Beat It

That led to Dhak, a short film about a child who, struggling to play his own drum, remembers the percussion beats that reverberate during the Pujas. The boy is borne on the wings of memory8212;and the waves of primal, charged sound8212;to the festivities: The aarti before the idol, swirling, dissolves into smoke; the smoke, rising, morphs into gold designs on a devotee8217;s sari border; the sari, rippling, becomes the all-seeing, all-knowing third eye of the goddess. The mind8217;s journey complete, the child plays his drum.

In a whirlwind three minutes, the film captures the colours and rhythms of the festival, seen through the eyes of a child. It recently won the Award of Excellence for best animation film from the Association Internationale du Film d8217;Animation ASIFA, India.

The joint winner was Gayatri Rao8217;s Raju And I, about a city boy, Atul, whose best friend has run away from his village. Searching for Raju in the city, Atul encounters a world he sees every day but failed to observe8212;urchins selling jasmine strings at traffic lights, scrounging alongside crows and stray dogs in dumpsters, or ferrying wire baskets of chai.

Dhak and Raju And I were selected from 50 films by a jury comprising members of ASIFA8217;s San Francisco chapter. They were among more than 200 entries.

At a decidedly low-key awards ceremony held recently in Worli, Mumbai, the only cameras in view were handycams toted by youthful baseball-tee-clad contestants. There was no carpet, red or otherwise, for the nominees. 8216;8216;Is that alcohol?8217;8217; a girl with flat-ironed hair asked plaintively, pointing to a drinks tray. Alas, it was only virgin pina colada.

Bereft of razzle-dazzle, the event nonetheless highlighted the ambitions of the country8217;s animation film industry.

8216;8216;Global studios are outsourcing animation work to India in a big way because of low production costs and good results,8217;8217; said the manager of a computing lab. Another official estimated the industry to be between 300 million and 1 billion.

Not everyone was gung-ho. Rao, 37, later said Indian studios continue to largely contribute 8216;8216;finishing8217;8217; labour for projects conceived and created in the US. Chakraborty agreed. Despite the explosion of training schools, few teach students 8216;8216;not to become just animators, but animation film directors,8217;8217; he said.

In Raju And I, Rao8217;s quest for an Indian idiom affected not only content 8216;8216;It has the details of daily life around us, the plastic bag worn over the head when it rains8217;8217;, but style.

The background in each scene was treated with crayons, Rao explained, because 8216;8216;it8217;s grainy and detailed, and India is so rich and colourful and textured.8217;8217; Similarly, the drawings of the characters have distinctly choppy seams. 8220;Everything is a little dirty,8221; said Chetan Sharma, Rao8217;s colleague.

The film aims to sensitise urban school children, who often ridicule their street counterparts making the transition to public schools. Dhak, on the other hand, has 8216;8216;no message, it was just for fun8217;8217;, said Chakraborty. But he shares Rao8217;s conviction that Indian animation must have a discernible identity. 8216;8216;Whatever8217;s happening is a copy of Western animation,8217;8217; he said, adding that Dhak sidesteps the 8216;8216;Disney style8221;.