The Animation Workshop to recreate Verrier Elwin as a presenter for a series of short animated adaptations of tribal folktales is officially drawing to a close.  The team that have come from various parts of the country have been at the Centurion University in Bhubaneshwar for three weeks, and they have managed to work out how the animated sequences will work, what needs to be done and how it will be done.  They have made a storyboard which depicts each shot, so as to determine the continuity.  One of them, a young Garo artist from Meghalaya called Arak Sangma not only designed the Elwin character, but also created all the additional artwork required for the shots:  the scenes will take place in a tribal forest composed from artwork that was created for the series by several Pardhan Gond artists from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, last year.

The sequences that are now being worked on link the collection of five animated films together.

Dr Verrier Elwin was an eminent anthropologist and visionary who made a huge contribution to the knowledge about tribal cultures in India, and now he will introduce the folktales to wider audiences and invite them to vote and choose their favorite, as this is a storytelling competition.  The prize is to be a Trophy for the story that gets the most votes from young audiences across the country, and particularly in the areas from where the stories originate.

Dr Elwin died in 1964, having spent most of his life working for the social benefit of the tribes in India.  During the latter part of his life, he did receive acknowledgment for his work, and he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1961.  He was not one for preserving tribal cultures and keeping them as they were; as he said himself, his approach to life was dynamic. If only he had been around today to see the project that his work has inspired, he would undoubtedly have been excited by it.

Reading from The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin (1964: 303):

"We should lay much greater stress on the possibility of the tribal people helping us. At present all the emphasis is on our helping them.  Let us teach them that their own culture, their own arts are precious things that we respect and need. When they feel they can make a contribution to their country, they will feel a part of it: this is therefore an important aspect of their integration."