who live in central Arunachal Pradesh: with the Adi, Galo, Nyishi, and Apatani. One of the stories in “The Tales of the Tribes” series was an adaptation of a story about Abotani, considered the ancestor of the Tani people. In 2017, I worked with Rajiv Gandhi University near Itanagar to translate and record the film dialogues in Apatani and Galo, and later that year I went back to central Arunachal to screen “The Tales of the Tribes” to local audiences in Ziro, Basar, as well as in Itanagar.
Is the method of preserving folktales through animated films generating more awareness and interest?
“The Tales of the Tribes” series presents adaptations of the stories of the Tani; the Lepcha of Sikkim; the Angami of Nagaland; a Manipuri story and one from the Pardhan Gonds of central India. Animation is a good way of engaging younger people in traditional stories and storytelling. When the story is adapted to the medium of animated film, it inevitably undergoes transformation because the oral form is very different from the audio-visual. The process of adaptation is complex and interesting, and this is what I was studying during the PhD.
The animated films can only be the starting point for someone to get interested in the storytelling traditions, but it is a way to engage diverse groups of people in traditional culture during workshops to decide how it should be done. We have to do a lot of research, looking at the anthropological texts as well as listening to storytellers.
What are the new projects you are working on?
My ongoing projects include the publication of the collection of Wancho myths and folktales, and adapting a Wancho story for a short animated film. There is a lot more documentation to be done with the Wancho community and other local groups, the Mao community of Manipur, for example, are also interested.
Another project is to make an animated film on the myths of the Andamanese people. The project has started, but I will need to record dialogues for the film in the Andamanese language, of which only a few speakers are left. The work requires financial and logistical support. It is difficult to do this work in India, and I am also applying for a comparative storytelling, documentation, and art project based in the UK.