How about chaya in space?

KOCHI: In the background, as the mellifluous classic melody ‘Ikkarayanente thamasam’ plays, Shashankan, with a cigarette in his mouth, swirls boiling ‘metre tea’, effortlessly swaying his body in tune with the song. He serves tea to a customer, who turns out to be an astronaut. After a ‘oru kadi edukkette’ (Shall I get you a snack?), the camera zooms out and the audience is shown the ‘chayakkada’, essentially in the form of a spaceship, on the moon.

Ascribing the animation to the adage ‘You’ll find Malayalis even on the moon’, the animation shot ‘Chaya’, a life-like representation interspersed with cartoonish design, blew up on social media raking around 86,500 viewers, solely on Instagram. The creator Aju Mohan, a Thiruvananthapuram native based in Montreal, Canada, is over the moon ever since ‘Chaya’, dedicated to non-resident Malayalis, released.

The mechanical engineering graduate, ‘only on paper’ as he vouches, joined an animation course right after college. Currently working as a senior character animator at a British animation, visual effects company and creative studio ‘Framestore’, Aju knew, almost like a prophecy, that he was meant to be an animator a long time ago. “Though I loved to draw, I was sceptical about the career opportunities in the art industry. Just like the other middle-class families, I decided to study engineering. But after seeing a mutual friend’s animation work, I was astonished. Immediately, I knew that this was what I wanted,” says Aju.

Until ‘Chaya’, the animator was popular for the series ‘The Gebonions’ featuring quirky, comical, purple-tinted characters. “The two-year-old series was inspired by Tom and Jerry. It took several months of experimentation and fine-tuning the character design to achieve the final result. So far, I’ve made 10 episodes,” explains a beaming Aju.

However, a project that is close to his heart is ‘Abhimanyu’, a character from the Indian epic ‘Mahabharata’. “Unfortunately, I could only complete the trailer and not the short film due to several complications. And then there is my latest work ‘Chaya’, which will always be a favourite,” he quips. Scoring on the success of the short, Aju is working on another animation video for Malayalis.

Aju’s works cannot be branded under a single umbrella. A versatile animator with a host of styles, Aju believes one has to be capable of adapting to various techniques to survive in the industry. “However, I’m a fan of animations that border on cartoonish designs,” says The Incredibles fan. Aju prefers working on smaller animation bytes. “These give immense satisfaction. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do the same for a living,” he adds. You can find his works on Instgram @gebonions.