Don't Judge a Book by It's Film or Vise Versa

                                          The film adaption of the book.

Midnight's Children is one of Salman Rushdie's masterpieces. To say that the book was better than the movie or the movie better than the book will be to be naive. In this case the book was 647 pages long,to be exact, and the movie 146 minutes. To compress 647 pages into 146 minutes is a killing task. Killing literally and metaphorically. Literally because choosing the scenes, re-writing dialogues, developing a screenplay is hard work, metaphorically because cutting one's one hard work literally makes one sad.

Since I have read the book, sitting in the theater and making sense of the movie was easy. Though there were few instances which i wanted to be seen played out in the movie,owing to their magical calibre,which were conveniently dropped. More specifically the Seer Ramram's prophecy, Bangladesh war and even the entirety of Methwold's estate. 

The movie surely has some magical moments namely the perforated sheet, swapping of children by Mary Periera and the Midnight's Children Conference. The first half of the movie went into detail and established certain characters. The magic of Aadam's nose, Reverand Mother's vow of silence, Nadir Khan's hiding cavern, Methwold'd estate, the birth of Saleem Sinai, Saleem's childhood and Brass Monkey's jealousy. These instances were a beauty to watch. Though after the interval the movie rushed to the climax too fast. The exile to Pakistan, Bangladesh war, the Emergency were topics which needed more clarity.

The cast of the movie did a commendable job: Rajat Kapoor fitted into the stunning role of Saleem's grandfather while Shabana Azmi did justice to the terrifying role of Reverand Mother,Shahana Goswami was absolutely superb in her role performing it with maturity and conviction, Siddharth and Shirya Sareen acted well, Darsheel Safary was spellbinding as small Saleem which was further acted by Satya Bhabha, though claps should resound for Seema Biswas for her role as the baby-swapping-guilt-stricken-aaiya.
The director Deepa Mehta should be congratulated at how the movie turned out to be.

The book is a must read while the movie is certainly different from the mainstream gaga. The magic and fantasy which Rushdie creates in his book has greater scope of imagination in one's mind. 

Photo Courtesy:http://www.liveforfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Midnights-Children-poster.jpg

Nishtha Juneja.