A Cinematic Twist to Regency-Era Courtship Rituals

Austen's enduring themes—struggles with love, class and tradition—find resonance in Indian cinema, from Bollywood to regional films

- Udita Jhunjhunwala

The opening line from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is so well-known ("It is a truth universally acknowledged...") that it's become a kind of cultural shorthand for matchmaking and social expectations. Austen's mix of sharp humor, tangled romances and family dynamics makes her stories perfect for the screen. Austen's enduring themes—struggles with love, class and tradition—also find resonance in Indian cinema, from Bollywood to regional films.

At first glance, Regency-era England might seem worlds away from the vibrant, chaotic and melodramatic world of Indian films. But scratch the surface and it becomes clear: Austen's novels were always more than polite parlor dramas. They are rich dissections of social expectations, family pressure, female agency, class mobility and choice—all of which remain reflect the very heart of Indian family and social life. Her characters navigate expectations around marriage, inheritance and social respectability—cornerstones of Indian storytelling as well.

In her essay Going Global: Filmic Appropriation of Jane Austen in India, critic Meenakshi Bharat writes that Indian filmmakers naturally gravitate toward Austen because "she provides a familiar moral structure and social canvas," making her narratives both accessible and adaptable.

One of the first noted Indian adaptations of Austen was the 1985 Hindi television serial Trishna, which reimagined Pride and Prejudice for Indian audiences. The Doordarshan show featured characters like Rekha (Elizabeth Bennet) and Rahul (Mr. Darcy) as members of a respectable Indian family negotiating arranged marriages and societal snobbery. The show worked, in large part, because Austen's themes and Indian social realities aligned so seamlessly.

A far more sophisticated and astute adaptation of Austen is Rajiv Menon's Tamil film Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000). Loosely based on