Animation
The Aadamkhors
At around 5 AM on 8th December, 2019, a massive fire broke out in a luggage factory in the Anaj Mandi neighborhood of Delhi. Over one hundred workers were sleeping on the upper floors of the factory when the fire broke out, and found themselves trapped inside. The factory had been operating illegally without fire escapes, and the terrace door had been bolted shut. Many of the 59 workers rescued by the fire department suffered serious burn injuries. The remaining 43 workers perished in the flames. One of these 43 workers, Musharraf Ali, managed to call his best friend Shobhit (Monu) Aggarwal moments before he died. His phone call was recorded and briefly became a sensation in Indian media.
This is a short animation of a poem written by the actor Sushant Singh, who is from the same town as Shobhit. The poem was inspired by this tragedy, and in particular by Musharraf and Shobhit’s final conversation. It was translated to Tamil by Muthuvel, and is performed here by Anandsami.
We also created a Hindi version, performed by the author himself, Sushant Singh..
Minimum Wage
A video explainer in Tamil by Thozhilalar Koodam on the importance of minimum wage and how employers evade manditory updates and keep the wage low.
Kharms trailer
A trailer for our play Mondays are best for flying out of windows. Not exactly animation, but I wanted to play with the technique of moving a camera across a still graphic to tell a story. Music by Abhaydev Praful.
The Moose
A short animation inspired by ‘The Moose’ – a poem by Elizabeth Bishop.
I made this animated short in 2006, soon after a major storm had swept through the Northeastern United States causing the Sycamore tree near my residence to lose most of its upper branches.The morning after the storm I filled the trunk and back seat of my car with Sycamore detritus, not wanting it to go to waste (image-search “sycamore” it and you will understand!).
One branch in particular bore a striking resemblance to Alces alces, otherwise known as the North American Moose. And this unforeseen connection between a beloved mammal and a beloved tree resonated in my mind with the work of a beloved poet, Elizabeth Bishop.
This film was an attempt to connect it all. It is retroactively dedicated to anyone who loves the Sycamore tree, the limbo of prolonged long-distance transportation, and of course the North American Moose.