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.