Works of the indian authors Chandra Chattopadhyay and Mirza Ruswa: the problem of book-and-screen asymmetry

Abstract

The discourse focusing on the problem of implementing literary texts in the cinema is still remaining relevant. Without anticipating reading the book itself, the range of discussion of film adaptation problem turned out to be extremely wide: from the analysis of many specific film works, creative successes and failures in the field of film production, to the most general and fundamental questions, which were sometimes posed in a very acute form. Can the border between the verbal artistic image created by the writer and the visual, moving, audial screen image be overcome? Does cinema need literature, and if so, why? Does literature need cinema, and if so, with what reservations?
We chose to study the works of the writers Chandra Chattopadhyay (Sanjib Chandra) and Mirza Ruswa (Mirza Muhammad Hadi), who are widely regarded as key figures in the literary revival of India. The former is a Bengali Brahmin, the latter is a Muslim and wrote in Urdu. Some of their writings, including novels, essays and commentaries, deviated from traditional Indian literary works and served as a source of inspiration for screening them.
The experience of acquaintance with translations of the works written by popular Indian authors, which is used in teaching practice at Kazan University, significantly facilitates mastering the Hindi language.