 Hello and welcome to the exchange for media OTT Summit. My name is Mayank Shekhar and I'm going to have a hard time actually introducing my guest today for a simple fact that if I just read out this CV it will be longer than the conversation we're supposed to have which is about 20 to 25 minutes. To keep it short he's an animation pioneer of sorts bringing the East to the West just when you thought the two could not meet is of course best known here for Legend of Hanuman the animation series on Hotstar Plus Disney also for the Baobali animation series that you can catch on Amazon Prime Video. I could just go on and on but I'll go straight to the person here ladies and gentlemen Sharad Dev Rajan thank you so much for joining us. Well thank you what an honor to be here and to be speaking with you so thank you everyone yeah. You know I have to say while I could have read your CV and there's so much material out there in terms of delving deeper and deeper into stuff that you've done professionally especially in this case of animation I just thought maybe it's a good idea for the audiences to know you a little bit more personally in terms of where you were raised where you were born how did you get into animation in the first place. Well that's very kind of you my story is not as nearly as exciting as the stories I try to create but I'll give you but that's again I mean you know I was I was fortunate I grew up in in the States in New Jersey my father had you know come from India from Chennai over to the US and I was born here and had such an appreciation for the arts that I had grown up my entire life wanting to be an artist and was fortunate enough that you know comic books I always say were my escape to the universe I grew up in a town where I was probably the only Indian growing up and I remember I was always trying to reconcile you know these amazing mythological stories that I had grown up on and that had shaped so much of my life the myths that we know you know as well as found myself drawn to all of the world of superheroes from Stanley and others and the creators there and those really shaped my worldview of bringing those ideas together in my mind at a very young age and and you know I found I went to school as a painter I studied painting as an undergraduate and you know went off and post that right after undergraduate ended up starting my first company which was bringing you know Marvel Comics and DC Comics out to the Asian markets in a company I started called Gotham Comics at the time and from there you know was fortunate enough to start this entire comic book journey which has always been my passion of bringing together great writers, artists, creators we founded Virgin Comics at the time post that with my good friends Gotham Chopra Deepak Chopra Shekhar Kapoor and you know Suresh Sita Raman where we really tried to bring together a whole vision of young creators artists all across India to transform the perception of India from being an outsourcer to a source and comics were the meeting by which we really tried to do that and bring those to people around the world and that's been the continued mission of graphic India which we formed you know obviously a number of years back but to push that boundary again in a level where we can also say that you know the next Spielberg Miyazaki the next you know JK Rowling the next creators they're all sitting somewhere here in this country in India ready to transform the world with their stories so could we provide them that home and for me comic books have always been one of the richest tapestries since we were cavemen painting on the cave walls we have told stories in pictorial sequential form in comic books so you know I look at it as one of the purest mediums which is a movie with an unlimited budget a way where you can level the playing field of creativity and so we were fortunate that some of the great artists we have seen through the years that I've worked with Jeevan Kang you know Mukesh Singh Abhishek Singh Edison George all of them coming from India to really I think spark a revolution of storytelling in this medium and and the writers as well have been so amazing that we've been having the good fortune to work with but the goal of graphic India is we always say we're not a comic company we're a storytelling company and storytelling is going through such profound you know change in distribution but the core elements remain the same and our mission has been to take you into a place of wonder you know that's the core of every story we try to do and how we've always looked at the world but you know that's something that that continues to drive us to this day in animation as we move into live action as we move into the metaverse all of it really comes into all of those dimensions of creating great story well of course we'll get into metaverse point for short that's that's the buzzword these days in any case but you know when you look at you know bringing a comic series onto the screen and because technology has a huge part to play in it you know anybody who's ever watched anything that is huge from from Hollywood and it'll stick around for too long in the closing credits you begin to see a lot of Indian names a lot of Indian companies is that are they doing what would be like grant work really when it comes to Hollywood are they actually doing what is our advantage in that area essentially cheap label is that what we've been traditionally been good at when it comes to big scale the big screen animation so that's a that's a very interesting question right I mean and certainly our our vision of our studio was that we would never do outsourcing work right because we think that you know it's very hard to balance both both both sides of life so if you're an outsourcing studio you really are dealing with clients you're dealing with trying to really you know and and nothing to take away from it the amazing creativity that still comes from all of those studios is unbelievable some of the best talents from India have worked on some of the best films in producing those visions that need to come and become a reality right so so even the outsourcing work you know is it's done at Calibur's out of India that is beyond anything being done in the world today that being said our vision was if you looked at IP companies if you looked at people like Marvel or Pixar you know it's very rare you'll see them do outsourcing work because they have to live breathe die in the risk of creativity and you know to create a culture of risk is also to take a culture of fear and you know you have to get beyond that fear to go sometimes to the levels of you know we're gonna live and die if we can create a great story or not and so so we wanted to make sure that the DNA of the company could focus on you know ultimately that that spark of of moving beyond what I'd say the technical technician side of the work which and really focusing on the intellectual property the creative spark that can come into what is story and how do we kind of think about that so a lot of our our DNA as a company has really been around let's go for it you know let's take the risks that no one is willing to do in the comic and certainly with animation I would say we were very fortunate that Rajamali trusted us you know as Rajamali trusted us with Bahubali to work with him to really try and transcend you know that was one of the first animated series is that we launched which we wanted to say let's try to do something not just for kids let's let's we could it would have been easy to try and make a younger version of Bahubali which we still think is a very amazing idea but the first 71 episodes we wanted to do was you know let's take the world people fell in love with in the film and try and tell an animated series that stays true to that emotional connect and can be that four quadrant you know animated series that appeals to people much older and you know much wider and you know that that journey continued with Legend of Hanuman which I always say you know the that that show is such a success primarily because of Lord Hanuman right and our collective love that we have for his journey and his character and you know just the story right Lord Hanuman story was an inspiration to me growing up as a child but the real part of his story that was so inspiring to me was the story we tried to tell here which was the story of the character you know the story of a god who forgot he was a god and almost had to go through this journey of wisdom and acceptance and finally was ready for that power of immortality and so that duality of what immortality can do is immortality can corrupt as we saw with Robin if it has no anchor to really kind of be there or it can elevate as it does with Hanuman when he has the anchor of Ram in his life so you know we wanted to really tell that story in a way where we could show the duality of one person's obsession to try and get immortality in Robin but ultimately finding that that obsession was what really made him numb in the end because having found it he found nothing afterwards and descended and whereas with Hanuman once he finally attained immortality he finally attained a true sense of what it meant and it it eternal doesn't mean eternal life in the it doesn't mean living forever eternal is a state of being so you know I think that all of these kind of profound wisdoms that were there in the original teachings we wanted to find a way to make it very accessible and not do it just for kids so we were so you know just overjoyed that the kind of response for Legend of Hanuman and to a large credit because of the amazing marketing and push and distribution and partnership we had with Disney plus Heart Star was to for the first time launch a streaming show that was the first animated original and for the first time in the country to position it as not just for kids but something that can appeal to anybody and you know have that same four quadrant storytelling a Marvel franchise would have you know that that and and the I think the the sort of reaction we saw from the audience and you know the connection they had with it hopefully will transcend now and allow for a lot of other types of animation like this to start to move into the marketplace. Right I mean of course India itself is a huge market and in general entertainment has been perceived as you know something that we create for local audiences anyway but do you think the oddity platforms have changed that hugely in the sense that distribution is not an issue anymore and so when you have something out on a Netflix or or Heart Star or even an Amazon Prime video for that matter it goes directly to 190 countries 200 countries so the chances of say for instance about believing watch across the world is much higher now than it's ever been before thanks to the internet. Absolutely I think you know the the success of something like Squid Games would have never happened 10 years ago right so you know the fact that we've had I always say that we grew up on a generation we have to understand there's two big macro trends that have taken place right the first macro trend in all of media I say is you know in my my thought is that first everyone wants to be in everyone's business right so if you've got gaming companies making films toy companies making movies everyone which originally they were in very select silos of media or entertainment and doing those things and licensing or figuring out ways to partner with everyone else now you have everyone kind of moving to everyone's platform and everyone moving to everyone's business model right so everyone's wants to be in everyone's business and the only other truth is that everyone wants to be in everyone's country right so you've got an essential global land grab that's been taking place both with investments of media companies around the world from different barters and think about what happens when you know whether it be a Japanese company makes an investment in a US company or an Indian company or an Indian company makes an investment there you're also bringing different types of best practices different types of boards different types of people now that are coming together and trying to transform the content process how we make content how we think about content and then we do it so if you look at it in the old if everyone wants to be in everyone's business and everyone wants to be in everyone's country you know the only truth is that if the old adage was content is king you know then multi-platform global content is God and that's the type of content that has made the Marvel franchise is so successful that has made you know stories like what we like to live in which is take you into a place of wonder stories so successful because from Boston to Beijing to Bangalore people can connect with this journey to take you into someplace other than your world and so you know I think that will see a lot more of that type of content I think that you know we look and study some of the macro story trends that have happened to we think that most of you know the Marvel films have dealt with a theme that's probably more universal which is dysfunctional family I mean you can almost come to the core of almost every Marvel film and see it's it's at the core it's a dysfunctional family whether it's Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers you know whether it's you know essentially kind of even as simple about Thor about two brothers and a returned sister and a father it you know almost every story has the theme of dysfunctional family which is incredibly relatable incredibly relatable to people because they can identify with that kind of dynamic in their lives they can identify if they're in any part of the world and so I think the romantic love story that drove superhero stories you know generations before has been transcended into something that is actually you know much more universal and relatable and I think that again as we look at the sort of big media companies whether it be a Netflix or a Disney you know they become global multi-platform distribution marketing machines and what feeds the machine is incredible IP at the center intellectual property that can speak to all of that and so so more and more I think that will start to happen and we feel we're at the forefront of unlocking all of what India has had to offer with such immense creativity for so long we we have so many genre creators you know people that that that are in this country that that are you know far beyond what is what budgets have allowed in the past and you know and I think that's going to be the next wave and so hopefully all the comics and graphic novels that we've given them a playground to tell those stories and we see those as great IPs to evolve into all of this universe going forward and be very fresh to the world. Right I mean there's of course the certain myths that the OTT business the OTT platform business we didn't broke when it came to global audiences we always assume that people do not watch foreign language entertainment which is clearly not the case right you take a split game look for that matter you take someone something like a narcos we forget this actually Spanish in its original language second we thought that people don't watch for too long you know just keep it simple keep it short but clearly people binge for hours on end now when it came to Hollywood right so just take me through how easy or difficult is it for the reverse pollination to take place there is for instance spider-man that is as big as it gets when it comes to India right they it is the biggest grocer in Indian box office but could there ever be a say a hanuman in in America which could be a huge grocery coming from India how difficult do you think or how easy do you think that is going to be the case well I think the timing has never been better for this moment right now what I would say is like the other thing that I've noticed is a big trend that the squid games moment could have never happened if we didn't have a generation that grew up so I remember you know very early in my career meeting the producer one of the producers of Scooby-Doo and he made this comment to me that you know kids like it simple you got to wrap it up in 22 minutes you got to wrap it up quick take off the mask it's the bad guy keep it very straightforward I kept wondering you know is that really the case are we really trying to dumb it down why kids are you know and you suddenly had a generation that grew up on Pokemon you know Dragon Ball Z Yu-Gi-Oh the most complex narratives with hundreds of characters that were foreign and completely not even you know based on us names if that and those were huge successes right huge successes around the world and proved that long-form episodic narratives with big worlds and massive characters that were completely foreign could appeal at a very young age to kids and guess what those kids grew up and when they grew up watching and being exposed to that type of content a squid games is a perfect natural way to watch and engage with content Korean dramas international content they're not the generation before that was you know had to have everything kind of handed in their language in a way that they could live with they grew up very naturally in a world that allowed for that you know they're in a world where they have friends around the world on Facebook and they can interact in the world in a very seamless way so so I think that that generational shift has allowed for this moment where the platforms have come together and now capitalized on that moment in a true way so now more than ever yes we are doing very big projects on a global level that are tied to Indian myths and you know these are for TV and film and you know tied to the stories that that really again would transform the perception of the world and should if they're brought out there and and are as accessible as anything else but they've never had the budgets the quality the ability to push them the marketing machines behind them you know growing up in the west I was always fascinated with why is so much obsession with the Greek myths when we're sitting in some of the greatest stories of human creation that are you know living and active and teach us about ourselves so you know so I think you know way beyond an avatar and you know even beyond a star wars which really deals with so many eastern themes the force itself is you know one of these concepts that the world resonates towards but is all about you know some of the eastern traditions that we've had in our own cultures right so it's time we reclaim and take all of those things that are with us and make these things with the spectacle that they should be seen to the world yes but I mean what that's the reason you went with something like a chakra you know what's your Stanley to make chakra which is essentially the eastern idea of chakras inside our body and the energy that I see from within is that what you were trying to do with chakra as well yeah well you know I always say that the first stand was a mentor for 20 years and he was an amazing human being who you know I learned so much from and just as everything you imagined of Stanley when you see him on the screen as being that type of guy he was so it's it's very rare in life you meet a person that lives up to the myth at the height that he really is but and working with him to create chakra was like being asked to paint a painting with DaVinci pride like it was one of the greatest moments of my life but the theme we both had with it was could we take the ideas he was very uh into eastern themes he had obviously Dr. Strange and many of his characters he'd explore those things but he had he had read the Upanishads he'd you know read many traditions right he had you know Stan was a seeker and you know having that foundation uh was was amazing so we would talk in a way where the theme of something like chakra was still to create a modern day superhero that would bring together the ideas of east and west through the language of superheroes which is something that he believed were the fairy tales of our world was our generation was you know these these great stories that would connect because of what superheroes are and we've seen that with his legacy of work but yes the idea of you know creating a technology suit that can activate the chakras the ideas of east and west and the ideas of you know activating a chakra doesn't necessarily mean you have the wisdom to understand it so you know there's a difference between power and the wisdom to wield power and those were the themes that you know even in Hanuman we explored those are the themes that we explore in our traditions you know profoundly i think so so those were ideas that you know stan and i were grappling with in that story and the start of chakra was the graphic novel we're obviously working on a live action production of that now and you know i want to make sure that character always lives up to the legacy of you know the the 10 plus years stan and i worked on that character together to do different things with it yeah and there is of course the avidian spider-man right uh publicly from harker is that is that right provacar yes that's right fascinating that you would take spider-man bring him to bombay make him indian um take us through that story whatever happened to that yeah well you know that was very early in my journey and you know it was in uh in i think 2004 or five we were fortunate that you know that that was still in the sam ramy marvel kind of spider-man spider-man original series and you know the marvel team we went to them with this wild idea of really a belief that i've always had that you know that a character like spider-man really represents this beautiful thing where if you can take off that mask and it's an indian under the mask and he's there dealing with local problems as he is in new york city dealing with local problems here so could we instead of translating the comics which we were already doing as marvel's partner in the region could we transcreate could we come up with this concept where we took the essence and authenticity of what the spider-man real character was which was about with great power comes great responsibility and could we take that and reinvent the character as pavitha prabhakar of course this has been a great great conversation over the screen but it's nothing nothing like we're actually meeting up with with people in the real world i hope do that someday i hope the audience is looking forward to do that yes thank you so much thank you to everyone for listening and putting up with this