When Vikram Veturi was in standard seven in Delhi, he along with his friend Pulak Bisht would sneakily draw caricatures of teachers and friends. Luckily, Vikram never got caught. “We maintained different notebooks for our caricatures,” he says. What started off in a small classroom in Delhi soon turned into something bigger and now, this Hyderabadi is not only heading his own animation company, but is also working on many interesting projects, two of which are Mary Kom Junior and Indian War Heroes.
We worked on many overseas projects but we decided to focus on Indian content for Indians and that’s how we got started on most of our projects,” says Vikram, who is the director at ScreenYug Creations. And that’s how Vikram, along with his producer Ashish Kulkarni, started working on the Mary Kom series and the Indian War Heroes series.
For Vikram, who moved back to Hyderabad during his Standard X, taking up animation came naturally. “I did my animation training from this institute called Zica. I was part of the first batch and after that there was no looking back,” says Vikram, who has even worked on the animated series of Shaktimaan. “My father is a doctor and we kept moving from city to city. We were in Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad as well,” says Vikram, who finished his graduation from the Nizam College.
For the Indian War Heroes series, Vikram and his team are working in connection with Major General Bakshi. “Currently, we have close to 400 stories about war heroes and we will be creating 22-minute episodes of each story. We won’t air all the stories together. But will do so in the form of seasons,” he says.
But the idea to work on female superheroes came up much later. “While growing up, I remember that most of the superheroes were mainly men. There weren’t many women. I found that superheroes was something that only boys liked,” he says. And it was here that the idea to work on an animated series on women, Mary Kom namely, was born.
“Mary Kom’s life is very fascinating. There is everything that is needed to inspire kids. There is hard work, inspiration and obstacles... something that she had to face,” he says.
However, the series on Mary Kom’s life will showcase her childhood. “We follow the life of eight-year-old Mary and yes there will be a bit of fantasy involved in the series as well,” he explains. Mary Kom Jr will also feature “magical gloves that have a mind of their own”. “We added magical gloves that she stumbles upon. How she works through her problems... manages to use the gloves wisely is what follows,” he explains.
Each episode that lasts for 11 minutes will show Junior Mary going about her life as her coach guides her and also touch upon other subjects. “First, we will be introducing an Indian female superhero... and then we will also be emphasising on the culture of the North East, something that hasn’t been done in a long time. We wanted something as fun as the Powerpuff Girls and that’s what we’re aiming at.”
