04 Apr 2023  |   04:12am IST

Goan characters come alive on screen through ‘Starfish’

Goan author Bina Nayak’s debut illustrated novel ‘Starfish Pickle’ is adapted into a film titled ‘Starfish’ and the shooting has just begun in Malta. Speaking about the basic elements that are retained in the film, Bina calls herself lucky that the book was adapted so quickly after its release

Dolcy D’Cruz

An independent graphic designer and communication specialist with a BFA from Sir JJ School of Art, Bombay, Bina has over 29 years in the advertising industry. Growing up and working in Mumbai, Bina returned back to Goa, where she focused on editing and completing her book, besides working on several advertisements and book covers. Content with the film deal, Bina is hoping that the film won’t deviate too much from the book. “When I signed away the movie rights, the contract stated that they would make whatever changes required to make it a commercially viable feature. Ultimately, it is a commercial film being made by T-Series. There is big money involved. I have no say in whatever changes they will do because I am not involved. They’ve had their own scriptwriters adapting the film to make it a commercial success. But more or less, the things are the same. The main character is still called Tara Salgaonkar who is a Goan and the other characters might have names changed with slight changes in the script but overall feel and everything is very much like the book. They dropped the word ‘pickle’ from the name because being a Hindi and English film, they didn’t want that pickle connotation. For the book, I got a chance to explain all of it. In the movie, they just liked the name ‘Starfish’,” says Bina Nayak, who now lives in the sleepy village of Revora in Bardez.

The book was published by Srishti Publishers in 2021 and her agent, Anish Chandy of Labyrinth Literary Agency, got the film deal soon after. “The book came out first and the film deal happened simultaneously. They decided to see how the book will do in the market and now they started working on the film. It was my luck. It is also because of OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Earlier, filmmakers and production houses would wait for a very well-known author. Now, the author doesn’t matter, the idea and story is important. They are only looking for great ideas. This is the best time for new authors to show their work around and look at publishing deal,”
elaborates Bina.

Speaking about the main characters in the film, she says, “All of the characters from the book are in the film. Kushalii Kumar plays Tara Salgaonkar, two young actors, Tusharr Kapoor and Ehan Bhatt, will be playing the main divers. I don’t know who will be playing which role but one will be the navy diver and the other, the dredging company diver. Milind Soman plays the main character of
Bholenath Guru.”

She further adds, “The character of Bholenath Guru was inspired by Osho, DJ Gil and by lots of spiritual gurus, which India is very famous for. I got the name Bholenath from Bombay, where I was growing up as a child. There used to be these mendicant, who would go house to house and people would wait with food for them. My mother too used to give food and I used to be scared of them. If you were a bad child then they would say, we will give you to Bholenath instead of food.”

20 years in the making, Bina was looking for an agent for over 17 years after writing her book in 2003. “I just kept the book in cold storage. I finished writing it in 2003 and I went through a divorce and came back to Goa.  I had to get myself financially stable as I had to quit a very good job in advertising in Bombay. I had to start from scratch in Goa and then I had to keep the writing aside as you can’t earn from writing. It took me around 4-5 years to settle. In a year, I would get just three weeks free in the monsoons when I would not have a single design assignment on my job list. I would open the manuscript and look at it and every year, I kept changing it. Technology also changed quickly. When I first wrote it there was no Gmail, there was Hotmail. There were no smartphones. When I was doing the character of Tara, I had her as somebody who hates phones. Nokia had just come and everybody hated them because they were used to pagers. By the time came for the book to be published, everybody was totally into mobile phones. I had to keep changing the character as technology changes,”
she explains.

Over the years, her main plot of the book didn’t change at all. “From 2003 to 2018, a lot has changed in Goa. The book got stalled for another two years due to Covid-19 pandemic. So many things also happened for women. The main character is a woman, after I had written the book, my first agent was a British agent and one of the first things he told me was that Tara is not very likeable, she is so out there and independent. Imagine in 2002-2003, they would actually say these things, she has to smile more and be nice. Tara was not the kind of character that people would accept at that time and I had to wait for when a woman like Tara was acceptable. Now they say so bold of her or cool of her. Even a fictional character leading a life like that was too much for people,” says Bina.

However, when Bina penned the book, these cases of drowning didn’t even happen in Goa. “I wrote about a car falling off the Mandovi Bridge but that used to not happen in 2003. I used to work as a principle designer for Goa Tourism and even then, I used to make ads of warning people on the dangers at the beach. Most of my experience of cases of tourists drowning is because of those ads. I had the story of ‘Starfish Pickle’ in my head but I actually got the nitty gritty and validation because it was happening.”

What is the importance of the starfish? She answers, “It’s my fascination with starfish. In the book, whenever Tara is diving, if she finds starfish and corals, she collects them and maintains them too in her fish tank at home, where she breeds these starfish. One can buy starfish, but they are basic ones that you find in pet shops but because she dives deep, she manages to collect the exotic ones. She gets obsessed with it when she went for her first swim in Juhu, and came out of the water with a starfish entangled for her hair. Also her name is Tara which is means star.”

Bina Nayak has also designed several book covers for Goan authors and working closely with them, she knows how the dynamics work. For her book too, she had a cover in mind. “The publishing house was very sweet and since they knew I am a designer they inquired if I would like to design the cover. But they were the ones who approved it, I didn’t have a say in it. I had a better cover with an illustration of Tara siting in a jar which is there in the book. I did a color version of it but there are so many things that come into play when they are choosing covers. I used to design and I would look at things like it should stand out in a book shelf. Now, covers have to stand out on the Amazon shelf as a one inch thumbnail. Amazon is the biggest consideration as everyone is now buying books online,” she explains.

Bina’s second book is going to be published by HarperCollins and she has no say in the cover. “They will do everything themselves. It will also be an illustrated book and will be based in Goa. It will be out either end of this year
or early next year,” concludes Bina.