An animated conversation

Ram Mohan, who had made his mark in the Indian animation scenario speaks about the changes that have swept the medium over the years

Press meets about animation often start with the question, “Has Indian animation arrived ” What they don’t know is it had arrived 60 years ago with Ram Mohan, the father of Indian Animation. Yet, when the customary question is asked, the octogenarian replies, “It has arrived as an industry now. When I started, there was no industry; it was just four or five people working at a studio mostly for animation in commercial films. But today, there are larger studios depending mainly on work outsourced by studios abroad.”

The director of Meena, a UNICEF cartoon series which dealt with issues of girl children in South Asia, Ram also made National Award-winning You Said It and Fire Games. He has been receiving a series of lifetime achievement awards since the 90s — from Communications Art Guild Hall of Frame (1996), Advertising Club Bombay (2001), Broadcast India (2003), not to mention the Padma Shri (2014). Recently, he was honoured with Legend of Animation award at the Animation Masters Summit 2016 at Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram.

At 85, Ram Mohan is still part of various projects like Krish, Trish and Balti Boy (KTB). “It is based on a book of Indian folktales compiled by A.K. Ramanujan. The series is steered by three characters — a cat Trish, a monkey Krish and a donkey Balti Boy. We have used Indian style of drawing and tales from Bhojpuri, Rajasthani and Bengali.” His studio, Graphiti Multimedia, was producing KTB for the Children’s Film Society when Cartoon Network bought the TV rights. After years of playing European and American content, cartoon channels are seeking local content now.

That had happened years ago when Meena, which started in Bangladesh, transcended cultures and was produced in five languages — English, Bangla, Hindi, Nepali and Urdu. It was also dubbed into several South Asian languages. In Japan, the little girl speaks about dealing with the trauma of disasters; elsewhere about gender equality, education and child rights. The conversation drifted to song animations like Ek, Anek and short animation films shown on TV. “They set a certain mood for children to sing along. Simple words, simple visuals. The same thing worked in Sesame Street. We used to record children’s songs and animate those with simple visuals.” Meena’s story was developed by UK-based Rachel Carnegie and sketched by Ram Mohan during their conversations. Nearly all his projects are aimed at educating people and he expects support from the government.