For cinema fans in Chennai, 'Thalaivar' refers to Rajinikanth. For cricket fans in the city, 'Thala' refers to MS Dhoni.
Author Ramesh Thamilmani has a connection with both these superstars.
Back in 2014, he had an idea to create an Indian superhero. "Internationally, we have Iron Man and Spiderman, but we don't have a major superhero from our country who has a franchise dedicated to him," recalls Ramesh, "I wanted to create one like that. I wanted it to be a comic book that will have realistic images."
Through childhood friend Soundarya Rajinikanth, he took the idea to the Tamil Superstar. But things did not materialise because the actor was busy doing a similar experimental project at the time (animated film Kochadaiyaan).
Ramesh kept polishing the idea, and in 2019, went to cricketer MS Dhoni with the pitch. “We wanted a celebrity whom everyone looked up to. “Dhoni went through the entire concept patiently, and was excited to be part of it,” he says, “The story revolves around leadership skills and how you use them. Dhoni, given his captaincy skills for India and Chennai Super Kings, was a great fit.”
Ramesh kept polishing the idea, and in 2019, went to cricketer MS Dhoni with the pitch. “We wanted a celebrity whom everyone looked up to. “Dhoni went through the entire concept patiently, and was excited to be part of it,” he says, “The story revolves around leadership skills and how you use them. Dhoni, given his captaincy skills for India and Chennai Super Kings, was a great fit.”
With Dhoni's nod, Ramesh's dream slowly started coming true. Titled Atharvaa - The Origin, this ambitious graphic novel will depict the cricketer as a warrior leader foraying into new worlds. With the motion poster released recently, pre-orders for the book are scheduled to commence in the next couple of weeks.
The author hopes that the book will teleport readers to a new universe. It is, in the words of the creators, a "new-age graphic novel". "We hired stunt masters for the action scenes. We would stage sequences, take photos and then make them into artwork," reveals Ramesh. Instead of creating speech bubbles similar to comic books, the team decided to approach the book in the same way they would take up a film. "We divided the book into scenes; there are 150 scenes, with each page depicting a scene and written text. This helped ensure continuity in the characters," adds the author, who credits the backing of project head MVM Vel Mohan and illustrators Virzu Studios as instrumental in making the book come alive.
The story revolves around how an ordinary man discovers powers within and transforms into a superhero. "The why, the reason for him to transform into a superhero, is the core of the plot." Atharvaa - The Origin is planned in English, Hindi and Tamil; the Tamil version will have text written by film lyricist Madhan Karky.
Considering Ramesh's background in architectural design and music direction, Atharvaa - The Origin also has some extra features, like augmented reality and a promotional theme song. "Scanning the images will give you a 3D model of the character on your phone," he reveals, "During the fight sequences, you will see men rushing in and hurling boomerangs. Hopefully, all this will prove to be the next big step in reading. Usually, the worlds that the author envisaged and conveyed through words might not be the same that the viewer imagines. With Atharvaa, we are trying to bridge that gap. Plans are also afoot to make this into a film or a web-series in the future."
