Monkey Business

SOMETHING stirs deep inside memory8217;s murky pond when VG Samant mentions Tree of Unity. That rudimentary animation skit, with its incohe...

SOMETHING stirs deep inside memory8217;s murky pond when VG Samant mentions Tree of Unity. That rudimentary animation skit, with its incoherent egg-shaped characters, was part of the late 8217;70s growing-up kit before Pac-Man took over.

8216;8216;Those days, that was mostly what we did, propaganda,8217;8217; says its slightly-built 70-year-old creator, who joined the government8217;s Cartoon Film Unit in 1959 and worked on other socialist throwbacks like 8216;8216;family planning, savings, and even the war with China where we made a film on the 8216;shifting8217; McMahon line8217;8217;.

But propaganda as entertainment has always been a bad idea. 8216;8216;All I wanted to do,8217;8217; says the JJ School of Arts grad, 8216;8216;was to make a large scale animation film for children.8221;

Samant finally quit his job in 1989, got associated with the Children8217;s Film Society of India for a while, before moving on to establish his own animation company, SilverToons, in 1995. Today, after about 50 long years, he awaits the release of his 8216;8216;large-scale8217;8217; film, Hanuman, India8217;s first indigenous animation movie.

8216;8216;Hanuman has size, magical abilities and is a good role model,8217;8217; says Samant, 8216;8216;all essential in entertainment for kids,8217;8217; betraying his still very 8217;70s, un-Bart-Simpsonised sensibilities.

But unlike other one-dimensional portrayals of the simian god, Samant says his Rs 4 crore, 90-minute film, produced in association with Sahara One and Percept Picture Company, is not all about the faithful-devotee aspect of Hanuman8217;s life.

Samant8217;s baby Hanuman is a pudgy, smashingly endearing kid, unburdened by the loyalty that was to dominate the rest of his life.

Samant, a three-time national award-winner, went through every version of the epic8212;from Valmiki8217;s to the Kamba Ramayana8212;to flesh out the mythological character8217;s childhood.

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Hanuman8217;s birth was a momentous occasion, necessitated by a cosmic snafu. 8216;8216;Most people think he is the wind god8217;s son, but actually, Hanuman is an avatar of Shiva.8217;8217; Shiva, who was present at the child8217;s naming ceremony disguised as a holy man, was the one who named him Marut or wind.

8216;8216;Do you know,8217;8217; says Samant, with grandfatherly adoration, 8216;8216;Hanuman was a very mischievous kid, as bratty as Krishna.8217;8217;

But even he had to grow up. 8216;8216;We have tried to incorporate things about him that were not known earlier,8217;8217; says Samant, who takes assertive pride in pointing out that the film is an all-Indian effort.

8216;8216;Over 160 people, including artists and animators, have worked on the film, and everything has been done in-house,8217;8217; he says, of the movie that is scheduled for a month-end release.

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And that sense of self-reliance has always been a big driver. 8216;8216;When I used to go abroad on work, people would ask me about animation in India,8217;8217; says Samant. 8216;8216;I didn8217;t have much to say then, now I8217;ve finally got an answer.8217;8217;