Remembering the Father of Indian Animation and the rise of the industry in India

October 11 marks the death anniversary of the only animator to have been awarded the Padma Shri, the man known with affection as the ‘Father of Indian animation’- Ram Mohan. His passing in 2019 was truly the end of an era in the animation world. To the world of culture at large, he remains largely unknown. Even in animation his status and name may be known to some of the thousands of hopefuls lining up at animation courses, but there is no real understanding of his work & career.

To sum up a six-decade long career in a piece is neither fair nor possible. But here is the story in brief.

Ram Mohan came to Bombay in the 50s, a science graduate on his way to further studies but with his heart in cartooning, though he had no formal training in art. He had picked up the rudiments on his own, and with a natural wry sense of humour proceeded to make cartoons which got published in the Illustrated Weekly of India. When the Indian government, with technical cooperation from the Americans, set up the Cartoon Film Unit at the Films Division in Bombay, he went to meet the man in charge of setting it up and training artists – Claire Weeks – a Disney veteran who had worked on films like Snow White, Bambi and Peter Pan. Weeks was impressed with the young man’s talent and included him in the program.

While their first film was narrative – a retelling of the Jataka story of ‘The Banyan Deer’ – the cartoon film unit was essentially at work in spreading ideas. We might call it propaganda, but the themes were largely positive, public service messages and essential information about everything from the Metric system to Health and Sanitation and, of course, the values of family planning! Those cartoon films of the unit may have done more to promote Unity in Diversity among generations of Indians than any politicians might have managed with their speeches in a young democracy.

Just recall the films on Doordarshan – Ek Anek (Dir: Bhimsain) or The Tree of Unity (Dir: V.G. Samant). They are still a golden nostalgic moment presenting our innate goodness and Indianness. These two were not made by Ram Mohan, but he was the first generation of The Cartoon Film Unit and served as an inspiring mentor to artists coming after him, working across departments from scripting to designing to animation to direction. Bhimsain, himself a versatile artist, credited Ram Mohan with showing him the ropes and mentoring him.

He left Films Division in 1968 and after a stint with Prasad Labs, set up Ram Mohan Biographics (RMB) with long-time colleagues – technical wiz S.G. Naik Satam and background designer ‘Bapu’ Parulekar in 1971. Together they kept a dream going, making animated titles for feature films (B.R. Chopra’s Pati Patni aur Woh, Sai Paranjpye’s Chashme Buddoor and Katha, Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj ke Khiladi, Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome, ‘Do Aur Do Paanch, Biwi-o-Biwi, Haseena Maan Jaayegi) and short films, ‘You Said it (1971), Down To Earth (series 1971-74)’ Taru (1989) for CFSI, ‘The White Elephant’ (1994) for UNESCO which won many awards. He also created a series of animated modules for Shyam Benegal for a learning program broadcast from Doordarshan in its infancy.

Ad film pioneers took to working with him to create effects. If you remember your Strepsils, Natraj Pencils (phir champion!), Eveready battery or the Utterly Butterly Delicious Amul animated ads (talking to the 40+ age group here), those were all done either by Ram Mohan or at “Ram Mohan’s” as RMB was known in ad film circles. The studio was also the ‘adda’ of upcoming filmmakers like Govind Nihalani, Prahlad Kakkar, Rani Burra Dey who cite him as their mentor in their early years.

He was also co-director of the classic Indo-Japanese collaboration, Ramayana, with the madly passionate Hugo Sako. That film celebrated 25 years and was re-released theatrically in Japan. It didn’t bring its makers any rewards as political wrangling due to fear of Lord Ram being turned into a cartoon killed its release. It finally got its audience on TV and home video. It has been shown regularly on TV and in most people’s opinion is still the best adaptation of Valmiki’s epic poem.

Ram Mohan’s greatest contribution, however, is a more simple and innocent creation – a little village girl called Meena who brought about awareness throughout rural Southeast Asia from India to Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Meena took up crusades for gender equality, girl child literacy, health issues and even (our current buzzwords) cleanliness and sanitation. Created by UNICEF, this girl and her family and village were brought to life by Ram Mohan in animation and its dozen or so episodes are still being used by the agency and others for spreading the message. In fact, so successful was Meena that UNICEF called in Ram Mohan to help create a similar character (Sara) for the African continent.

Even though his foray into the global service industry with UTV in the late nineties was his greatest regret and failure (primarily as it was more service and less art), it was still a courageous move in a certain light. In 2002, he assumed chairmanship of Graphiti Multimedia, (an offshoot of a company he co-founded in the early nineties to create computer graphics – then a new medium) where he mentored a new generation of young artists and created a successful series based on Indian stories in different art styles. All the while he continued to guide the Meena projects, which trained artists in Bangladesh and Nepal in the art of animation.

Even after debilitating illness and surgery, he made one last film for Films Division at the age of 84 – This was ‘The Pea Plant Legacy’ (2015) – a tribute to the Father of Indian cinema, Dadasheb Phalke, recreating his early experiments in animation and timelapse. It is remarkable in conceptualisation, showcasing many forms of animation — 2D-3D, Stop Motion, timelapse photography — and is both in color and black and white.

Many organisations bestowed upon him lifetime achievement awards from the late nineties, the most important were V.Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 from the Government of Maharashtra and the Padmashri in 2014. Post his demise, efforts by Mumbai International Film Festival, The Animation Society of India, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, through exhibitions, tributes, and master classes, has created more awareness of his large body of work.

All that said, Ram Mohan’s essential legacy is his role as mentor, direct or indirect, for scores of artists who worked under him or were inspired by him. Animation is still in its extended childhood, a child still trying to grow up, but some of the most prominent leading names of this growth – Bhimsain, Rani Burra Day, Kireet Khurana, Shilpa Ranade, Shrirang Sathaye, Sanjiv Waeerkar, Ajit Rao, Gayatri Rao, Pani Tetali, Sumant Rao, Gitanjali Rao and many many more all over India were influenced in some measure by Ram Mohan- especially his tendency to keep doodling and drawing to speak in pictures and images. This is actually what makes him the ‘Father of Indian Animation.’