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Bhubaneswar, August 17: English-born anthropologist and tribal activist Verrier Elwin is being resurrected as an animated character with a special purpose. He will be the narrator of a five-part animated series of tribal tales.
The character is being ‘pixelled out’ by a group of young animators and artists from Jharkhand, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya at a three-week workshop being organised by Adivasi Arts Trust (AAT). The workshop, being held at Centurion University, started August 10.
AAT, a trust based in the United Kingdom, has been working on the animated series named ‘Tales of the Tribes’ since 2011. The series includes five folk tales from as many states — ‘Manjoor Jhali’ from Madhya Pradesh, ‘Abotani’ from Arunachal Pradesh, ‘Man Tiger Spirit’ from Nagaland, ‘Tapta’ from Manipur and ‘Nye Mayal Kyong’ from Sikkim.
According to Tara Douglas, the founder of AAT, they chose Verrier to be this character who narrates the tales as he had extensively worked on the tribes of India.
“I thought Verrier would be the most appropriate person to introduce these stories as he had lived most of his life with tribal communities in central India and later in the Northeast. He has documented many volumes of folk tales and published collections such as ‘Myths of Middle India’, ‘Tribal Myths of Orissa’, and ‘Myths of the North-East Frontier of India’.”
Tara says the character of Verrier would be a sort of “master of ceremonies” who will introduce viewers to the tales. Animation work on the tales has already been completed.
AAT, Tara says, has been working towards preserving the folk tales Indian tribes. “Each tribe has a distinctive folk tale. Through AAT we are trying to popularise these to allow children to learn them. A few years ago we animated folk tales of tribes from Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. This time we have included those from the Northeast,” Tara said.
Arak Sangma, a Garo artist from Meghalaya, who is also a relative of Verrier, is working on the anthropologist’s character. “I have done much research into creating the character. I pored over many pictures of Dr Verrier and read up several stories about him to flesh out this character. Verrier was greatly influenced by the Indian culture and tribes of Central and Northeast India; that is why I have depicted him wearing a dhoti and Naga Shawl,” Arak said.
Kirat Brahma, an animator on the project, also found creating the character a challenging task. “Though he was a Britisher, Verrier was greatly influenced by Indian Culture. His association with Mahatma Gandhi made him to follow his ideology. We had to keep all that in mind while creating the character and presenting it with a firm connection to our culture. We were able to rediscover Verrier while creating this character.”
Kirat also found the folk tales that are part of the series as interesting as the work he had done on the Gond tribe. “There are so many tribes in India and each tribe has interesting tales,” he says.
The team also includes animators Wangdan Wangpan from Arunachal Pradesh and Rabindra Kumar Bhagat from Jharkhand. Rabindra, Wangdon and Kirat, alumnae of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, are founders of an animation start-up and Wangdan was part of the team that animated the tale ‘Abotani’. “Animation can project folk tales for children and if it is done properly can make children understand them better,” Wangdan said.
Rabindra said the group was also planning to animate more folk tales of India and are planning some projects.
The voice-over for Verrier is being handled by Manie Ravi, an Oriya. “It felt wonderful dubbing for the character. Initially I knew nothing about Verrier. But I got into the character after I did some research. When Tara told me these animations are for children, it became easier for me to do it,” Ravi said.
