The Blue Umbrella as an adaptation: A Comparative Study between Fiction and Film

Abstract

Ruskin bond’s novella, the blue umbrella is a story of ten years old girl Binya and her umbrella.  The novella The Blue Umbrella is an exploration of basic human desires, yet it fulfills its journey through a simplistic discourse, deeply poignant. As Jean Mitry puts in the “Remarks on the Problem of Cinematic Adaptation” that adaptation “is a matter of passing from one form to another, a matter of transportation, of reconstruction” (Mitry 1971). While adapting any work of literature into a film, there always remain some possibilities of the distortion of message. It happens so because of the series of mutations that takes place in the process of film making at all the creative levels, starting from scripting, to narrating, to shooting, to editing - in every stage there are chances of message distortion. The novella was adapted into a film of the same name by VishalBhardwaj. As a novella, the story was popular among children for years, and as a film also it gained attention of audience and critics. But still the question arises- how far the film is faithful adaptation, all the characters are given same space or not, the message of the novella distorted or not etc. In this paper we will try to find out answer of those questions along with the aesthetics of film making like style, tone, structure, metaphor, symbol etc.