Godan, The Film: What It Replicates and What It Hides

Abstract

The present research paper compares the novel Godan by Munshi Premchand written in 1936 in pre independence era and the film directed by Trilok Jetly in 1962 in post independence era. It simply underlines the scene, plot, persons and events etc. the cinema replicates or hides. Literature and cinema seems to have one similar motif or seems to work on the similar ground that is to reflect society. Literature doesn’t lie but “not mentioning something” or “saying it in different way” also ruins history. Generally we consider literature as a piece of history and what is written in it, we take it as a reality or truth. And if this literature dosent mentions anything we don’t think it ever exit or nothing worthy of considering. But is this the only truth? isn’t there not a world beyond literature? There is a very big scenario outside the frame of literature, which the so called literary persons forget to mention. About the cinema also we have the same formation, we think that what it shows reflects reality or is strongly influenced by the reality. And cinema has one big advantage of reaching out to the largest amount of people. It has the tremendous amount of audience compared to literature. It can influence people in a great amount. The adaptation of literary classics to films has surged as one of the most appealing topics in the twenty-first century in interdisciplinary studies. Literature and Cinema both are an inevitable part like the heart of the society. They are known as the mirror which reflects the true and somehow in some extent the actual image of the society. They are always influenced by and to the society. The book Godan, a masterpiece in which the theme of social evil’s is successfully depicted and marvelously knitted around the novel is all about the sensibility of lack of humanity, famine, poverty and exploitation of Indian peasantry.