A still from ‘The Grandys’
Vijay Ashokan hated learning the Thirukural as a child. “We would have to memorise it and it was very difficult. Even if we made a small mistake while reciting or writing it, we would be chided.”
Learning the ancient Tamil text by rote irked Vijay as a child. “I developed an aversion towards the text and its author, Thiruvalluvar,” he recalls. Luckily, after schooling, he chanced upon a translated version of the book that changed his perspective. “I realised how great he was and understood the depth of his work.”
Cut to 2024, and Vijay Ashokan, now a Chennai-based motion picture architect (someone adept at filmmaking, live action and animation), is coming out with The Grandys, an animated web-series aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 6. It is slated to release later this month on Reliance Animation’s YouTube channel.
“As the historicity of Thiruvalluvar is uncertain, there is a lot of mystery about how he looked and what kind of a person he was. What if he was a cute, bubbly guy who loved children? That’s the thought with which I started The Grandys,”reveals Vijay, whose VA Studios also works on videos for the Tamil Nadu School Education Department.
A still from ‘The Grandys’
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The Grandys will feature Thiruvalluvar taking a trip on a time-machine and arriving in 2024, where he finds children struggling to learn his work. Each episode will be about 22 minutes long, with episodes dropping weekly.
It will be a lot of fun, he promises, and will also impart important life lessons. “A lot of parent groups we spoke to revealed that their children were addicted to gadgets and thus we shaped up The Grandys as an informative, moral series with a fun storyline.”
It will also bring to life through animation a few popular personalities from the past to inform children on the people who made a difference to this world. “There’s Bruce Lee for ozhukkam (discipline), Mohammad Ali for pugazh (fame)and so on,” he says.
The Grandys is brought to life using 2D classical animation, which features hand-drawn strokes. “Every art is hand-drawn and digitally animated using various software. Motion capture was used to get details like hairstyles. We did not want to use a lot of technology because it might dilute the creative strokes that come from the human brain.”
The series was initially titled Mr and Mrs Thiruvalluvar as it also features his wife, Vasuki in a vital role, apart from a princess and a science genius, among others. But that would mean limiting the audience to the Tamil diaspora, and the makers thus chose to re-christen it. “I don’t see this as an effort to promote the Tamil language,” explains Vijay, “Rather, it is to promote a Tamilian who had words of wisdom that could be useful to your life, irrespective of the language you speak or which part of the world you come from.”
Vijay Ashokan
Basis response to the series, Vijay will embark on another concept revolving around Thiruvalluvar but aimed at the 6-9 age group, discussing a different set of topics. “Parents we pitched these ideas to were happy because kids won’t get addicted to them, rather learn a thing or two that will hold them in good stead for life.”
Episodes of The Grandys will stream on Reliance Animation’s YouTube channel (Big Animation) in December, in Tamil, followed by Hindi and English versions in following months. All episodes will be streamed in Amazon Prime Kids from April 2025.
Published – December 10, 2024 11:56 am IST