Browsing by Author "Singh, Barjinder"

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    Filming of fiction: A comparative study of bapsi sidhwa's ice-candy-man and1947 earth
    (Central University of Punjab, 2012) Singh, Barjinder; Kaur, Zameerpal
    A visual adaptation of a literary text is a complex phenomenon, involving the basic paradox of word and image, so some sort of compression, omission is natural when the linguistic signs are converted into visual signs. The visual adaptation of a literary text may result into the reinterpretation, modulation, adaptation or reassessment of the meaning of earlier literary texts. The partition of the Indian subcontinent has got widespread resonance in literature but there has been a relative silence in serious cinema and academia about partition and its related issues. Bapsi Sidhwa's novel Ice-Candy-Man tries to reassess or reconstruct the history of Partition giving voice to the marginalised groups on the levels of gender, class, ethnicity and nationality. Sidhwa reviews the history of Partition from a more or less feminist and Pakistani perspective to displace or counter the discursive tendencies of historical thought in Europe or India. 1947: Earth, unlike the novel can be seen as part of the grand narratives of communal violence and human nature. The film adaptation of the novel closely adheres to the novel in terms of general plot or dialogues. But since cinema is entirely different medium having its own concerns of economics, authorship, production, distribution and reception, some of the issues in the novel are silenced while others are foregrounded. This dissertation studies the dynamics of the adaptation of Sidhwa's novel from this perspective.
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    The Subaltern Speaks: The Construction of Marginal Identities in Selected Films on Partition of India
    (Central University of Punjab, 2018) Singh, Barjinder; Saini, Alpna
    Recognising the excruciating pain and trauma the Partition of India has caused to the lives of the millions of people in the Indian sub-continent, the present thesis embarks on to study a hitherto unexplored area concerning Partition studies, e.g., construction of marginal identities in Partition films. The present thesis contends that the selected Partition films— that I taxonomise as Subaltern Partition Cinema—as a distinct voice from the mainstream Bollywood cinema, depict Partition history in a radically different way than that of the official, colonialist and nationalist historiographies, giving voice to the subalterns of Indian Partition; like women, Dalits, minorities, and refugees. Taking Rosenstone’s views on the relationship between film and history as a springboard, it considers cinema as a significant medium to engage with Partition history, and attempts to foreground how cinematic narratives and practices can be vital resources for rethinking Partition history. Subaltern Studies’ methodology has been used to demarginalise the subaltern experience in the selected film texts; an attempt is made to study the structure and dynamics of film language concerned with the representations of history, memory, violence (abduction, rape, killing), in the selected films. The methodology of the research work involves an in-depth mise-en-scene analysis and other formal aspects of film semiotics wherever possible. The thesis attempts to retrieve the subaltern historiography of Partition of India as it emerges from the selected films; v further, to see such subaltern revisionings of history as alternative forms of history and as counter-narratives to the perspectives of mainstream history. The analysis of the sufferings of the subaltern identities as portrayed in the selected films entails a critique of the communal nationalisms in South Asia. The post-Partition Hindi cinema can be seen as a site of cinematic heterotopia to dispel the dominant nationalistic perceptions about 1947 perpetuated by the conflicting terrains of the elite nationalist histories of the two nation-states. The study of the representations of history in the films like Gandhi and Jinnah points out the highly discursive nature of Partition history as well as cinema’s potential in the promotion as well as destabilisation of the received history. The study also points out how the refugee experience in the cinema of Ritwik Ghatak can be seen as a cinematic displacement of his latent angst against the idea that the East Bengal and the West Bengal constitute two different cultural or national identities and could be divided on the basis of religion. Partition films should not be seen as capturing the exact picture of the past that must be faithful to the contemporary reality. But these films must also be considered as creative reconstructions, constructions or deconstructions of the past to the extent the specificities of the medium allow.
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    Vocalising the Concerns of South Asian Women: A Gynocentric Critique of the Novels of Bapsi Sidhwa
    (Public Knowledge Project, 2015) Singh, Barjinder
    The present paper through a study of the selected novels of Bapsi Sidhwa tries to vocalise the nature of the subjection of women in postcolonial South Asia, a space marked by a history of gender based violence or exploitation, sexual stereotyping, and gender roles. Bapsi Sidhwa through her novels tries to combat this attitude of society towards women. Sidhwa presents a gynocentric critique of the South Asian society in her novels. Most of her fictional work is devoted to the analysis and dissection of the structures of traditional patriarchal cultures, as well as the colonial or nationalistic endeavours that collude to subjugate women in the postcolonial South Asia.