MICA students produce audio novels to gift to Blind People’s Association

“The entire project, from script writing, voice recording to editing was done virtually from different locations on our mobile phones,” said Ritwik Brahma, first year PGP student from the team that won the first prize for audio novel titled ‘Working from Home – A Privilege of the Few’.

It examined two sections of the society — one that is fortunate to work from home during the pandemic, while the other that had to step out to work.

Bhushan Punani, general secretary BPA, said, “The scene students created through audio novels is as good as a movie. While the audio format is very powerful, it is the only format for people with visual impairment.”

MICA had been conducting a photo novel workshop for the incoming students for many years but due to Covid lockdown in 2020, the format was changed to audio novel.

Prof Kallol Das, anchor faculty, audio-novel workshop at MICA, said, “Given the increasing popularity of podcasts, we introduced an audio novel workshop last year. The students produced 20 audio novels on a variety of social issues.”

The institute has published over 100 photo novels till date. Dr Preeti Shroff, Dean, MICA, said, “Real management is about solving the most important issues of our society as well as managing oneself. The goal is to help students reflect on self and society in a creative way, and also design a digital story-telling business model.”