Motif of
Metamorphoses in Tripuri Kerang Kothoma and Their Cinematic Adaptations:
A Reading of Select Works
Doli Debbarma
PhD Research
Scholar
Department of
English
Tripura University
Tripura, India
Abstract: Metamorphosis is one of the most significant
narrative motifs in Tripuri folktales, functioning as a symbolic articulation
of morality, kinship, spirituality, and interspecies relationships. This paper
seeks to examine the representation of physical transformation in Tripuri
folktales or ‘Kerang Kothoma’
and their cinematic adaptations, with special reference tothe folktales
“Kherengbar” and “Nuwai”. Employing Philip Lutgendorf’s theoretical framework
from his essay titled “Is There an Indian Way of Filmmaking?”, the study
analyses how the motif of metamorphoses in oral storytelling traditions is
inter-semiotically translated into Kokborok cinema. Using a qualitative method
of analysis, the study highlights how the narrative of transformation in
cinematically adapted Tripuri folktales serves as a cultural site where the
Tripuri oral traditions become ‘visually tangible’. Furthermore, the study
examines how the motif of metamorphoses specific to Tripuri culture is visually
presented in Sunil Kalai’s adaptation of the folktales “Kherengbar” and “Nuwai”
in his film Kwtham Kothoma
(2022).
Keywords:
Metamorphoses, Folktales, Kerang Kothoma, Kherengbar, Nuwai,
Kokborok Cinema.
Introduction:
Kerang
Kothoma or folktales occupy a significant place in Tripuri culture as
repositories of collective memory, indigenous knowledge, moral values, and
social traditions. Before the emergence of written literature, these narratives
were transmitted orally from one generation to another, through storytelling
sessions within families and the community. The Kokborok equivalent term for
folktales, ‘Kerang Kothoma’, may roughly be translated as “tales of the
wild land tortoise” (Murasingh xi).The nonhuman characters such as Juwankha, Yongla
Raja, Muphuk (monitor lizard in English) and hoolock gibbon from
“Kherengbar”, the shape-shifting python from “Khumpui”, etc. have been central
to the cultural imagination of the Tripuris through their embodiment of the
ideals of bravery, wit, intelligence, love, sacrifice, etc. and transformation
as a consequence. With the growth of Kokborok cinema and digital media, these
oral narratives have gradually entered the visual medium of cinema. The
transition from oral storytelling to cinematic representation demonstrates how
folklore continues to evolve while preserving cultural identity. Among the many
narrative structures found in Tripuri folktales or Kerang Kothoma, the
motif of Metamorphoses or transformation seems to occupy a significant
position. Characters in the Tripuri Kerang Kothoma frequently undergo
metamorphoses into nonhuman beings, adopting a hybrid identity, and sometimes
with shape shifting abilities. Such bodily transformations or metamorphoses are
significant to the Tripuri culture and knowledge. In fact, they reflect deeply
embedded cultural meanings, including moral consequences, interspecies
relationships, and may even serve as narratives promoting ecological balance
and harmony. Thus, in Tripuri Kerang Kothoma, transformation as a
narrative device blurs the boundaries between human and nonhuman worlds in both
the tradition of oral storytelling and cinema. This paper seeks to examine the
visual representation of the motif of metamorphoses in Kalai’s adaptation of
“Kherengbar” and “Nuwai” in his film Kwtham Kothoma (2020).
With the
advent of cinema in Tripura, these oral narratives have undergone a significant
process of adaptation. It is important to note that the transition from oral
storytelling to cinematic representation involves a complex process of
translation. It involves reinterpretation across multiple semiotic systems,
such as speech, sound, gesture, performance, music, editing, and visual
imagery. The objective of this study is to examine how transformation motifs in
the folktales “Kherengbar” and “The Tale of the Nuwai” are represented in
cinematic adaptations. The study also examines how these adaptations align with
broader patterns of Indian filmmaking as theorised by Philip Lutgendorf, who
argues that Indian cinema is deeply rooted in oral, mythological, and performative
traditions. Such a perspective is what the present study seeks to adopt in
order to examine the Tripuri cinema, rooted in the Tripuri folktales and
traditions specific to the Tripuris. Thus, the study uses Lutgendorf’s essay as
a base upon which a theoretical framework specific to Tripuri cinema and
culture may be built. In this context, cinematic adaptations of Tripuri
folktales may be understood not as deviations from authenticity but as
extensions of Tripuri narrative practices into a technologically mediated
medium in its own terms. According to the Kokborok filmmaker, Sunil Kalai,
“cinematic landscaping of the indigenous life is not simply normal practices;
they influence and shape the way of life, social and cultural dynamic and the
structure of indigenous life in the cyberspace” (28). Thus, such works of
adaptation aims to present the indigenous way of life through a digital medium
while remaining true to the core values of the Tripuri culture and beliefs.
This becomes possible only when the people themselves become “their own agent
for development, not just beneficiaries or being represented by others but
initiated in representing themselves” (Kalai 28). Hence, Lutgendorf’s quest
inspired by A.K. Ramanujan’s essay, “Is There an Indian Way of Storytelling?”
shall be employed in the present study to make an attempt at answering a
similar kind of question in the context of the cinematic adaptations of Tripuri
Kerang Kothoma or folktales.
In the
context of works of adaptation, Lutgendorf’s perspective may be used as it is
particularly significant for its shift of attention away from the questions of
‘fidelity’, in essence, from how closely a film replicates a source text,
towards the questions of cultural transmission and re-embodiment of the narratives.
In the context of Indian cinema, he writes:
The practices and conventions that I will be discussing
are observably pervasive of the Indian cultural environment–alluded to in
verbal idioms, body language, and ubiquitous iconography. Hence they can be
effortlessly relearned by successive generations, though their precise forms at
a given moment are of course subject to historical contingency and outside
influence. Indeed, the “hybridity” of Indian popular cinema is another of its
proverbial features: its pastiche and parody of foreign cultural forms and
practices and its frequent borrowing of camera shots, plot ideas, and melodies.
(Lutgendorf)
Employing Lutgendorf’s idea as the methodological
framework of this study, the works of adaptation may be understood as a process
of re-contextualising the vivid tales from Tripuri Kerang Kothoma within
new sensory and cultural environments. Furthermore, the present study aims to
delve deeper into this context by focusing on the inter-semiotic translation of
the transformation motif from the Tripuri folktales through a cinematic medium.
Findings and
Discussion:
The
Tripuri folktale or Kerang Kothoma “Kherengbar” explores the physical
transformation of a man and a woman into Hoolock gibbon and muphuk (Monitor
Lizard) respectively, as a consequence of wearing and smelling a forbidden
flower called kherengbar. Across different versions of the folktale, the
core motif is noticed to have remained consistent which is transformation as
both punishment and a continuity of existence. In oral tradition, this folktale
is typically narrated in a performative setting. The storytellers may use the
skills of voice modulation, repetition, pauses, and gestures to create suspense
and emotional intensity. In the case of oral storytelling, the act of
transformation or metamorphosis is thus suggested through language and the
audience imagination. Now, the concern of this study is to trace and explore
the transition in the narrative techniques from oral storytelling into cinema.
The paper focuses on Dr. Sunil Kalai’s adaptation of the folktale “Kherengbar”
or “Kuchuk Kherengbar” in the film Kwtham Kothoma (2020). In the film,
the transformation is externalized through audio-visual techniques. Hence, the
abstract imagination of oral storytelling becomes concrete through the
application of special effects, and shots of the forest and wilderness
resembling the hilly landscapes of Tripura, digitally enhanced images,
background score or soundtrack, etc. The man and woman’s transformations are
presented as a climactic sequence, visually heightening the emotional impact it
has on the viewers. Through Lutgendorf’s theoretical lens, we may observe that
the film aims for a conceptual amplification while remaining true to its
culture, in essence, expanding the abstract idea of the metamorphoses into a
detailed and structured format of visual representation. Furthermore, the
transformation in the folktale “Kherengbar” may be interpreted as a symbolic
dissolution of human harmony. The unity of the man and woman is fragmented, and
their nonhuman identities reflect an anti-anthropocentric approach to the
narrative. In oral performance, such narratives of transformation often serve
as cautionary tales about social responsibility and ethics of community
simultaneously highlighting the community’s awareness of the dynamics of
natural environment and the living organisms.
Another
prominent motif of metamorphosis in Tripuri Kerang Kothoma involves a
young woman who transforms into a pelican bird by stitching the feathers of the
bird to her body. This narrative is known as “The Tale of the Nuwai”. This
transformation in the folktale is facilitated by the young woman’s emotional
suffering and her desire to escape. Thus, the feathers function as the significant
object bridging the gap between human and the nonhuman. The pelican, that is,
the nuwai represents freedom, transcendence and mobility beyond social
constraint. Unlike retaliatory transformations, the metamorphosis may seem
ambiguous as it signifies liberation and freedom but at the same time also
highlights the loss of human identity. The meaning of this transformation lies
in its duality of escape and disappearance, as is evident in Kalai’s adaptation
of “Nuwai” in his film Kwtham Kothoma. In the film, the transformation
of the young woman is presented using digitally enhanced sound and images and
thus created using technology. Hence, the imagination of transformation of the
girl into the nuwai bird, a narrative rooted to the Tripuri culture is
visually restored through the medium of cinema.
When
these folktales are adapted into cinema, the transformation shifts from the
story listener’s imagination to something that is visually tangible to the
viewers, not in the literal sense, but in the sense of artistic experience. In
order to meet cinema’s demand of embodiment, the motif of transformation must
be represented through imagery, editing, performance, and sound. In Kalai’s Kwtham
Kothoma, the couple’s transformation is portrayed using digitally enhanced
hyperreal images of the distorted human bodies of the man and woman. Similarly,
the young woman’s transformation into a pelican seems to have been visually
portrayed through the fallen feathers, which the girl uses to gain the ability
to fly, using digital effects. However, the significance lies not only in the
technological representation but in the aesthetic translation, specific to the
Tripuri culture in which the folktale is rooted. This is done through different
visual and narrative techniques. The Tripuri narratives of transformation align
with what can be broadly understood using Indian cinematic sensibility, where
myth, folklore, and moral symbolism structure narrative form, which may be
extended to facilitate the understanding of Tripuri cinematic sensibility in
relation to Tripuri culture and narratives.
The
transition from oral tradition to cinema may be best understood as a process of
cultural and inter-semiotic translation. Oral narratives rely on imagination
and communal memory, while cinema relies on visual permanence and technological
mediation. Despite this difference, both mediums preserve transformation as a
core narrative. The couple’s division into gibbon and muphuk becomes a
visual metaphor for their separation while suggesting the continuity of their
existence. The young woman’s metamorphosis becomes cinematic imagery of freedom
and disappearance by freeing herself from the cage. Her family’s attempt at
caging her like a bird seems to drive her desire towards liberating herself
just like a bird. In this process, transformation becomes a bridge between
worlds whether it be oral and visual, traditional and modern or human and
nonhuman, reiterating how the Tripuri Kerang Kothoma explore deeper
philosophical concerns offering cross-generational relevance.
Conclusion:
Metamorphosis
in Tripuri folktales is not merely a narrative device but serves as something
which connects morality, identity, and ecology. Through the nonhuman entities
like the kherengbar (wild orchids) flower and the nuwai (pelican)
bird, these narratives articulate a worldview in which the boundaries between
living beings are fluid and seek to answer the questions of ethics and
morality. When these narratives are adapted into cinema, they seem to undergo
visual reconfiguration while retaining their symbolic core. Using Philip
Lutgendorf’s framework, it becomes clear that such adaptations participate in a
broader Indian cinematic tradition that values mythical imagination, emotional
intensity, and symbolic excess. In fact, this study seeks to extend from
Lutgendorf’s focus on Indian cinema in general to understand the specificity of
Tripuri cinema with an emphasis on the adaptation of “Kherengbar” and “Nuwai”
into Tripuri cinema. Furthermore, the transition from oral narratives to cinema
does not diminish the Tripuri folktales. Instead, it extends their continuation
into new forms of cultural expression, where the motif of metamorphoses serves
as the knowledge and cultural awareness of the community.
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