'I have the ambition of Ravana'

A file photo of an artiste enacting the role of a member of the vanar sena from the Ramayana in New Delhi. Anand Neelakantan's latest book is a love triangle between Tara, Baali, and Sugreeva based in Kishkindha. Pic/Getty Images

Before Anand Neelakantan became a novelist, he wanted to paint like Pablo Picasso. This was 15 years ago, when the author, exhausted with the monotony of a corporate job, started to explore newer avenues. At 30, he found himself picking up a paint brush again - the last time he had done it, he was a teenager - and training under a professional artist, only to be later told that he had just the "talent of a hobby painter".

"That discouraged me," he remembers. Neelakantan's instructor may have thwarted that plan, but it veered him in another direction. "Because, I had the ambition of Ravana, I didn't give up."

Neelakantan started writing short stories for a local Malayalam magazine. "I was a great liar," the 45-year-old writer jokes. "Only someone who lies well, can become a good storyteller."

Vanara was written for the big screen, says Neelakantan, who has timed every scene like a screenplay

A lot has changed since we last met him two years ago at the release of his first book in the Bahubali trilogy (The Rise of Sivagami) - the prequel to filmmaker SS Rajamouli's blockbuster franchise who made an estimated total profit of Rs 1,500 crore. At the time, he was just one among several mythological fiction writers. Today, he is among the handful who can boast entry into the crore club.

Within six years, Neelakantan's novels, Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, the Ajaya series and The Rise of Sivagami have not only spiralled him to overnight fame, but also made him one of the richest in the business. His latest book, Vanara: The Legend of Baali, Sugreeva and Tara (Penguin Random House), whose movie rights were recently sold to Dar Motion Pictures for crores, is by far the highest paid to a writer for a single book in the country. While Vanara's production is expected to surpass hundreds of crores, Neelakantan's The Rise of Sivagami, which is being made into a web-series this year on Bahubhali scale, is said to be Netflix India's most ambitious project yet.

Pic/Shadab Khan

When we meet him at a suburban cafe, he admits that what he thought was a pack of lies, has turned out to be the biggest truth of his life. He still has his corporate job - he is chief manager, corporate communications for Indian Oil Corporation - but, it's his books that keep him going.

"My debut novel Asura opened new doors for me," claims Neelakantan. "I never intended to write mythology fiction. It just happened. I hail from Trippunithura, a suburb of Kochi, which was once the capital of the erstwhile Kingdom of Cochin. This place is home to 108 temples, and is rich in the classical arts. All of this which helped me see mythology from a different lens."

Neelakantan was particularly haunted by the character of Ravana. "I wanted to explore his story," he recalls. "Fortunately, my job [commissioning rural petrol pumps] took me to the remotest of villages in the south. I used that time to meet up with the locals there, and source as many retellings of the Ramayana as I could." After seven years of research and writing, Neelakantan completed Asura, which revisits the Ramayana from Ravana and his people's perspective. But it took him two years and 18 rejections before he could secure a deal with Leadstart Publishing.

Asura, which went on to become a bestseller, only released with 500 copies, he remembers. "It was after this book that a television channel approached me to write their show, Siya Ke Ram. Even Rajamouli sir [director, Bahubali series] felt I would be able to take his vision for Bahubali forward after reading this novel."

Today, straddling two jobs - that of novelist and screenplay writer - Neelakantan says he has been able to make clear distinction between mediums. "Television is mass; it's all about making quick money. But you don't enjoy the freedom of expression that comes with writing books. I think, this is because it caters to the common belief of the people. So, what I wrote in Asura, for instance, can never be replicated for television. Also Indian television lacks layering. It has glamour and spectacle, but no depth," says Neelakantan, who also co-wrote the Netflix web-series 21 Sarfarosh: Saragarhi 1897, a historical period drama based on the Battle of saragarhi.

"Honestly, writing for television doesn't evoke any passion in me." With his novels, Neelakantan says he tries something different each time. "Asura was more stream of consciousness, while Rajamouli sir asked me to write the Bahubali book as a large-scale epic that could be replicated for an international web-series. But Vanara was tailor-made for the big screen," confesses Neelakantan. "Even before I sat down to write Vanara, I knew that the story had to be told in two hours and ten minutes.

And so, I decided it should not have multiple characters, like [The Rise of] Sivagami, which had 40 characters. Films don't work like that. Here, everything happens in the city of Kishkindha. It is a love triangle between Tara, Baali, and Sugreeva, who marry each other more than once. I have also timed every scene like a screenplay. Some puritans will say you should not write like that, but I believe that you should always write for a medium."

For someone, who claims to have been short-changed once too many during his initial years as a writer, the multi-crore deal for Vanara has been quite a game-changer. "I am a bad negotiator and would never have had the courage to demand crores for my book, which is why I hired an agent [The Story Ink's Sidharth Jain]. Money is a neutral thing, but you need it to measure your worth. My agent insisted that I don't sell myself short. I feel that most writers should ensure that too. They need to put their food down," he says. "The problem is that writers are generally insecure people. They need constant validation, and that's good and important. But is it enough to sustain?"

Neelakantan, who moved to Mumbai in 2015, feels that writers need to come together and start an association, to ensure that their rights are protected. "You might say this is my Kerala roots speaking, but I think we need to ensure that writers get their due. They are often underpaid. They don't ask for more money, because they fear being labeled as arrogant," he says, adding that if an actor can demand an eight-figure pay, the writer who drives his film, should not bend backwards.

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