Bond and Bhardwaj: Critical Analysis of Ruskin Bond’s Novella, ‘Susanna’s Seven Husbands’ and Short Story ‘The Blue Umbrella’ and their Film Adaptations ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’ and ‘The Blue Umbrella’ by Vishal Bhardwaj.

Fiction and Films are two different media that involve different approaches. A novel that is successful may not be adapted into a successful film and sometimes a film adaptation turns out better than the original novel or story. This paper attempts to critically analyse Ruskin Bond’s novella, Susanna’s Seven Husbands and its film adaption directed by Vishal Bhardwaj – 7 Khoon Maaf, starring Priyanka Chopra as the female lead as well as Ruskin Bond’s The Blue Umbrella and its film adaptation of the same name by Vishal Bhardwaj starring Pankaj Kapur and Shreya Sharma. Although Susanna’s Seven Husbands was moderately known, Vishal Bhardwaj’s film adaptation had a limited box-office run but gained visibility through its star-studded cast. The short story The Blue Umbrella and its adaptation were critically acclaimed and won several awards but did not perform at the box office. This paper focuses on the plot elements, the characterisations and the narrative aspects of both the texts and the film adaptations and compares them. The emphasis is on the portrayal of the characters. An author writes for a limited audience while a film’s audience is humongous. This too can add or detract from the film.