Recreating Hamlet: creativity of Vishal Bhardwaj in Haider

William Shakespeare’s plays are universal in human character, which have raised him to be the exemplar in film industry. Shakespeare’s works stand to the test of time due to their intrinsic quality of life-likeness as Arthur Koestler comments that life-likeness is regarded as the supreme criterion of art. Shakespeare’s works and films project the reality of human life. The universality of his works has motivated the film producers to adapt Shakespeare extensively in their films in different regions, nations and contexts. The adaptation of the literary text into filmic interface involves major creative restructuring between the original text and the filmic medium. The restructuring of the adaptation involves shift in the medium, genre, context and culture to suit the differences in area and medium. The director of a film needs to be highly creative to adapt a literary text to make a film. Vishal Bhardwaj is one such contemporary prolific film makers who have successfully adapted Shakespearean plays like Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet into Indian cinema. The research article tries to portray the creativity of a director to recreate a new film out of an existing text (filmic adaptation). The article analyses the concept of conceptual blending creativity process and bricolage in highlighting the creativity of Bhardwaj in adapting Hamlet and localizing it in Indian cinema as Haider (2014)

Synthesis, and biological screening of chloropyrazine conjugated benzothiazepine derivatives as potential antimicrobial, antitubercular and cytotoxic agents

A series of twenty new chloropyrazine conjugated benzothiazepines (22-41) have been synthesized with 58%–95% yields. The compounds were characterized by using different spectroscopic techniques including FT-IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. The synthesized compounds (22-41) and their precursor chalcones (2-21) were evaluated for antitubercular and cytotoxic activities. Additionally, compounds 22-41 were also tested for antimicrobial activity. Among the chalcone series (2-21), compounds 7 and 14 showed significant antitubercular activities (MICs 25.51 and 23.89 µM, respectively), whereas among benzothiazepines (22-41), compounds 27 and 34 displayed significant antimicrobial (MICs 38.02 µM, 19.01 µM) and antitubercular (MIC 18.10 µM) activities. Compounds 7 and 41 displayed cytotoxic activities with IC₅₀ of 46.03 ± 1 and 35.10 ± 2 µM respectively. All the compounds were evaluated for cytotoxic activity on normal human liver cell lines (L02) and found to be relatively less selective towards this cell line. The most active compounds identified through this study could be considered as potential leads for the development of drugs with possible antimicrobial, antitubercular, and cytotoxic activities

Design, Facile Synthesis and Characterization of Dichloro Substituted Chalcones and Dihydropyrazole Derivatives for Their Antifungal, Antitubercular and Antiproliferative Activities

Infectious diseases caused by fungi and mycobacteria pose an important problem for humankind. Similarly, cancer is one of the leading causes of death globally. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the development of novel agents to combat the deadly problems of cancer, tuberculosis, and also fungal infections. Hence, in the present study, we designed, synthesized, and characterized 30 compounds including 15 chalcones (2–16) and 15 dihydropyrazoles (17–31) containing dichlorophenyl moiety and also screened these compounds for their antifungal, antitubercular, and antiproliferative activities. Among these compounds, the dihydropyrazoles showed excellent antifungal and antitubercular activities whereas the chalcones exhibited promising antiproliferative activity. Among the dihydropyrazoles, compound 31 containing 2-thienyl moiety showed promising antifungal activity (MIC 5.35 µM), whereas compounds 22 and 24 containing 2,4-difluorophenyl and 4-trifluoromethyl scaffolds revealed significant antitubercular activity with the MICs of 3.96 and 3.67 µM, respectively. Compound 16 containing 2-thienyl moiety in the chalcone series showed the highest anti-proliferative activity with an IC₅₀ value of 17 ± 1 µM. The most active compounds identified through this study could be considered as starting points in the development of drugs with potential antifungal, antitubercular, and antiproliferative activities