‘Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,/To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?’

Abstract

The Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (QSQT) is one of the best-known teen musicals to be made in Bollywood. Its gross box-office takings in India were ₹10 crores. It was a runaway success in 1988 and began to be termed a 'cult film' when it unexpectedly turned into the biggest film of the year, with some teenagers having watched it over a hundred times by the end of 1988. The landmark status of the film and its cult makes it the most commercially successful Shakespearean adaptation in the Hindi film industry; however, its roots in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet have been curiously ignored, despite a growing interest in global/non-anglophone Shakespeares in contemporary times. It is, however, the tragic ending of QSQT, deviating as it does from the most important convention of an archetypal romantic musical in Bollywood, which undoubtedly makes this film a true adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.