Ghatotkach (animation)

Veteran director Singeetham Srinivas Rao and his team have to work a little harder to tell us who Ghatotkach is, and this happily deflects our attention from the fact that his mom was a rakshashi ( the only hint is that she is coloured a deep blue hue). That would make our hero a half-rakshasha, and that would never do, would it?

So Ghattu is a plump, cheerful little boy, full of magic tricks. And Gajju, an addle-pated elephant who can never remember anything, is his best friend. In the first half, the two roam hither and thither, sing a song with the animals in the jungle (all very Jungle Book, especially the way some of the critters are: the snake is strongly reminiscent of Ka the python, and the bear is very like the lovable Baloo). Post interval, the grown-up Ghatotkach, armed with a pot belly, fulfils his destiny: to help destroy Duryodhan, the evil Kaurav, who was instrumental in throwing out the noble Pandavs from their kingdom.

The animation is patchy: some of it is very good, some distinctly amateur. And the whole Abhimanyu-Surekha strand Ghatotkach helps his cuz, son of Arjun, find his true love) unfolds like a Bollywood romance, and a whole lot of time is spent in going into Krishna’s (he’s all pasty-faced, instead of dark; gods have to be fair and lovely) kahani. But there’s enough in Ghatotkach to keep the tots happy. Just make sure they are really little, or they will start comparing what they are catching on the big screen to what they get for free on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, and that, let us tell you, will not be a good thing. Even a generic toon on Pogo is superior to animation movies in India. Still.

shubhra.gupta@gmail.com