This book explores Shakespeare in Indian cinemas, including less familiar, Indian language cinemas to contribute to current studies in global Shakespeare. Visiting diverse filmic genres and expanding the very notion of 'Indian cinema', essays focus on the inter-textualities between Shakespearean theatre, regional cinema, performative traditions, and literary histories in India, analyzing the interplay of aesthetic, historical, socio-political, and theoretical contexts. The book tracks the intra-Indian flows and cross-currents between the various film industries, and intervenes in the politics of multiculturalism and inter/intraculturalism built up around Shakespearean appropriations.

Introduction Poonam Trivedi and Paromita Chakravarti

Part I. Indigenising the Tragic

1. Woman as Avenger: 'Indianising' the Shakespearean Tragic in the Films of Vishal Bhardwaj Poonam Trivedi

2. Eklavya: Shakespeare Meets the Mahabharata Robert S White

3. Reworking Shakespeare in Telugu Cinema: King Lear to Gunasundari Katha Nishi Pulugartha

4. Shakespeare in Malayalam Cinema: Cultural and Mythic Interface, Narrative Negotiations C.S. Venkiteswaran

5. 'Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,/To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?': Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) - A Neglected Shakespeare Film Koel Chatterjee

Part II. Critical Innovations: Historiography of Silence and Poetics of Rasa

6. The Indian 'Silent' Shakespeare: Recouping an Archive Amrit Gangar

7. Shakespeare, Cinema and Indian Poetics Anil Zankar

Part III. Between the Global and the Local

8. Such a Long Journey: Rohinton Mistry's Parsi King Lear from Fiction to Film Preti Taneja

9. Cinematic Lears and Bengaliness: Locus, Identity, Language Paromita Chakravarti

10. Shakespeare and Indian Independent Cinema: 8 × 10 Tasveer and 10ml Love Varsha Panjwani

11. "Singing is Such Sweet Sorrow": Ambikapathi, Hollywood Shakespeare and Tamil Cinema's Hybrid Heritage Thea Buckley

Part IV. Reimagining Gender, Region and Nation

12. Gendered Play and Regional Dialogue in Nanjundi Kalyana Mark Thornton Burnett

13. Not the Play but the Playing: Citation of Performing Shakespeare as a Trope in Tamil Cinema A. Mangai

14. Indianising The Comedy of Errors: Bhranti Bilash and Its Aftermaths Amrita Sen

15. Regional Reflections: Shakespeare in Assamese Cinema Parthajit Baruah

Part V. Interviews

Part VI. Filmography

Poonam Trivedi was Associate Professor in English at Indraprastha College, University of Delhi, India and is currently the vice-chair of the Asian Shakespeare Association.

Paromita Chakravarti is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India.