How I became involved in Manipur

(by Tara Douglas, Secretary of the Adivasi Arts Trust.  Tara will be a resource person for the Animation Workshop in Manipur).

In a couple of days time the three week long Animation Workshop in Manipur will start. It feels like a momentous occasion, that has come a long way from my first interaction with Manipuris, back in June 2008. At long last the first Animation Workshop for Tribal Artists was granted support by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, in Delhi; by now the initiative had grown from a modest idea of inviting ten Gond artists to come and learn about animation, to becoming an event for 40 participants from several parts of India. In addition to the Gond artists, arrangements had been made for participants to join the workshop from the Santhal tribe of Jharkhand and West Bengal and, with the workshop falling under the Janapada Sampada Northeast Division of IGNCA, six Manipuris were also invited, through the Manipur Films Division.

It was a very busy two weeks, with the three groups choosing folktales from their own regions to develop through preproduction for short animation films. Unsurprisingly, the participants gravitated towards their strengths: The talented Gond artists plunged straight into painting characters for their short story “The Squirrel’s Dream”, the Santhals kept assembling for intense discussions choosing a story of their own, “A Cold Breeze” and the Manipuris (mostly from the Meitei community, though there was also one Kuki in the group) wasted no time in choosing a story called “Man and Monkey” from their own tradition. I could not fail to notice that the Manipuris were highly focused. They did not seem to require any supervision and were easily able to allocate tasks to the members of their team. One of them, Satya Hijam, clearly had advanced artistic skills and in an offhand manner he revealed his nature as that of a “workaholic”. Quickly and efficiently, Satya designed characters for the Manipuri story and when it came to sound recording Satya once again revealed a hidden talent for mimicking sounds. Before I knew what had happened, the Manipuri team had managed to write the script, create character and background designs and they had already assembled an animatic with dialogues in Meitei language and a scratch musical track featuring the Pena!

Before returning to Imphal, the Manipuris expressed their enjoyment of the workshop and they politely asked me when I would be visiting Manipur to organise a local Animation Workshop over there. I smiled equally politely, but had no serious expectations of visiting Manipur in the near future.

But of course this would not be the end of the story. The Manipuris kept in touch with me via email and Satya in particular relentlessly kept repeating wish for an Animation Workshop to be organised in Manipur. By chance, this Manipur link was further strengthened when I met Dr. R.K. Joykumar Singh at an Indo-Canadian symposium on indigenous art held in 2009 at the National Museum in Delhi. I mumbled on about Manipuris participating in the animation workshop and all of a sudden it was as if a light bulb had been switched on – R.K. Joy also happened to be an animation enthusiast, and he also began insisting that I had to come to Manipur and arrange an Animation Workshop in Imphal. But funds would be needed, and so I prepared a project proposal for a three week long introductory animation workshop and by more good luck I was able to visit Manipur for the first time in December 2010, armed with the elusive and hard to obtain Protected Area Permit that would allow me to cross the border from Nagaland.

The Manipuris continue in their persistence and their hospitality brought me back to Manipur a second time a year later, in December 2011 to follow up with the proposal that had been submitted the previous year to the Government Department of Art and Culture. It was a lucky moment; We have now added a local cultural expert, Mr. Mutua Bahadur to our team, and his distinguished reputation has brought us to the Commissioner of Art and Culture, Mr. R.K. Nemei, who was able to provide his crucial signature to the document that will ensure the support we required for the workshop.

Two months later and I am now back in Imphal for the momentous event, and I continue to be overwhelmed by the relentless determination and enthusiasm of the Manipuri team that has now clearly proven that persistence really does pays off.