Journal of critical reviews 221 Journal of Critical Reviews ISSN- 2394-5125 Vol 7, Issue 5, 2020 Review Article THE RAMIFICATION OF SHAKESPEARE'S HAMLET AS KARMAYOGI: REFLECTING THE CULTURAL TRACES OF POST-COLONIAL KERALA K. S. Shahanaaz Kowsar, Dr. Sangeeta Mukherjee Research Scholar, Department of English, School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology,Vellore – 632014, India.Email Id: shahanaaz1994@gmail.com Senior Assistant Professor,Department of English,School of Social Sciences and Languages,Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore – 632014, India.Email: sangeetamukherjee70@gmail.com Received: 08.01.2020 Revised: 16.02.2020 Accepted: 24.03.2020 Abstract Even in the contemporary era, William Shakespeare’s plays stand unshaken because of the universal truth of humanity that is contained in them. This quality of humanity along with adaptability and flexibility of Shakespearean plays makes them friendlier to be transformed into any genre. His plays have thus been widely adapted, interpreted and appropriated as movies the world over. The current research article tries to analyze how the tragic play Hamlet has been re-contextualized in the Indian (Malayalam) film, Karmayogi, to suit the Post-colonial Indian backdrop. The research article also explores the projection of the Orient exotic culture as far more superior to that of its Occidental counterpart. To highlight this cultural superiority of Orient over the Occident, the film has been enriched with local exotic traditions of Kelipathram and Poorakkali of Kerala. Simultaneously, the article also portrays the alterity between the scenes of original, Occidental metanarrative Hamlet and the exotic, Orient Karmayogi. Keywords: Kelipathram, Poorakkali, Alterity, Occident and Orient, Recontextualization, Interdiscursive Recontextualization. © 2019 by Advance Scientific Research. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31838/jcr.07.05.39 INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare’s plays were brought to India before the Independence as a form of entertainment for the foreign traders who landed and settled in the eastern shores of India. Setting up of the theatres that staged the British plays had a wider aim than just concerning entertainment. The alternate and significant aim of performing the plays in India was to promote and promulgate the habitus, culture of their country (Occident) over the Orient. It has been recorded that the plays which were performed in the Calcutta Theatre were Shakespeare's plays and it was also noted that some of the plays of Shakespeare were performed in the theatres more than once. In the contemporary Post-Colonial India, Shakespearean plays have been translated, performed, adapted and absorbed into the cultural fabric of India. Though the plays have been absorbed into the Indian cultural fabric, the orient has its subtle way of adapting or recreating Shakespearean plays; and implicitly writing back to the Occident about the cultural, ethical and societal differences between the meta-narrative of Shakespearean plays and the adapted or recreated Indian narratives. On considering this process of recreation and transculturation of Shakespearean plays, Harish Trivedi argues that Shakespeare's status, popularity, and dissemination today is determined to a larger extent by a non-literary factor, just as it was in colonial India. Then it was the Empire; now it is ELT (English Language Teaching) or the hegemony of English as the pre-eminent International Language (Trivedi & Bartholomeusz, 2005, p. 21). Shakespeare in the contemporary post-colonial era has been continuously transcultured, indigenized and relocated according to the cultural and social backdrop of a target language, which it is being transcultured. The assimilation of Shakespearean plays in the field of theater and performance has influenced the Indian cinema as well through filmic adaptation and appropriation of Shakespearean dramas. Regional relocation of Shakespeare has resulted in the adaptation and appropriation of Shakespearean plays in movies with the indigenized fusion of regional arts such as Yakshagana, Kathakali, Sangeet-nataka, South-West and North- Eastern Martial Arts. This has led to the ‘fused regional hybrid versions’ of the plays adapted in regional movies. One such regional hybrid versions of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is taken for analysis in the current research paper. Hamlet has been adapted and appropriated as the Indian film Karmayogi in the regional language Malayalam. Against this backdrop, this study aims to analyse the recontextualization of Hamlet to emphasise the cultural supremacy of the exotic Orient and the alterity among the grand narrative of Hamlet and the local narrative of Karmayogi. REVIEW OF LITERATURE & RESEARCH QUESTIONS The current research analysis adopts a multifaceted approach. The literature review foregrounds the post-modern context of adaptation and appropriation of Shakespearean plays in cinemas. Deborah Cartmell (2006) emphasises that the film adaptation of Shakespearean text or any text for the matter of concern is not a mere imitation of the textualities or intellectual pretentiousness which makes the industry of cinema inferior to literature. Instead, Cartmell points out that this interpretation of the text to successful adaptations breaks this inferiority as well as proudly declares these successful adaptations as "the new Shakespeare" of the age. Blair Orfall (2009) examines the issues of legitimacy in adaptations of Bollywood films. The adaptation of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth in Bollywood as Maqbool and Hollywood as Throne of Blood has a difference in context due to cultural differences. The researcher also examines the contemporary Indian Bollywood movies that are adapted from Hollywood’s popular American films, where there is a lift of plots and pirated versions of DVD and unauthorized borrowings. Dan Venning (2011) in his research article discusses the interculturalism and cultural imperialism into ‘Shakespeare in Asia’ and the outlook towards postcolonialism and the role of Shakespeare in India, i.e. different approaches of postcolonial cross-cultural interactions that are portrayed in the film. Pradipta Mukherjee (2011) reports that Michael Almereyda’s adaptation of Hamlet has different contests on aesthetic strategies and in the frame of reference. Similarly, due to this new mode of adaptation in postmodern age has brought Hamlet to an ‘Un-Shakespearean Universe’. The researcher also points out that this adaptation is intentionally renovated