‘Victoria and Abdul’: Abdul is Still Viewed Through ‘English Eyes’

A film tends to make more of a splash than a book, and Stephen Frear’s film Victoria and Abdul is indeed spectacular. I read the book first, and not only found the story amazing, politically and personally, but I also shared the mounting excitement of the researcher, Shrabani Basu, and her meticulous and – there is no other word for it – wonderful research.

For me, it was one of the dozen or so books that has been a milestone in my life. So when I heard, just a few days later, that the book was to be made into a film, with not only a well-known English language actor, Judi Dench, but also Ali Fazal (perhaps the finest young actor on the Indian screen), I awaited its release with much anticipation.

I travelled to the London premiere without an invitation – only to be handed an invitation to the Dress circle by a young man called Jake. A coincidence of determination and good luck that made a miracle!

The Elusive Character of Abdul

I wonder what it would be like to see the film without knowing the book. While Victoria’s dialogue is punchy, as much due to Judi Dench as to Lee Hall, I felt that Abdul’s dialogue was totally amorphous, and it is the coherent and remarkable performance of the young Indian actor, Ali Fazal, that filled in the character.

This is not simply another story about Victoria. The elusive character of Abdul is a compelling part of the story, and he competently shares the screen with Victoria as a co-star.

Despite this, the film views him through ‘English eyes’, which leaves much of him still shrouded in mystery – some of it by design, no doubt. Some of it too, for the sake of dramatic flourish, as when this conservative Muslim man literally crawls under the table to kiss the Queen’s feet, as near impossible as possible. But some of it, I feel, for a lack of comprehension of the culture that went into making Abdul what he was, even given his personal flair. And that brings us full circle from that time and milieu to today.

Human beings are a study in contradictions, and this story only shows that Queen Victoria and Abdul were no more or less so than any of the rest of us. The fact that Victoria was a queen (and what a queen) is what has put this story on the map, but what Judi Dench brings to this character is as much woman as queen. Being queen empowered the woman at the same time as it constricted her.

But neither the story nor the dialogue allows for an exploration of Abdul’s contradictions, who is just another whose tragedy remains untold. What brings cohesion to this character is simply the strength of Ali Fazal’s portrayal of this man who had a twinkle in his eye, a powerful bond with his own family, an unshakeable rootedness in his faith, a big ego, sexual appetite, and an invincible friendship with the queen.

Ali Fazal has carried what seems like an uncertainly sketched character in a foreign hand, not through words but simply his speaking countenance.

My Experience of Watching British Depictions of India

I schooled myself to watch a few British depictions of India when I first came to England, almost 30 years ago. We needed to see ourselves as others see us, I told myself.

From what I can remember, after sitting through a few episodes of The Far Pavilions, The Jewel in the Crown, even Goodness Gracious Me and a few others, I thought I had had my ration for life – of looking at ourselves through British coloured spectacles, and listening to excruciating and incongruous “native” accents. With a very few notable exceptions in the last three decades, I concentrated on us in the subcontinent looking at ourselves, and ignored the rest.

One of the places that this led me was a passionate interest in Indian cinema, which is one of the ways that we portray ourselves to each other. Including some of the masala films, I feel that commercial Indian cinema is still amongst the most socially committed cinema in the world, and rising to modern challenges. Somehow in its use of language, I equate it to Shakespearian theatre, (perhaps) melodramatic or predictable stories, but dialogue and language that you can roll around your tongue, and savour over a range from tragedy to comedy. Language that becomes part of the lexicon.

Something that I personally don’t find in modern English language or film.

We, in the subcontinent, are so beset by our many immediate issues, that one area we have been totally inept in, is looking at this part of our history through our own eyes, in a well researched way. A few dozen films have tried – from serious stories like Shatranj ke Khilari, Junoon, to more dramatised versions like Mangal Pandey, even Rang de Basanti, and passing peculiar glimpses in the recent Phillauri.

Victoria’s long relationship with Abdul is not a stand alone one – there were so many exciting intercultural encounters that just missed making historic seismic changes, from the Mughal emperors flirting with Christian missionaries, to the friendship of mathematicians at Cambridge, to Princess Diana in the modern day. This film will go a good way to marking one more fractured possibility that led nowhere but backwards.

But with all that, to me, it is still another British look at this part of their history. Yes, I did see The Viceroy’s House (I travelled from Dublin to London just to see this film) and I’m still asking, when will multicultural Britain present a truly multicultural view ?

(Yameema Mitha has been a journalist, activist and educationist. She is currently pursuing a Phd at Dublin City University in Politics and Culture, and has a passionate interest in Indian classical music and Indian film.  She identifies herself as being from Pakistan and India. Tweet to her @yameemamitha)