The art of gap management adopted and adapted from Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man to Deepa Mehta’s Earth

Abstract

ABSTRACT The literary adaptation into cinematic terms has become a ubiquitous phenomenon. In such a way, it brings about the intersection of the literary and the cine-text working towards assessing the intertextual resonances between the two. However, narratives can be subjected to several omissions and slippages which the artist intentionally devises. Formulating such gaps in between, the artist attempts to engage the attention of the readers/viewers and invites them to mend the fissures complying with the interpretive scope offered in the text. Venturing in a similar direction, the paper comparatively evaluates Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy-Man with Deepa Mehta’s Earth. In doing so, it analyses the art of gap management as adopted and adapted from the literary precursor to the cinematic successor. To this end, it problematizes the creative approaches of the two artists involved. To put it differently, the perusal determines to what extent the writer and the director converge and diverge in the treatment of narratorial fissures by adopting the methodological tools of inclusion, omission and modification in the management of gaps in their respective renderings. Interestingly, such a perspective complicates the discourse around adaptation studies and offers a new insight into the process of adaptation.