Sharjah24: Akhil P. Dharmajan, the acclaimed novelist and screenwriter in the Malayalam language from the south Indian State of Kerala, shared insights into his creative process and the challenges he faced in his journey from self-publishing to becoming a celebrated author at a session titled “Stories Beyond the Page” at the 43rd Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) in Expo Centre Sharjah.
Dharmajan, an automobile-mechanic-turned-author, has penned best-selling novels such as Ram c/o Anandi, Ouija Board and Mercury Island, and is the scriptwriter of the 2023 survival thriller 2018 on the Kerala floods in the same year, which was India’s official entry in the Best International Film category for the 96th Academy Awards.
In a heart-to-heart talk with RJ Vysakh of Gold FM, Dharmajan said he started writing when he was in Grade 7 and the critical appraisals from friends egged him to continue writing. He advised the aspiring writers in his audience: “Do what your heart tells you, do not copy, follow a thread to develop a story, and do not have a ‘lag’ in the plot.”
The young writer said he was thankful to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for giving him an opportunity to post his stories on his platform where he had started a page called Katha (story) in 2011. He later named his own publishing house by the same name. He remembered how he went from 20 likes to 15,000 by the time he reached the 37th chapter of a story on Facebook.
The son of a daily wage labourer from Alappuzha district in Kerala, Dharmajan quit his job at the workshop to migrate to Chennai for a career in films. Referring to the South Indian city’s hot weather, he said “climate affects people’s emotions” and it helped him while plotting the script of 2018 and how Kerala overcame the deluge. Coming from the backwaters region that is prone to yearly floods, he said it helped him create a scene in the movie that some opined as “cringeworthy” but which he saw was true to character.
Ram c/o Anandi, which has sold 300,000 copies this year, was based on his experiences in Chennai including the character of a transgender. One of the bestsellers in the Malayalam stalls at SIBF, the book written during the Covid-19 period is being made into a movie.
Dharmajan recounted his rags-to-riches story in all humility and said he takes the brickbats and criticism in their stride including the body shaming he has faced online. He opened up about taking medical help for a bout of depression he went through when he learnt that a novel he drafted was similar to a French web series and had to abandon it.
“I have always yearned to attend SIBF, and I am proud to be here as a guest on my first visit. This shows that anyone can achieve their dreams if they work for it,” he concluded.
SIBF 2024, themed ‘It Starts with a Book’ will come to a close on November 17.
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