In interview with Virat Vilas Pawar. Virat is a lawyer by profession, he is practicing at Mumbai High Court. Despite being into a legal profession he has a corner for his passion as a Sci-Fi Superhero Writer. He aspires to develop an indigenous ‘Superhero’ who could gain popularity amongst readers.
His upcoming novel “Vidyadhara & The Universe of Magic” dives into the modern world that consists of Wizards, Werewolves, Vampires, Monsters, Deities, and Gods. The specialty of this novel is the visual treat that the readers get while reading the novel i.e The character illustrations in the novel. Art that can be compared to that of DC and Marvel Comics.
Q- India’s experiment with ‘Shaktiman’ is the only success that I remember whenever it comes to superheroes, obviously we saw a craze for ‘Krish’, but Indian novels have offered no such significant market in this particular field, finally after the success of the first of your novel, you are here with another one. What can we as readers expect from Vidyadhara, what new is he going to be?
A- Vidyadhara & The Universe of Magic is a dive into the magical element of my Superhero Universe. Every superhero movie has a center element like Iron Man movies had science, Ant-Man had quantum physics, Vidyadhara has Magic and Divine Entities as its key point. This novel focuses on the Indian versions of vampires, witches, werewolves, and more. Our ancient history speaks a lot about them and I am taking that reference, adding some originality to it, and turning it into a superhero story. This story is based on the current timeline i.e the year 2021-2022. Usually, the ‘Sci-Fi Superhero’ is a very genre in novels and hence it’s not much touched, here is where I come in the picture and explore the unexplored, give people a visual treat.
Q- Tell us something more about Vidyadhar, what his life is like, how is he and how did he come into this universe of magic?
A- So the protagonist’s name is ‘Arav’, Vidyadhara means a person who has the knowledge of Supernatural Magic, someone who can perform supernatural magic, summon magical creatures, open portals to different worlds, shoot energy beams out of his hands, etc. Arav was a student in a Gurukul where the great Guru Sikandar Swami taught magic to the chosen one, that’s how he learnt the use of supernatural magic and the existence of magical beings. His schoolmate ‘Nedarraj’(After being thrown out of the school) decides to practice dark magic and wishes to assert dominance over the magical creatures already existing in the world, with one goal, to rule the world better than the existing leaders. Arav’s main aim is to stop him from exploiting the magical creatures and to maintain peace as he is sure Nedarraj can stoop to any level to fulfill his desires. So, Arav takes help from magical creatures, men, divine deities, and more in order to maintain peace in the world.
Q- As we know you are a lawyer by profession, what else than law is something you like to do? Also, what is so fascinating and significant about the Sci-Fi genre, why is it your field of interest?
A- Apart from being a criminal lawyer, I write poems and stories, mostly sci-fi stories. It has my heart and I can do it at 3 AM too. Sci-fi is not just a genre of entertainment for me, it is a lifestyle, it’s a way of living for me. I learnt so much from superhero movies and anime that I can’t even count now. The life values, the emotions, the human qualities, I learnt these mainly from the characters from Sci-Fi movies and series. This is my heart. I have been lost in sci-fi entertainment since I was a child and it was when I decided that I shall create my own superhero universe and give Indians the Indian Superhero Universe they deserve.
Q- The universe of magic that you want to create has all elements of fascination and fiction involved in it, what thought made you include so many elements like wizards, werewolves, vampires, monsters, deities, and Gods into one story?
A- India has a rich ancient history, we have everything already existing in our scripts. We just didn’t explore it. DC and Marvel created the superheroes out of nowhere but, we have a solid foundation and I feel we should use it. Even a single character from Mahabharata or Ramayana can be pulled out and turned into a superhero. Most of this belongs to the Magical section and vampires, witches, werewolves, deities, belong to that section and hence an effort to put it in the story and then later on combine, science, magic, time travel, superheroes, aliens and give a huge arch to the audience.
Q- The Novel has many character illustrations, not many novels have such illustrations, what was the idea behind it?
A- I wanted my readers to see what I am seeing, I have a vision, I want my readers to view it too. It did cost me a fortune but if my readers can’t see what I am seeing then it makes no sense to me. Hence the character illustrations and fight scenes are an extra punch to my stories. A little bit of comic feels as well to the novel.