PBS ‘JEWEL’ CLOSES THE CIRCLE

The final scene in “The Jewel in the Crown,” which ended its 14-week run on the Public Broadcasting Service Sunday night, was not in the last of the four Paul Scott novels from which the miniseries was taken.

“That image at the end was entirely our invention,” producer and co-director Christopher Morahan said, referring to the shot of Hari Kumar alone in his apartment, a framed photo of the long-dead Daphne Manners on his desk.

Scott ended his four-volume story, entitled “The Raj Quartet,” with the homeward-bound Guy Perron finishing a letter to Sarah Layton, then recalling a poem from a book given to him by Count Bronowsky. In the TV adaptation Perron narrates a longer, somewhat embellished segment of the letter, including his proclamation of hope for the future of India. Then there is newsreel footage of Gandhi declaring India’s independence before a vast crowd. As the Indian leader’s words continue, there--symbolic of the country that finally, painfully, has cut its ties to England--is Kumar.

Morahan said he felt that the shot was necessary to bring the story full circle.

What it was meant to depict, he said, was that Kumar “has achieved acceptance. The fact that he’s become the grain of sand is what he’s looking for--or one of the things he’s looking for. Yes, he loved Daphne, and that ended tragically, but he has achieved a kind of peace and a kind of anonymity.”

Beyond this relatively minor deviation--which Scott’s work had suggested, if not spelled out--the miniseries remained faithful to the novels’ conclusion. Morahan said there was no thought given to trying to impose a more decisive ending--by neatly wrapping up some of the story lines, for example, or having Perron or Sarah meet and talk with Kumar or y depicting some character summing up What It All Meant--even though that might have been more emotionally satisfying to viewers who’d invested so much time in the series.

“There seemed to be no point,” Morahan explained. “The books had an integrity that it would be foolish to deny.”

After all, he said, the story of India’s evolution continued, even if Scott’s novels did not. Only these characters’ involvement with India ended.

But who killed Merrick? Morahan said he didn’t know; Scott didn’t say. The producer, who had never been to India before he began work on the miniseries, said he had come to understand the novels’ uncertainty on that question as being realistic.

He recalled that while the “Jewel in the Crown” production company was in India, a train had jumped its tracks and tumbled into a ravine, killing hundreds of passengers. But because no passenger list was kept, he said, the authorities were unable even to say how many people had died, much less identify them.

“There is a lack of information about many things in India,” Morahan said.