Ocsar screeplays Indian link

Stoppard, who took his name from stepfather Kenneth Stoppard, an officer in the British army, studied in an American-run multiracial boarding school in Darjeeling during World War II.

His family came to India in 1942 from Singapore where his Czech father Eugene Straussler was transferred just before the Nazi invasion of Czhechoslovakia in 1939. Straussler, who stayed back in Singapore, was later killed by the Japanese.

His mother settled with her two sons in Darjeeling and remarried in 1945. After the war, the family returned to England. Stoppard, who became popular after theroaring success of his second play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead8217; also made into a movie in 1990, rewrote the script for Shakespeare in Love, an original screenplay by Marc Norman.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead8217;, based on Hamlet8217; and Waiting for Godot, was shown at the international film festival of India, 1991 at Chennai where Stoppard himself was present to introduce his film.

Though it is not clear to what extent it was rewritten, Shakespeare in Love, a rollicking romance about the bard seeking his muse, won just one short of the record 14 for Titanic last year and All about Eve in 1950.

The Times literary supplement described the film as 8220;a lovely, generous comedy which interweaves its multiple strands and styles with dazzling Stoppardian assurance8221;.

Others who were nominated for best screenplay8217; written directly for the screen are Robert Rodat Saving Private Ryan, Warren Beatty and Jeremy Pikser Bulworth, VencenzoCerami and Roberto Benigni Life is Beautiful and Andrew Niccol The Truman Show.

One only has to wait till March 21, the Oscar awards ceremony, for the Indian connection to emerge once again.