begins
with the first-person narrative introduction of Karim Amir: "...I am an
Englishman born and bred, almost". Kureishi's four-part television
adaptation, a collaboration with director Roger Michell, faithfully explores
the wealth of connotations linked to that final word, 'almost'. With an English
mother and Pakistani father and a suburban upbringing, Karim faces existential
struggle to accept his Indian origins.
Humourously and ironically executed, Kureishi's
adaptation follows Karim's sexual and racial self-realisation through his
problematic relationships. What initially begins as an irritation at any
attention drawn to his 'Indianness' (when Helen expresses interest in Karim's
'culture' and asks where he's from, he replies "Bromley"), gradually
turns into a defiant attitude towards English society.
The most glaring example of this is shown in
the radical shift in Karim's relationship with Charlie. Feelings of awe and
love for his friend and half-brother turn, eventually, into repulsion by, and
rejection of, his hollow Western materialism, vainglorious search for fame and
sadomasochistic activities. Simultaneously, Karim starts to accept elements of
his father's philosophy, which he had previously shunned and mocked.
Ultimately, best friend Jamila has the most
profound effect in altering Karim's self-perception. Interestingly, though, her
desire to cure the world's ills, and her lack of sympathy with Karim's earlier
dreams of social advancement, is divorced from her Indian roots. Jamila is
easier to understand as a product of Western anti-bourgeois ideologies than as
a mix of English and Indian qualities.
In the final, most somber episode, Karim is
able to reinterpret his desire for a place in middle-class society. He no
longer sees it as succumbing to English society and renouncing his roots, but
as striking a blow against Western society by capturing its spoils.
At one point, Karim is humiliated by the brown
paint added to his face and body for the part of Mowgli in The Jungle Book. At
the end, he lands the part of the son of an Asian shopkeeper in a soap-opera.
Karim still can't break away from being pigeonholed and typecast, but has
learned that the denial of one's own difference does not diminish overall
racial prejudice: learning of his son's new role, Haroon asks "Why don't
you do Chekhov's The Three Sisters?" Karim responds, "There are no
Indians in Chekhov, dad".
Shalini Chanda
©www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/476146/index.html
Academic
year 2008/2009
©
a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Giuseppe
Improta
imgiu@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de
Valčncia Press