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Vishal Bhardwaj

'Shakespearean plays are Indian at heart'
28th July 2006 15.30 IST
By Nikhil Kumar

Vishal Bhardwaj , the director of Omkara believes that Shakespearean plays are very Indian at heart.

For a man who grew up watching the typical Bollywood masala films like Amar Akbar Anthony and Don (1978) , it is not an easy feat to adapt the works of Shakespeare on to celluloid. But Vishal Bhardwaj has successfully done it once in Maqbool (adaptation of MacBeth). Now, he adapts the English bard’s ‘Othello’ into the Indian setting in ‘Omkara’.

Some may find it hard to believe but Vishal first got introduced to Shakespeare through an abridged children’s book containing the bard’s works. He read MacBeth and was pretty impressed by the story.

Later, Vishal read Shakespeare’s plays and found them “the works of a genius”. In Vishal’s opinion, even if a director has a little bit of intelligence, he can’t go wrong in adapting Shakespeare’s works. And what struck Vishal the most about Shakespeare’s plays is that they are very Indian at heart.

Vishal says: “In my opinion we can make Shakespearean dramas in Hindi all the time. His plays are very Indian at heart.”

The filmmaker says his next work after ‘Omkara’, however, will be based on an original story. For the next two years at least, Vishal plans to stay off Shakespeare. After that, he might adapt ‘Hamlet’ or ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ to complete his Shakespeare’s trilogy.

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Vishal Bhardwaj
Omkara
Amar Akbar Anthony
Don (1978)
Maqbool