A Mythologeek’s Tale
Anand Neelakantan is a serious (and seriously good) writer. Five years ago, the 42-year-old published his debut novel,
Asura: Tale of the Vanquished. It was an instant bestseller. Telling the story of the Ramayana from Ravana’s point of view, Asura was a smoother read than most mythological retellings. And both the story and the author’s research were deep enough to sustain readers’ moral quibbles with the author’s perspective. His next pair of books, the Ajaya series—telling the Kaurava side of the Mahabharata—was similarly notable. His PR folks estimate he’s sold a million copies of those three alone, all translations included.
However, those three books—all retellings of beloved Hindu epics—were ‘safe territory’, of a sort. The novel that was launched on
March 31, The Rise of Sivagami, marks Neelakantan’s first foray into crafting a new world: a three-book series based on S.S. Rajamouli’s 2015 film Baahubali: The Beginning. Sivagami, as befits its role as a prequel, is set 30 years before the movie. It begins the story of the warrior princess Sivagami, the mother of Rajamouli’s title character. The next two books will complete Sivagami’s back-story, establishing a secondary arc for the Baahubali franchise. (At the launch, Rajamouli also mentioned plans for a mini TV series based on Neelakantan’s books.) Given the scale of this enterprise—the first Baahubali movie had a budget of Rs 180 crore and grossed Rs 650 crore—the novel’s commercial success is virtually assured. Nonetheless, Neelakantan as author is a positive sign. His attention to detail and palpable love of mythology set him apart from contemporaries. Rajamouli choosing him as resident novelist suggests that Indian cinema is cottoning on to the value of a well-crafted story.
Like many Indian authors, Neelakantan already had a career before publishing found him. “I’m from a small town,” he says. “I was forced to study engineering. Just like in 3 Idiots. And coming from a small town, being an ‘artist’ was not encouraged. Most artists you see there are drunkards.” A sudden smile disappears as swiftly as it blooms, and the serious engineer (who still has a job with the Indian Oil Corporation) is back. “But that’s where the stories are. In small towns.” Growing up in Thripunithura—a town in Kerala that is home to over 100 temples—Neelakantan says that mythology was a “daily thing, expressed in entertainment, in temple stories, in dance. Our mythology is something that needs to be experienced, not just read.”
Neelakantan has at least six more books in the pipeline—the success of Asura earned him several slots with his publisher, Westland (and one with Jaico). For that matter, Sivagami is not his first brush with the world of film; he has already written scripts for Star TV, Sony and Colors. Novels based on movies, rather than the opposite, are a new phenomenon for India. And Sivagami itself is more closely related to film than literature. Baahubali 2 is set to release on April 28, and the launch of Sivagami was undoubtedly timed to keep interest in the films high. Neelakantan has said that scheduling meant he completed the book in just over three months. That may be the reason for a certain roughness evident in the language and plot— but only in comparison to the high bar set by Asura.
“IN A SMALL TOWN, BEING AN ARTIST IS NOT ENCOURAGED. MOST OF THE ‘ARTISTS’ YOU SEE THERE ARE DRUNKARDS”