I remember attempting to read Shakespeare when I was 11 years old. I was keen to read the plays and be able to understand them because he was so highly praised in many books, TV shows, and movies that I’ve come across. But as someone so new to reading, that style of writing, the language, and the complex concepts discussed in the plays, I was frustrated at not being able to understand them. On my next birthday, my uncle gifted a series called ‘No Fear Shakespeare’ to me. The left half of the page contained the original text and the right half gave a simple dialogue-to-dialogue translation. It allowed me to understand the plot of the story, but the emotions were conveyed and made clear to me only through watching plays. I streamed bad-quality Broadway plays of Macbeth and saw adaptations like West-Side Story. So, having never seen any version of Othello, I was excited to watch Vishal Bharadwaj’s Omkara.
The first and most obvious difference I noticed between the play and the movie was the first scene. In Shakespeare’s work, the play opens with Iago talking to Roderigo and expressing resentment towards Othello for choosing Cassio over him as a lieutenant. But the movie opens with Langda plotting the disruption of Raju’s wedding procession.
It was interesting to see the difference between the texts on the basis of cultural context and the timeline it is set in. For example, it is implied that Othello was a black man, evidenced by him being described as a Moor or even when Iago describes him as “an old black ram”. But Omkara is blatantly said to be half-caste. The colour of the skin is emphasised in both the play and the movie which describe Desdemona and Dolly as being fair-skinned and their beauty being undeserving of men who contrast them. For example, in Othello, Desdemona’s skin is referred to as “that whiter skin of hers than snow and smooth as monumental alabaster”. And in the movie, when Omakara rings Dolly home, his sister mocks him for their contrasting skin colour using multiple metaphors. Indian audiences would understand and relate to caste-based discrimination better than racial discrimination. Similarly, Othello gifts a handkerchief to Desdemona, while Omkara gives a waistband to Dolly. At the end of the play, Othello gives his wife an opportunity to speak and admit to the sins he believed she committed. Also, she is aware of why Othello wanted to kill her. He says, “If you bethink yourself of any crime unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace, Solicit for it straight”. But in the movie, Dolly is clueless about the reason Omakara was angry as he kills her in a fit of rage.
Another stark difference lies in the way the antagonist is portrayed. Iago is very clearly an evil, power-hungry, and malicious character from the beginning. But Langda is made more human. The audience is shown a side of him they can empathise with and pity. I found that the first scenes contributed to the way we read Iago and Langda’s characters. By giving a form of backstory, and showing how loyal Langda is to Omkara, the audience is made to feel sad for him. They are shown traits of his character that line up with what is expected from a lieutenant. Additionally, Kesu is not shown to have any of these traits and is portrayed as weak and pathetic. But the same cannot be said for Iago as the play opens with him expressing disdain over Othello’s decision.
Overall, I enjoyed Bharadwaj’s adaptation of the play and thought it seemed very compelling because of the lyrics, colours, the setting, and the quality of the actors. Small details like the language made it more enjoyable. Most of the dialogues were in a flowery, refined Hindi. But we see that Omkara has a very rough manner of speaking. I thought it was a very clever element to incorporate into the film.