"Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone impressed me the most and I could never get out of their brilliant performances"
The Godfather, a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is one of the most-watched Hollywood movies of all time.
It has inspired generations of filmmakers to produce and make films based on the gangster genre, apart from leading on to a series of adaptations in numerous languages across the globe.
In Bollywood, films like Dharmatma (1975), Atank Hi Atank (1995), and Sarkar (2005) are some of the many Hollywood films that have been inspired by The Godfather.
However, it is rare that a movie inspires someone to take up the pen and write a novel in which the story is inspired by the pilot theme of the movie.
Mriganav Kaushik Sarma is one such teenager who was so inspired by The Godfather that we decided to create a gangster world of his own and write a full-length novel.
The 16-year-old student lives in Guwahati and the idea to write down the book struck him when he watched the iconic movie during the COVID-19-induced lockdown in 2020.
"When I watched The Godfather for the first time during the lockdown, I was extremely impressed by each of the performances and I wanted to know more about the Sicilian Mafia," the young author said during a candid chit-chat.
"Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone impressed me the most and I could never get out of their brilliant performances," he added.
"And soon after I finished watching the movie and I searched the internet about the mafia and began to build up characters, a completely new mafia world and thus The Desyatnik was born," he continued.
"I began to write the book and within a couple of months the first draft of my novel was ready," he further said.
He even published the book via Kindle Direct Publishing and has plans to bring out a paperback edition to the latter part of 2021 as well.
The lockdown was eventful in many ways, at least for this young author as had the lockdown not been called then he might have not watched The Godfather and The Desyatnik would have definitely not born.
If you want to listen to Mriganav speak more about his inspirations and the book, then click here.
Partha Prawal (Goswami) is a Guwahati-based journalist who loves to write about entertainment, sports, and social and civic issues among others. He is also a published author.
