rushdie’s voice for the narration has received mixed reviews. One reviewer notes how the voiceover technique makes it feel like Rushdie is sitting next to you in the audience, nudging you in the ribs, over-explaining the story and still expecting you to laugh and cry at the right moments. Another one finds the choice more pleasing: It’s a masterstroke having Rushdie provide the film’s narration. His instantly-recognisable tone reciting his self-penned words render him a comforting guide on this tumultuous journey.

The fact that the voiceover conflates the moment Saleem came from his mother’s womb and the actual historical event of India’s independence takes the audience to a metafictional level if they realize (or know in advance) that the actual person narrating the story was also born around the time of India’s independence, on 19 June 1947, only two months before the cataclysmic subcontinental events of August 1947. In this sense, the film can be interpreted as a semi-autobiographical narrative, one which is adapted by Rushdie himself from his own novel and roughly based on his childhood  facts that are emphasized in the movie’s trailers. 

👉 The third point is the themes and symbols. The film adapted it very well. Rushdie steered the project of adapting Midnight’s Children into film from the outset, exercising an even tighter creative control than in the earlier adaptations, co-authoring the script and acting as executive producer. Another instance of this greater creative control is the use of his own voice to narrate the film, although the choice itself is attributed to Mehta’s insistence. If we talk about the various themes of the novel we can see this major themes :

• Truth and Storytelling

• British Colonialism and Postcolonialism

• Sex and Gender

• Identity and Nationality

• Fragments and Partitioning

• Religion

And if we talk about the symbols which are used in the novel we can see,

• The Silver Spittoon

The silver spittoon is an important symbol used in both art, novel and film. It is given to Amina as part of her dowry by the Rani of Cooch Naheen who is responsible for Saleem’s loss of memory. Even when he has amnesia, however, Saleem continues to cherish the spittoon as if he still understands its historical value. Following the destruction of his family, the silver spittoon is the only tangible remnant of Saleem’s former life, and yet it too is eventually destroyed when Saleem’s house in the ghetto is torn down. Spittoons, once used as part of a cherished game for both old and young, gradually fell out of use: the old men no longer spit their beetlejuice into the street as they tell stories, nor do the children dart in between the streams as they listen. So it can be considered as an important symbol.

• The perforated sheet 

In the movie we have seen two times The perforated sheet through which Aadam Aziz falls in love with his future wife performs several different symbolic functions throughout the novel. Unable to see his future wife as a whole, Aadam falls in love with her in pieces. As a result, their love never has a cohesive unit that holds them together.

The second use we see while the performance of singing by Jamila.

• Knees and nose 

The other pivotal symbol is the nose of Saleem. Saleem inherits his rather large, and perpetually congested, nose from his grandfather, Aadam Aziz, who also uses his nose to sniff out trouble. Saleem’s nasal powers begin after an accident in his mother’s washing-chest, in which he sniffs a rogue pajama string up his nose, resulting in a deafening sneeze and the instant arrival of the voices in his head. Saleem’s power of telepathy remains until a sinus surgery clears out his nose “goo.” After his surgery, Saleem is unable to further commune with the other children. Ironically, after Saleem’s nasal congestion is gone, he gains the ability to smell emotions, and he spends much time categorizing all the smells he frequently encounters. In short his all power goes after the operation, but one other ability he gets after operation also.

The themes and symbols are well presented in the film adaptation. We find that the director tried to portray all the things in the film, which Rushdie describes in the novel. Salim's nose created a big issue in the movie, and it had special power that Salim can call his friends through his nose. It seems magical element. 

Well some symbols are used very closely in some movies, like Taj Mahal. But Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta haven't took very close up scene of Taj Mahal. That we can see in the movie,

The integrity of the film is assured by Rushdie's own close involvement. The acting in the film, is understated and superb. Satya Bhabha exhibits a tenderness and toughness which is a jarring contrast to Matthew Patel in the peerless Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Shriya Saran and Shahana Goswami are impossibly elegant, and makes one wonder why every wedding isn't Indian. The breakout role may be the one of Darsheel Safary in his precocious portrayal of a 10 year old Saleem. 

The film itself is a wondrous palette of colours - with Sri Lanka being the setting for over 64 locations as diverse as Kashmir and Bengal spanning several decades.

Mehta stated that her focus on particular colours and slowly intensifying them were thematic choices. For instance, in the part signifying The Emergency of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, blue particularly resonates over the grim darkness, caressing the viewer's eyes with a sense of calm. And the settlement of India and Pakistan is also the talk of the novel. It is portrayed well in the film adaptation also.

Rushdie himself narrates, his voice exhibiting the calm energy of a man thrilled to bring a work which is almost 30 years old to a new generation. So we can say that it was great combination of various scenes. I recommend you to read the novel. If it isn't possible watch the movie. You will surely enjoy and learn many things.

👉 And the fourth point is the texture of the novel. Well, it is the interconnectedness of narrative technique with the theme. And yes it is well captured. Because there are lots of things in the novel, but we can't capture everything in two or three hours. But the movie tried it's best. We see the good attempt by Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta. The film is not told in chronological order, but it is told in flashback. When Salim remembered something he told the audience and listener. And then come back to real life from that flashback. Whole story is told by Salim. And he described the things that he felt. This is my interpretation of the novel and film adaptation. 

👉 We had a screening of the movie in online mode. The initial impression is impressive. Salam Rushdie as the narrator and writer tried to capture it very well in the film. To cover everything in one movie is hard to maintain. When we read a novel it takes a lot of time, but we can watch a movie in 2 or 3 hours. But when we read the whole novel it describes the deep ideas, but the movie can not present everything in comparison to the novel. And Rushdie's novel is the novel which can be presented in web series. But the film adaptation is good. All Characters acted like real life incidents. Their dialogues are also well knighted and have interconnection with each other. We had lots of threates during the movie screening, like Network issue, distraction at home (because we are at home) and errors of hanging mobile also !

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Postcolonialism in Movies

Watching movies for entertainment and watching movies for study purposes is a very different task. Because the way we are watching it indicates our thinking ability to see any particular matter. So in this blog I'm going to discuss postcolonialism in two Bollywood movies. The first is "Lagaan" and the second is "Rang De Basanti". So let's discuss about it. 

Before understand postcolonialism in movie we have to clear our concept of what postcolonialism is. In my earlier blog I have explained what postcolonial term is. Click here.

So let's have a look at Postcolonial elements in both movies. 

Lagaan

I hope you all have watched the movie. If you haven't watched the movie I recommend you to watch it. So here I'm giving the basic information of the film. Lagaan : (translate -  Agricultural tax), released internationally as Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India, is a 2001 Indian Hindi-language epic musical sports film written and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, and produced by and starring Aamir Khan, along with debutant Gracy Singh and British actors Rachel Shelley and Paul Blackthorne in supporting roles. The film is set in 1893, during the late Victorian period of India's colonial British Raj. The story revolves around a small village in Central India, whose inhabitants, burdened by high taxes, and several years of drought, find themselves in an extraordinary situation as an arrogant British army officer challenges them to a game of cricket, as a wager to avoid paying the taxes they owe. The narrative spins around this situation as the villagers face the arduous task of learning a game that is alien to them and playing for a result that will change their village's destiny. Now let's see how and where we can see the postcolonial elements.

 

• Postcolonial study of the film :-

So in the movie we can see that the people are growing seeds in their farm, with their hard work and the benefits taken by the King and British people. They have to give them Lagaan. It shows how British people are plundering them. 

Another important postcolonial element is cricket. The Britishers introduce the game. Indian people have to learn the game because they want to be free from tax. But the game is still very famous in our country. So why is it played and very famous in India ? Because the game is played by high cast persons ! Yes it's true. You can see in the players of cricket matches many of them belong to upper castes. And we are use to follow them without any critical thinking. That is why this game is very much famous. 

 In the movie we can see that white people have their own way of looking at Indian people. They think that we are only their servants. We were born to be slaves. As well as Indian people have their own way of looking at lower caste people. The upper class people think that they are our servants. They are untouchables. So this conflict is seen in the movie. 

The other thing which is pivotal is the character of Lakha and the character of Elizabeth. We can think that we all are good and all Britishers are bad. But it is not so, because there are some good people and things in Britishers and there are bad people and things in Indians also. Like Lakha, he helped the Britishers because he was jealous of Bhuvan. So here we can say that,

People of any caste, place, colour etc. can be good as well as bad. 

So in this way we can understand postcolonialism in this film. 

Rang De Basanti

Now my second movie discussion is about the film "Rang De Basanti". Here is the basic idea of the film. Rang De Basanti (translate : Paint it saffron) is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language drama film written, produced and directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, and co-written by Rensil D'Silva. The film follows a British film student traveling to India to document the story of five freedom fighters of the Indian revolutionary movement. She befriends and casts five young men in the film, which inspires them to fight against the corruption of their own government. It features an ensemble cast consisting of Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Atul Kulkarni, Soha Ali Khan, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor and British actress Alice Patten. 

A major point of criticism the film faced was regarding the possibility of the Indian Army attacking students in a radio station. When Rakeysh was questioned about the same in a scriptwriter's conference conducted by the Film Writers Association in the year 2008, he said the following, "So, in 2005, in Allahabad, a bunch of 4 students took the TV station there, and they were shot dead. Everything I did, it was kind of borrowed, as I said right here. Obviously, what I am also learning is the way I tell a story is not real; you can term it as a-real. For maximum impact, for the message to go through, I felt—since the story was against the establishment—let the establishment do it. After all, the establishment did hang Bhagat Singh. After all, the establishment did come down on the innocent, innocent students in the Mandal Commission. After all, the establishment did come down on Tiananmen Square. After all, the establishment did come down when the whole concept of Flower Power emerged in America. So it's all there. It's borrowed, maybe not as realistically, but it is definitely there in society. Let's see the postcolonial elements in the film. 

Here you can see the movie,

 

• Postcolonial study in the movie :-

When the movie starts we can see that Sue wants to make a documentary film on Indian freedom fighters. But her University denied funds for the documentary because they don't want  to make a documentary on Indian freedom fighters and it is not quite a good thing. 

Another important postcolonial element in the movie is when Sue has come to India, at the airport all taxi drivers encircle her with excitement. It shows Indian mindset and impact toward white people. 

The other thing is when Sue speaks Hindi, DJ is shocked, because he thinks that white people can not speak and understand Hindi. This is a single story in our mind also. We think the white people can not speak our language. 

When we see in the film the scene of the bribe we can understand that Sue is very much surprised as a British. But it is common for Indian. 

Yes, the next element is the fighting scene of Diljit and Pande fighting with each other. At that time Sue patches them up. So why is there a need to white people to patch up ? It shows our division between us. We haven't had unity between us, that is why it's happened. Here is the case of patch up but it might be a case of fighting also. 

The education topic is also a pivotal element of postcolonialism here. Karan's father wants Karan to study in foreign. This is our mindset that foreign countries have the best education systems. It is quite true also, but India also has the best education system also.

Violence and separation of power is shown in the movie as a postcolonial element. When the students are shot at a  radio station. The authorities proved them as terrorists ! They said that they are the terrorists and they were shot now the public are safe. But we know the real story, that they are not terrorists, they are true students. Even they want to awaken all people to what is going wrong with all people. But they choose a path of violence. 

If they were chosen the Gandhian path maybe victory is with them. But they choose the path of violence which is the path of vir Bhagat Singh. And there is a tragic end. 

So in this way I have pointed out some postcolonial elements in both movies. 

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