MASALA SHAKESPEARE (HB)

Masala is a word that conjures
up many associations. The word derives, through Urdu and Persian, from the
Arabic ?masalih??ingredients. To a westerner, it immediately suggests exotic
eastern spices. In its most widespread metaphorical use in India, it means
embellishment or exaggeration. It also means a mixture?originally a mixture
of ground spices, but more metaphorically any kind of mixture, especially one
of cultural influences.While Shakespeare today is considered ?literature? and
is taught as a ?pure?, ?high? form of art, in his own day it was the
quintessential ?masala? entertainment he provided that attracted both the
common people and the nobility. In Masala Shakespeare, Jonathan Gil Harris
explores the profound resonances between Shakespeare?s craft and Indian
cultural forms as well as their pervasive and enduring relationship in
theatre and film. Indeed, the book is a love letter to popular cinema and
other Indian storytelling forms. It is also a love letter to an idea of
India. One of the arguments of this book is that masala?and, in particular,
the masala movie?is not just a formal style or genre. More accurately, it
embodies a certain version of India, one that celebrates the plural, the
polyglot, the all-over-the-place. The book is also ultimately a portrait of
contemporary India with all its pluralities and contradictions.In Masala
Shakespeare, the author focuses on twelve Shakespeare plays?The Comedy of
Errors, A Midsummer Night?s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew,
Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest, Pericles and
Titus Andronicus?that have acquired Indian lives independent of the familiar
English texts of the plays. The plays are a diverse mixture whose Indian
avatars?including films such as Angoor, 10ml Love, Ishaqzaade, Goliyon ki
Rasleela Ram-Leela, Gundamma Katha, Isi Life Mein, Dil Bole Hadippa!,
Maqbool, Omkara, Haider, Arshinagar and The Last Lear and plays such as
Kamdev ka Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna, Jangal mein Mangal, Chattan Kattu, Piya
Behrupiya, Chahat ki Dastaan and Hera-Phericles?are very different from each
other. In their own ways, however, they all chafe against an oppressive power
by refusing the current vogue for shuddhta (purity), and singularity, and
instead celebrate the plural and mixed.