Do we really need Indian adaptations of international TV series?

With original content easily available for viewing, why is the audience still drawn to adaptations?

Growing up in the ’90s, this writer was fond of watching Zabaan Sambhalke, a hilarious television show in which engineer Mohan Bharti, played by Pankaj Kapur, is forced to teach Hindi to a class of students who are from across the world. Much later, when I saw the British show Mind Your Language on which it is based, it just didn’t work its charm on me the way the Hindi version did. Would it have made a difference if I had seen the original first? Perhaps. However, the fact that the desi version was a show set in India, told in my language and had familiar faces as actors, clinched the deal for me.

It’s hardly news that our filmmakers and television makers have often taken ‘inspiration’ from their international counterparts. The extremely popular Comedy Nights with Kapil finds an echo in the British show Kumars at No. 42; Hello Friends is an out-and-out rip-off of the American sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S; and fans of Small Wonder will not be able to forgive the makers of Karishma Ka Karishma for ruining their favourite show about an adorable little robot girl.

However, it’s in the last few years–and especially with the advent of OTT platforms–that production houses in India are buying the rights to make official Indian adaptations of international shows. Picture this: The Anil-Kapoor starrer series 24 was officially adapted from the American show of the same name; Out of Love was an official adaptation of the British show Doctor Foster; Criminal Justice from the eponymous British series; Aarya from the Dutch show Penoza; Two Brothers from the British mystery Guilty; and Your Honor from the Israeli series Kvodo, among many others.

In the pipeline are Tanaav, adapted from the Israeli series Fauda; an adaptation of the BBC crime series The Fall; a Hindi version of the young-adult Israeli show Shchuna; an official adaptation of the Canadian psychological thriller Vertige; and the Hindi remake of the British hit series The Night Manager, among others. Recently, Disney+Hotstar announced that actor Kajol will be making her web-series debut with The Good Wife, a remake of the American TV series which starred Julianna Marguiles in the titular role. But the question is, do we really need official adaptations when the originals are quite accessible to the audience? And if yes, what sets a good adaptation from a “how-do-I-unsee-this” experience? 

Why adapt? 

A little insight into the way television has evolved in the West and in India can throw better light on the subject of why production houses are keen on making Indian adaptations of international series. Says filmmaker Rohan Sippy, “The West went through a very organic process of evolution in the last 60-70 years. They have an ecosystem of writers, directors and actors. Here, too, there were interesting shows being made, such as Buniyaad directed by my father (Ramesh Sippy). Then at some point, it became a daily format, which is a different beast altogether. While Americans could take the same principles of great television writing and move it to Netflix or some other similar platform, the same could not be done here with writers and technicians from our daily soaps, especially where the understanding of writing is concerned.” 

Indian adaptations of international shows, Sippy believes, were a good way to take that first step in the initial cycle. “It’s great to have access to that international material for directors and technicians, just in terms of learning and understanding the craft, and then getting the confidence to tell their own stories,” says the director of seasons 2 and 3 of the Pankaj Tripathi-starrer Criminal Justice. 

With hundreds of international shows to pick from, there is only a very small percentage that gets adapted. Content studio Applause Entertainment, which in its five years of existence has adapted quite a few shows such as Criminal Justice, Rudra: The Edge of Darkness and Hostages, among others, has a couple more in their pipeline, including Tanaav. “Adaptations are selected purely on the inherent quality of being adaptable. There has to be a milieu fit and a cultural fit,” says Sameer Nair, CEO of Applause Entertainment.

Even with the original international series available on different OTT platforms and television channels, it may still be a bit far-fetched to assume that everyone has seen the original in question. Director E Niwas, who helmed the Indian adaptation of Your Honor on Sony LIV, believes that the audience would find it easier to connect with a story that’s set within their own culture, starring actors they are more familiar with. “They are watching their own story enacted by their own people, as opposed to seeing the visuals and reading the subtitles. There is a better connection,” he says. Nair seconds his opinion. “The intention of making an adaptation is not to try and impress the person who has seen the original. It is about taking the story to a larger audience,” he explains.

A cultural fit

So how does one go about making an adaptation? The writing is where it all begins, and adaptations can be tricky business, believes writer Sandeep Shrivastava. Along with co-writer Anu Singh Choudhary, Shrivastava wrote the script for the first season of the critically-acclaimed web series Aarya. Sushmita Sen plays Aarya, a woman who wants to protect her family and joins a mafia gang in order to seek revenge for her husband’s death. “Just because it’s an adaptation doesn’t mean it would be a quick turn-around. It takes time. There is a lot of reworking that happens; it’s not a copy-paste [job]. It’s a huge responsibility,” he says.

For Shrivastava, there were many challenges, starting from the setting. “Where could one set it so it looks Indian? The intrigue in the show also comes from the missing contraband. In the original, it was cocaine which looked way too urban and too much of a dead horse. Opium would make it look more rooted in “The Indian-ness,” so to say, because we are known to be cultivating it for centuries,” he says. Taking all things into consideration—a mother’s struggle to protect her children from dangerous drug lords, the sinister patriarchy and the opium—Rajasthan seemed to tick all the boxes for them.

While this was solved, the next challenge for them was adapting the characters. “You can’t just borrow lock, stock and barrel from the original. You have to culture-fit them. The emotions may have a certain universality to them but the way they are expressed may vary from culture to culture. So when you are adapting, you are actually reworking all these little things–not just the impression of the exterior but the nuances of the core too. There is no set formula, no logical steps to follow. You have to bring your instinct into play,” adds Shrivastava.

In an interview with The Hindu, Sen, who received a lot of appreciation for her performance as the protagonist of the show, had said, “I saw every single episode of Penoza, all seasons except the last one, because the last season doesn’t have English subtitles yet, so I couldn’t watch it. But I saw the four while travelling to the US, all the way through the flight, landing in New York, during the trip, and I came back with my feedback. Even though it is inspired by Penoza, and is a fantastic character, the way Ram (Madhvani, the creator and director) has Indian-ised it, makes it completely different. Penoza doesn’t have the same emotional connect as Aarya with her three kids.”

The wrong move

“For every adaptation that doesn’t work, there are 10 originals that don’t work. So there is no law here,” says Nair. Call My Agent; The Office; Black Widows; and Mind the Malhotras are some shows that failed to leave an impression on the audiences. A show like Call My Agent, adapted from the witty French series of the same name, was heavily panned by the critics. Even a number of cameos, from Ali Fazal to Jackie Shroff, Dia Mirza and Lara Dutta, failed to create magic.

Film journalist and host of Streaming with Suchin on Film Companion, Suchin Mehrotra, minces no words when he says that he couldn’t stand the Hindi adaptation. “The biggest problem with Call My Agent was that it was a scene-to-scene and frame-to-frame remake, which, to me, is ridiculous,” he says.

Mehrotra believes that with Bollywood being such an industry that lends itself naturally to great stories, it could have been a great opportunity which was left unexplored by the makers. “The fact that they loosely adapted each episode is not only lazy, it’s insulting. Look at what Zoya Akhtar managed to achieve with Luck By Chance! Call My Agent wasn’t adapted to Bollywood at all,” he adds. The rare moments in the show that worked for him–such as the funeral of a Godman with Farah Khan in a cameo–were actually not part of the original. “It was a rare moment of something which wasn’t copied, and that shines,” says Mehrotra.

Perhaps the last word about adaptations belongs to Shrivastava. “All those involved in the process of adaptation must first try to contain the desire to outperform the original. ‘Let’s do something better than the original’ should not be the point of departure for creators and producers. All they need to do is to make sure that the story and the characters in the adaptation establish a connection with this new audience in much the same way as the original did for its audience,” he signs off.

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