Susanna's Seven Husbands

Ruskin Bond

Description

Since his childhood; Arun has secretly been in love with Susanna; his dangerously alluring neighbour; who becomes his friend despite the wide difference in their ages. But Susanna has a weakness for falling in love with the wrong men. Over the years; Arun watches as Susanna becomes notorious as the merry widow who flits from one marriage to another; leaving behind a trail of dead husbands. It is only a matter of time before he too begins to wonder if there is any truth to the slanderous gossip surrounding the woman he is in love with. In this gripping new novella of love and death; Bond revisits his previously published short story of the same name; included here in an appendix. This edition also features the screenplay Saat Khoon Maaf; based on this novella and written by award-winning film-maker Vishal Bhardwaj and Matthew Robbins.

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 09 février 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184753370
• Langue: English

Extrait

RUSKIN BOND
Susanna s Seven Husbands
With a screenplay by VISHAL BHARDWAJ and MATTHEW ROBBINS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Preface
Introduction
SUSANNA S SEVEN HUSBANDS A novella by Ruskin Bond
7 KHOON MAAF A screenplay by Vishal Bhardwaj and Matthew Robbins
Appendix Susanna s Seven Husbands The original short story by Ruskin Bond
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
SUSANNA S SEVEN HUSBANDS
Ruskin Bond s first novel, The Room on the Roof , written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley , A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far ), essays, poems and children s books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999.
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, Delhi and Shimla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955 and has never left the country since. He now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.
ALSO BY RUSKIN BOND
Fiction
The Room on the Roof & Vagrants in the Valley
The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories
Time Stops at Shamli and Other Stories
Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra
A Season of Ghosts
When Darkness Falls and Other Stories
A Flight of Pigeons
Delhi Is Not Far
A Face in the Dark and Other Hauntings
The Sensualist
A Handful of Nuts
Non-fiction
Rain in the Mountains
Scenes from a Writer s Life
The Lamp Is Lit
The Little Book of Comfort
Landour Days
Notes from a Small Room
Anthologies
Dust on the Mountain: Collected Stories
The Best of Ruskin Bond
Friends in Small Places
Indian Ghost Stories (ed.)
Indian Railway Stories (ed.)
Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics (ed.)
Tales of the Open Road
Ruskin Bond s Book of Nature
Ruskin Bond s Book of Humour
A Town Called Dehra
Classic Ruskin Bond
Poetry
Ruskin Bond s Book of Verse
Preface
I first met Vishal Bhardwaj when he bought the film rights to my story, The Blue Umbrella , which he made into a delightful film for picture-goers of all ages.
After that I did some writing for him, and at his suggestion developed my short story Susanna s Seven Husbands into a novella, creating new characters and incidents. Vishal and Matthew Robbins based their screenplay on this version, and I thought it would be a good idea if we published the novella, short story and screenplay together, thus giving the reader an insight into the way a short story becomes a film story and then a screenplay! Ravi Singh of Penguin India encouraged the idea, and here s the result.
This was not the end of my involvement with 7 Khoon Maaf . Vishal suggested that I play a small role in the film, and I readily agreed, thus making my film debut at the age of seventy-six! I had two brief scenes with the beautiful and talented Priyanka Chopra, and I enjoyed the experience of working with her and the entire unit, on location in Pondicherry, and in Mumbai at a beautiful old church in Byculla.
7 Khoon Maaf is a very different film from The Blue Umbrella . All of Vishal s films are unique in their own way. I see him as the Hitchcock of Indian cinema, a master of the macabre. And with some sauce and spice added to the suspense!
RUSKIN BOND
Introduction
I remember feeling amused and intrigued when I first came across the title Susanna s Seven Husbands in a collection of Ruskin Bond s short stories that he had sent me. How and why would somebody get married seven times? Curious, I immediately began reading the story. The wacky side of Ruskin Bond unfolded slowly in front of my eyes. The character of Susanna captivated me, and I was amazed with Ruskin Saab s ability as a writer to sketch a character who was so interesting, wicked, but at the same time endearing.
The story stayed with me for a long time. I saw the possibility of a very unusual film in it but I didn t make any move to acquire the rights. A few months later a film-maker friend of mine called me to say that he was desperately looking for a story and asked whether I could help him find one. I sent him the tale of the seven murders committed by the beautiful Susanna, written in Ruskin Bond s witty black humour. But my friend couldn t find a film in it. I read the story once again, and felt an even stronger connection with the material than the previous time.
I knew Ruskin Saab since my Blue Umbrella days, so I called him to convey my desire to make a film on his short story, but only if he agreed to elaborate it into a novella. Each husband s character and the manner in which they were killed were very interesting and funny, but they needed to be fleshed out further. Ruskin Saab agreed to write the novella and I went away to shoot Kaminey , which I had been filming at that time.
While on the sets of Kaminey I started getting chapters from him, written in long hand and sealed in yellow envelopes with his address marked on the left bottom corner: Landour, Mussoorie. I felt so privileged to be the first and only reader of the legendary writer s new novella. Every time I got the yellow envelope, it turned me into a kid, and I eagerly waited for weeks to get the mail-smelling fresh, and containing a work of such suspense and humour-especially in this age of the Internet and emails. By the time I finished shooting Kaminey , I was sure Susanna s Seven Husbands would be my next film.
The second phase started when I sat with my co-writer from San Francisco, Matthew Robbins-my friend, philosopher and guide. Matthew started his career with Steven Spielberg s first feature film, The Sugarland Express ( Duel was the film made for television, hence The Sugarland Express remains his first theatrical motion picture), and his latest is Guillermo Del Toro s Don t Be Afraid of the Dark . This is the right place for me to thank Matthew for whatever I have learned of screenwriting from him.
We went to Ooty to hunt for locations and crack the structure of the screenplay. And to our surprise we achieved it in nine days straight. Matthew then went back and wrote the first draft of the script, after which I wrote the second. Thereafter, it becomes difficult to pinpoint who wrote what. But the screenplay in this book is the draft we wrote together, from which I made the film 7 Khoon Maaf .
The last phase came in filming the screenplay-bringing the characters to life from page to reality; discovering Susanna, her three servants (whom we referred to as the clean-up crew) and her seven precious husbands, or rather, seven precious specimens.
Film-making in general is a very strange process. Time after time you think that you have learned all there is to learn, and yet you are bound to find yourself struggling once more like a novice. Again I became a boy-ignorant, ambitious, less equipped, and yet confident of achieving the unachievable: inspiring the unit of 300-odd people, motivating them day and night to help me realize my dream. In every film I get this recurring thought during the shoot: Who asked you to be in this situation?
One thing that can help push you through all this is the glimpse of the first screening, when you are watching your film with the audience for the very first time and the light goes dim. When silence descends from within for a few seconds before the first frame appears. In that moment you forget all the pain you have gone through. So many people contribute to the making of a film-from the lead actors to your assistants, the cameramen, the production designers, the costume designers, the sound engineers, right down to the production runners, the spot boys and so on-but the director walks away with all the credit. I wish I could thank each and every one by printing their names here.
As Gulzar Saab says, a film is made on two tables-initially on the writing table and later on the editing table. So you will find many elements in the script which are missing in the film. In fact, this book will offer readers a glimpse into a very unusual and unique process-of how a tale can be expanded from a short story into a novella and then transformed into a screenplay. Ruskin Saab gave me three alternate endings for the novella, but Matthew and I found a fourth one when we sat down to write the adaptation.
The sad part is that after working so intensely on a film for over a year, one loses objectivity towards one s own work. I try hard to remember the first impression I had of some of the incidents when I first read them in the book, but my memory fails me. The good part, however, is that each version of this incredible tale of Susanna and her seven husbands has its own individuality. So it will be difficult, I think, for the reader to choose or say which is better-the novella, the screenplay or the film.
VISHAL BHARDWAJ
SUSANNA S SEVEN HUSBANDS
A novella by Ruskin Bond
Episode One
The Major and the Man-Eater
I watched in fascination as a gigantic Black Widow spider, her body streaked with green and yellow, crept down the veranda wall in the direction of her sleeping husband. Her body was almost two inches in length, her slender black legs at least six inches long.
She was the boss-lady, the terror of the veranda walls. Like all spiders, she lived by murder, and her victims often included her own kind. Her husband, a paltry thing about half her size, lived almost entirely on her earnings. He was circumspect and kept out of her way, because he knew she would eat him when she was in the mood to do so.
I am watching as she moves like the minute-hand of a watch, each step a matter of thought, while all her eight eyes are focused on her victim. He is drowsy today, happily digesting the remains of a beetle slaughtered by his mistress earlier that day. She is bored