Introduction :-
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie[a] FRSL (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist and essayist.[3] His work, combining magical realism with historical fiction, is primarily concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, with much of his fiction being set on the Indian subcontinent.
About Midnight’s Children :-
Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by author Salman Rushdie. It portrays India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and the partition of India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive.
Midnight's Children won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981.[1] It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary.[2][3] In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels".[4] It was also added to the list of Great Books of the 20th Century, published by Penguin Books.
1) Narrative technique ( changes made in film adaptation - for eg. Absences of Padma the Nati the listener the commenter - what is your interpretation?)
In the movie ‘ Midnight’s Children’ so many changes had been made by the director. So many characters are not included and there is also a slight change in narrative technique also. In the original text the story is told by the protagonist himself and the story is listened to by Padma. This technique is connected with Bharatmuni’s ‘ Natya Shastra. It means here Saleem is Nat and Padma is Nati. In film adaptation this method is changed and here Saleem tells the story but the audience plays the role of nati.
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.
2) Characters ( how many included how many left out why ? What is your interpretation?
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.
3) Themes and symbols ( if film adaptation able to capture themes and symbols ? )
The Silver Spittoon :-
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.
Pickle :-
Pickles are repeatedly mentioned in Midnight’s Children, and while they are often viewed as a phallic symbol, they are generally representative of the power of preservation within Rushdie’s novel. Saleem is the manager of a pickle factory, and he preserves pickles and chutneys each day. He also attempts to preserve his own life story like the pickles in his factory. 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.
4 ) The texture of the Nobel ( what is the texture of the novel ? Well it the inter connectedness of narrative technique with theme is it well captured ? )
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. 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,
5) what is your aesthetic experience after watching the screening ?
This movie tries to show what the situation was like with imagination and history. Speaking against politics was a big challenge. Emergency was imposed by Indira Gandhi at that time. It was not an easy task but writing such a novel in the face of politics at that time was a big challenge. Which Salman Rushdie has done. Salman's midnight children novels have become very popular. This novel tells the same story but the way of telling the story changes. we can say that it was great combination of various scenes. I recommend you to read the novel. I have suggest to possible watch the movie. You will surely enjoy and learn many things from this movies.
Thank u...
