Hello readers:) This is response blog task given by Dr. Dilip Barad in this thinking activity is point ponder.
Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive.
Movie Adaptation
Midnight's Children is a 2012 film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel of the same name. The film features an ensemble cast of Satya Bhabha, Shriya Saran, Siddharth Narayan, Ronit Roy, Anupam Kher, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Seema Biswas, Shahana Goswami, Samrat Chakrabarti, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan, Anita Majumdar and Darsheel Safary. With a screenplay by Rushdie and directed by Deepa Mehta, the film began principal photography in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in February 2011 and wrapped in May 2011. Shooting was kept a secret as Mehta feared protests by Islamic fundamentalist groups.
The film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Vancouver International Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival. The film was also a nominee for Best Picture and seven other categories at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards, winning two awards.
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie CH FRSL (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist.His work often combines magical realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent.
Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.
After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. On 12 August 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie after rushing onto the stage where the novelist was scheduled to deliver a lecture at an event in Chautauqua, New York.
In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999.Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature.In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the events following The Satanic Verses.
1.Narrative Technique
Salman Rushdie is undoubtedly one of the most Famous novelists in Present time His second novel Midnight's children received greater critical acclaim and made Rushdie a famous literary figure in the English speaking world. The Novel won for him Booker of Booker Prize in 1993. He uses First Person Narration, and different techniques from other contemporary writer. Rushdie also uses tools like Magic Realism and cinematic elements use Bollywood as Indianized tools His use of Indian words like ekdym ,angrez, Firangee and especially I Like very much is Tickety-too. Also the Narration of Novel is like a Russian doll, Box in Box ,story within story. in movie flashbacks are used.
2 character
There are some characters which are left out in the film adaptation. It is hard to describe every character in the film.
Character from movie
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
Rajesh Khera
Salman Rushdie, narrator
Here is the link for the characters in the novel.Click here
Here are the list of character from the novel who didn't appear in the film.
-Padma
-Sonny Ibrahim
-Commander Sabarmati
-Lila Sabarmati
-Homy Carrack
-Alice Pereira
-Nalikar Women
-Ramram Sheth
The silver spittoon given to Amina as part of her dowry by the Rani of Cooch Naheen 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 betel juice into the street as they tell stories, nor do the children dart in between the streams as they listen. The spittoon is the symbol of a vanishing era, which, in retrospect, seemed simpler and easier. And so, although Saleem may not be able to recall the specific association between the spittoon and his family, the spittoon maintains its symbolic quality as both a container of memory and source of amnesia.
Knees and Nose
Saleem Sinai’s large, bulbous nose is a symbol of his power as the leader of the Midnight Children’s Conference, which is comprised of all children born on the moment of India’s independence from British rule. His nose makes his power of telepathy possible, and this is how he communicates with the other children of midnight (who all have varied powers of their own). 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.One of Midnight's Children and many important character in Novel and movie Shiva represent power of Knees all midnight children have various power Shiva have power of powerful knees he is able to kill anyone he was used his power to control others in movie he was many times hit Saleem by their power also he was used his power killed several slams who are lived in Delhi and try to killed saleem for the powerful rulers.
Pickle:
Saleem largely manages to preserve his life through storytelling, offering a bit of immortality to a dying man, and he also labels and stores each chapter he writes in a pickle jar, so that they may be read later, by his son for example. This connection between pickles and the preservation of stories endures until the very end of the book, when Saleem ceremoniously labels his very last pickle jar as a way of closing out his story and his life as a whole.Sometimes Rushdie trying to give all chapter are jar of pickle and one by one it is open you can smell the history. Saleem was manager of a pickle factory. It is like preserving and destroying history.
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.
4.And the fourth point is the texture of the novel.
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 Saleem remembered something he told the audience and listener. And then come back to real life from that flashback. Whole story is told by Saleem. And he described the things that he felt. This is my interpretation of the novel and film adaptation.
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,Tajmahal central to periphery.
5.We had a screening of the movie . 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.Reading Novel is like peel off the petal of onion when watch movie is clear cut significant of scene. Rushdie novel is story within story but movie go with only flash back.
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