Today I have a guest post from co-authors (and brothers) Shiva
Thejus and Vishnu Tanay on their inspiration for characters in their novel The Unconquerable Heart.
The story of ‘The Unconquerable Heart’ was originally conceived
by me, Shiva Thejus, twelve years ago. I’m the original film junkie in our
family. Ours is a business family and my bro was always more into family
business and not into film stuff. Being the younger of the two, I was not
burdened with family business issues and had all the time to pursue my
interests.
The initial seed to the story was very small and in fact just a
one-liner. One of my good friends, who also happens to be a film junkie, woke
me up from an after- noon slumber, abruptly (I happened to be holidaying at his
guest house). I cursed the compulsive yapper for disturbing my good sleep.
‘Macha… I have an idea!’ (Don’t be alarmed. ‘Macha’ in Tamil
language means ‘buddy.’) He said enthusiastically peering out of his extra
loaded-myopic glasses. He wears one of those over-thickened glasses that freaks
anyone. But, he sure he is one helluva genius, in his own right. ‘What da
useless blob! Why did you wake me?’ I groaned restlessly.
‘Listen! Listen! I have an idea…!’ he kept blabbering without a
full-stop. ‘A boy is born deaf and dumb in a small village, and he is raised by
his elder brother to become a Heavy Weight Boxing champion…! Howz the idea?’ he
asked me, looking at me earnestly, even as I buried my head stiffly into my
pillow and cursed him incessantly, murmuring to myself.
‘Ok, Get lost! Let me sleep you psycho!’ I shooed him away.
Dejected, he went away without saying anymore. Not even one good line of
appreciation for a good thought! But surely, you will find his name etched
first, in the friends section of our dedication page. Buy, our book and know
his name, if you’re interested. I ain’t telling it loud here. Some benefit I
should get, for telling you all this. Don’t you think so?
I always wanted to be a ‘STAR’ not just any actor and I never
really tried to approach any film producers or directors for roles. I wanted to
make my own films. I always dreamt big and it’s an inborn thing. I have had
this other bug in my brain – a creative bug and twin of the first bug, the film
junkie one. This one was more malicious than the first, and it
latched itself very tightly, somewhere behind my cerebrum, and it
constantly egged me to write my own stories. So, there I shot off, expanding
that one line thought into a full-fledged story, with all the twists and turns.
My initial aim was to make it suit for a ‘Tamil movie.’ Of all Indian
ethnicities, Only Tamilians make and watch the most radical movies. So, I
chose Tamil.
Over, the course of the next few days, after I returned home, I
shut myself in my room and started punching my thoughts into my laptop.
Occasionally, I shared my thoughts with my big brother, Sri Vishnu Tanay. He
always loved watching films, but he was never inclined to be part of films. He
was a discerning movie-goer by nature, and he always dissected movies
after he watched them and gave me logical reasons on how things should have
been in a particular movie. We used to discuss a lot of movies and naturally, I
shared my initial thoughts and asked for his advice. He said it was brilliant
and egged me to finish the story. One valuable input he gave was about the female
lead, he asked me to make her a useful part of the story, instead of just
making her a bimbette, like what the majority Indian commercial movies did till
then. He even suggested that I make her a journalist, so she would form an
essential part of the story. And, there with that suggestion, I finished the
story in a fortnight. The finished product was roughly about 80 pages in word
doc and I was highly satisfied with myself.
I, originally titled it ‘RISE of the LEGEND.’ It was a
hero-centric subject, with other characters just playing out their roles as
part of the story. My original perception of the protagonist, Munna, (Yes, Only
Munna and not ‘Munna Kaalika’. The ‘Kaalika’ tag came in when my brother got
himself attached to refurbishing the project.) was of a strong-headed
individual with highly opinionated thoughts. If he fixed his mind on anything,
he would just go for it. No matter what!
Here goes, the original story, ‘RISE of the LEGEND,’ as
conceived by me 12 years ago.
Munna, the protagonist, born deaf and dumb and raised by his
doting brother and sis-in-law, in a remote village in South India, eventually
journeys to Kolkata, along with his childhood friend, for livelihood, befriends
a female journalist. And, when she is being victimized, in front of him, on
account of her daring coverage of drug operations, he intervenes to save her
from the local goons, but is eventually humiliated very badly at the hands of
the drug lord. Munna, with his self-esteem hurt, eventually self- teaches
himself on how to fight back and finally succeeds in scaring the shit out of
the drug lord, who embarrasses him.
He then returns back to his village. Upon his return, Munna’s
doting brother learns of Munna’s tryst in Kolkata with the drug lord, through
Munna’s friend, and decides that his brother is a born fighter, destined for
greater recognition. He eventually sells everything he has and takes his
brother to Mumbai to train with an ex-professional boxer who had to retire from
boxing due to a bike accident.
The ex-boxer spots talent in Munna, sees himself in him and
trains him to the best of his abilities, but is faced with the odds of lacking
the proper clout to get him a shot at the title, as, one influential promoter,
who’s determined to make his own son, the heavyweight champion, forms
impediments in Munna’s path.
Now
enters the female journalist (the same one from Munna’s past), who also
incidentally happens to be the ex-boxer’s sister. She exposes the promoter’s
double game through media-trumpeting and helps Munna, in securing a shot at the
heavyweight boxing title. And, with the ex-boxer’s able guidance, Munna
eventually becomes the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion.
Now, over to my big bro…
Sri Vishnu Tanay (Co-author) speaks…
My lil bro’s script was as amateurish as it could be with just
around 80 pages and was meant exclusively for the Indian celluloid.
The entire script was raw and completely one-sided, i.e from the
stand point of just the protagonist alone, and it lacked a ‘soul.’ But it
seemed to be a perfect commercial pot-boiler for the Indian movie market, where
commercial cinema was the norm. But, my bro always dreamt big. He journeyed to
the ‘Land of the Dreams’ and secured an appointment with a big Hollywood star,
(I’ll just call him Mr. S for now. Can’t reveal his name folks,
Confidentiality issues.) in 2011. My bro narrated the script to him, and he
immediately fell in love with it. He said that it was ‘Oscar material.’ Though,
we wanted to change the protagonist’s ethnicity to Hispanic, (to suit
Hollywood) Mr. S insisted that we keep the protagonist Indian, and said, if we
so desired, we could change the protagonist’s brother’s ethnicity to Hispanic
and make him a step brother instead. That time, my bro offered Mr. S, the
role of the coach and also asked him to direct the film. Unfortunately, our
family business back in India was going through a rough patch and I had to
rush my bro back for some issues and couldn’t shape up his Hollywood dreams
then.
This is where, I stepped in. Back in India, My bro had moved to
writing newer scripts and he left this one in the can. But, for me, I really
didn’t understand how an average, commercial Indian story could be an ‘Oscar
Winner’ as envisaged by Mr. S. Either my brother was grossly lying to me, or
definitely Mr. S, a stalwart, saw something in it which neither me nor my bro
had seen. Sometime later, for a few days, I noticed films that won the Oscars
and arrived at the conclusion that there was either a message in those films or
they had ‘touching human emotions.’ Then, I thought, why not combine the both
of them, and make it a ‘DEFINITE OSCAR WINNER.’ This was all back in 2012, when
in spare time, I thought of ways of changing the script to make it a ‘DEFINITE
OSCAR WINNER.’ Then, one day, I accidentally happened to read about ‘Quentin
Tarantino’ and an article on his cult movie, ‘Pulp Fiction,’ which, I don’t
even remember how I chanced upon. I was strangely attracted to his non-linear
style of story-telling. I have never seen that movie till date though, but I’ve
read the ‘Wikipedia’ article on that film 3, 4 times that day and suddenly
everything started to fall in place for me, on how to refurbish ‘our gold in
the bin.’
I concluded that the story had to be told from, the point of
view of, each of the main characters to make it a more compelling watch. Then,
while I had that afternoon’s nap, the new sequence to the story flashed in my
mind almost suddenly, and I immediately put keystrokes to laptop. I, myself,
was amazed at how quickly and finely the story shaped out in just one afternoon,
after reading an article on ‘Pulp Fiction.’ That afternoon, I wrote 5 pages
illustrating a brief of the actual screenplay, to be followed in re-shaping the
story. I illustrated, to myself, in simple words, how the story would proceed
through the eyes of the Five main protagonists. It was no more a straight story
with one central character. It was a story with Five central characters, with a
non-linear approach and a constant revisiting of their past events and their
travails, through their own eyes. With that, the title needed to be changed too
and I named it, ‘The Unconquerable Heart,’ and why not? When the story talks of
the travails faced by the characters and their eventual triumph through severe
perseverance. There had to be no better title than ‘The Unconquerable Heart.’
Once, I was done, I told my bro that I have a new idea for the
script and that I’m gonna make the protagonist’s brother a Eunuch (An Indian
word for the MTF transsexual). He was shocked at first, (not that he’s a gay
hater, but he disliked changing the original line – we both sincerely are
emotional to every human’s feelings) and he vehemently denied the idea. But I
told him, if we were ever to win an Oscar for this script then we had to make
it deliver a message or else we had no such chance. He calmed down and saw
light in my argument. Though, I wrote the entire screenplay in just one
afternoon, I was not free enough to dedicatedly sit down and write the entire
novel. I managed to scramble some forty pages, in all, in the next thirty days
hence and stopped writing altogether. I had to take care of family business and
really couldn’t allot it time.
My bro, kept up with his efforts of breaking into ‘Bollywood.’
We wanted to make our own movies and sometime in 2014, we were almost close to
securing a very big name from ‘Bollywood’ and even spent a bomb on piecing that
project together (A different script altogether). But for reasons, only known
to the star, we had been negotiating with, he backed out in the last minute and
our entire investment in that project went to the dogs. With all these
set-backs, in 2015 first half, I took a break from family business, sat down
dedicatedly, and finished the ‘Final draft’ for ‘The Unconquerable Heart’ in
just about 75 days. In those 75 days, I researched a lot on topics like LGBT,
Nazism, Racism, Misogyny, and Bigotry. While the first four elements dealt with
prejudice concerning particular groups, the last one – ‘Bigotry’ was a
Universal characteristic encompassing all sets of prejudice. There is a bigot
in each and everyone of us, I realised. I wanted to shape my story from the
point of view of the most abused groups.
Already, my protagonist’s brother/mother, Kaalika, a Colombian
settled in Kolkata, (Her ethnicity was an inspiration from Mr. S’s advice) was
a MTF transgender, and she had a story of her travails, (I made her travails as
poignant as they could be. As, a mother’s devotion to her children is
limitless, and she would endure the harshest possible situations, if need be,
to see her children through. No human would disagree on a mother’s magnanimity.
And, that’s precisely what the stealer of our story, Kaalika Devi’s character
is all about.) and her natural love for her adopted son. I wanted her partner
to be a FTM transsexual, who faced his fair share of indiscrimination, and thus
the character Hazeem, a natural philosopher and a social activist with a firm
resolve to change the world’s perceptions towards ‘Gender Identity Disorder,’
(GID) was born. He wants a platform from where he could sound the shrillest
trumpet, blowing ages-old conformist attitudes, and he eventually finds the
protagonist, Munna Kaalika, to be exactly that apt-platform and back him with
all his vigour. He would stop at nothing until he sees Munna win the Heavy
weight Boxing Title.
And even before, Hazeem, I had Sylvia all shaped up. Infact
Sylvia’s character opens the story in a non-linear fashion (courtesy of my
knowledge of ‘Pulp Fiction.’) Sylvia – the compulsive lover who would sacrifice
anything for her lover, Munna, because of her self-indebtedness to him, for
having been saved by him, from being raped by the evil drug lord of Kolkata, is
a very strong individual in her own right. I made her a Jewish woman, as I
wanted to highlight the vicious roots of Nazism, (read as hatred of other ethnicities)
and the biggest genocide in modern Human history, through a direct
confrontation of a ‘Jewish woman’ with the ‘Villain of the Story,’ Tretan
Bliecher – Billionaire boxing promoter, Nazi sympathiser and a sworn Jewish
hater. Her perseverance to endure utmost physical pain in a BDSM dungeon at the
hands of a ‘Nazi,’ and her eventual triumph in securing what she yearns for is
all reminiscent of the ‘Holocaust’ and the eventual perseverance of the Jewish
community to emerge as a force of reckoning, on the American soil.
As for the main protagonist, Munna Kaalika himself, I added an
extra dimension to his already short-changed life. I gave him traits of Autism.
But whether he really is autistic or not, I left it for the reader’s
imagination. What I added to him, is much more than just the impairment. I
added pure-raw devotion to his loved ones, most of it towards his mother. He no
more acts for, or on behalf of, himself. He is not self-guided. All his
thoughts, emotions and actions are guided by his utmost love for his mother. He
is a total dependant on his mother and would burn down hell itself, if his
mother is threatened. His devotion towards his mother is what makes him stand
out. We both are mama’s boys and surely identify ourselves with Munna’s character.
That’s where the inspiration for his character comes from.
Last, but not the least, the story as per the new sequence had
to conclude through the eyes of the Fifth protagonist, the ex-boxer (the role
which we offered to Mr. S) But, after all these changes to the other
protagonists, the ex-boxer’s character of just having an unfulfilled ambition,
of achieving the heavyweight title, which he wants to fulfil through his
disciple seemed a tad beaten. I had to think radical for him, to bring him
at par with the other characters’ emotional depths. And, more so, because his
story was being told in the climax. So, while writing the script (not the
novel, the Final Draft script was the first), I was a little worried, but then
when I came to his part, it suddenly dawned upon me that I could make him a
victim of ‘racial-prejudice’ and at the hands of his own step-brother – One so
wicked, that he would violate his step-mother, though he very well knew that
she was his late father’s mistress!! How deep could that racial hatred be, to
violate a step-mother, who cared for him? And, how deep could the pangs of
emotion of a victim, who’d experienced such prejudice be? So came, Ethan
Chapman, half Afro and half German, who’s pining to teach his evil
step-brother, Tretan Bliecher, a lesson on morality and restore his mother’s
forsaken inviolability. The epitome of his devotion to his mother’s cause,
makes the climax most endearing.
Apart from these five characters, there is one character, which
I personally love the most – The character of ‘The Big Sister.’ The Big Sister
is a ‘Eunuch elder’ who shelters Kaalika Devi and helps to raise Munna Kaalika.
Single-handedly, she gathers the sympathy of the entire Hijra (Eunuch) clan for
Munna’s cause and plays an instrumental role in shaping his outlook and his
fighting techniques. She is a wall. Period. A wall so strong that thousands of
prejudiced souls from the Sonagachi area (the biggest brothel area in all of
Asia), vouch by her and live by her principles. Her character is enigmatic, and
down to earth. She is an inspiration of our very own four elder mothers, who
stood by our mother, their lil sister, throughout our financial problems. You
will find the names of our elder mothers in the Dedication Page of our book.
The story is a mutual effort, and we both brothers shared views,
throughout the ordeal of shaping it to perfection. With the Script in place,
the novel was a breeze. But, even that took, us brothers, almost 75 more days.
(Novels are simply cumbersome compared to writing scripts!) Now, my lil
brother, is single-handedly faced with the herculean task of materialising this
mammoth story into celluloid drama. Definitely, it’s a breath taking saga, but
marketing is a different ball game altogether, and only he is best suited for
that turf!
Bio:
Shiva Thejus is an Indian author, screenwriter and actor best known for his role in the movie Prince Vaali in 2011. A graduate from Madras University, Shiva was a professional screenwriter at JHT Entertainment in Mumbai for over a decade before he wrote his first novel, The Unconquerable Heart, with his brother Vishnu Tanay in 2016. Now living in Los Angeles, California, Shiva is looking forward to writing and staring in many more movies.
The Unconquerable Heart is a tale of downtrodden characters who have been dealt a bad hand in life by no fault of their own. The protagonist, Munna, an autistic boxer who cannot hear nor speak yet has a masterful understanding of the emotions of those around him, trains to become the champ and get a shot at the Heavyweight Championship of the World belt. His trainers are Ethan, a washed up drunk who was ejected from professional boxing after being falsely accused of cheating, and Hazeem, a post-op transgender social activist.
