Through the series, Hasya Kavi Potliwala, theatre and film director Feroz Abbas Khan wanted to create an animation character who is instantly relatable, likeable, charming and highly entertaining. By Sakshi Sharma
Imagine sitting with a basket of homemade popcorn, coffee and watching Hum Saath Saath Hai with your family on television. Suddenly, there’s an advertisement that tells you to wash your hands thrice a day for at least two minutes. In the very next moment, you have a mobile phone ad, which says that all its proceeds will be used for COVID relief. Irritated with similar ads, you look for some news as little did you know it’s the same everywhere. As the sad and repetitive news has taken a toll on you, you finally settle yourself with some comedy and fun content online.
In this pandemic-hit world, almost every other advertisement, actors in daily soap and even online films are doing their bit by making us aware about the severe consequences of the virus and ways to be safe. But people are certainly looking for some shift to get over the prolonged gloominess.
Do you remember the old days when the puppet theatre, cartoons and animated shows subtly talked about social issues right from gender biasness to environment, politics, pollution and much more? Well, nowadays, we don’t get to see the puppet theatre but there are modern day memes, which has certainly forced us to think and drive conversations in an informed direction.
Humour has often been used in a witty and sarcastic way to depict inequality, ignorance and injustice. For instance, Sanitary Panels, an Indian web comic analyses various issues related to social justice in four panels or less. Another in line is Green Humour, which raises environmental concern. BoJack Horseman (2014) is a Netflix animated sitcom, which addresses contemporary matters of American sexism. It has separate episodes dedicated for depression, abortion and other similar issues, which are often swept under the carpet.
A similar idea was used by the Population Foundation of India when they had an urgent mandate to produce communication material to deal with stigma and myths arising due to Coronavirus as part of a national level campaign. They had to curate and create verified, reliable, and updated communication materials on COVID-19, along with the Government of India. Executive director of the Population Foundation, Poonam Muttreja said, “There is an overload of information on social media and it is extremely hard to sift the truth from falsehood. We felt that in such sombre times, we need the right information to empower ourselves and some humour to tide over these grave times.”
For the campaign, they have created a series of short animation films on key issues related to the pandemic. The series features a poet called Potliwala, who recites short poems in each film on issues related to COVID-19. These include necessary issues such as the use of masks, social distancing, precautions, stigma and discrimination. It uses entertainment education to share messages in an impactful and entertaining manner. The first of these animation shorts is a bi-weekly series titled, Hasya Kavi Potliwala, conceptualised and produced by theatre and film director, Feroz Abbas Khan.
Here are the excerpts of our conversation with him, telling us about how he went about with this idea.
How did you conceptualise it?
Messaging through films is a tricky business and particularly when so many are attempting to be heard on Corona. A lot of stuff we saw on the internet were sincere in its intentions but not effective in communication. Therefore, I decided to create an animation character who is instantly relatable, likeable, charming and highly entertaining. He, Potliwala, delivers a powerful message and performance in 30 seconds cloaked as a beautiful poem.
Since the series is a part of a campaign that caters to all age groups, why did you think of disseminating information through an animated series and not a usual one?
The lockdown has been a barrier for most of the shootings. So due to this, we couldn’t shoot with actors, which made way for animation as the best route possible. In hindsight, I believe it was a blessing in disguise because it forced us to think harder and push our boundaries. With the main character, who is an old man, we have been able to transcend all age barriers.
What do you think about combining humour with social issues? Does it help reach a wider audience?
We have been bombarded with constant messaging about Coronavirus everywhere that a certain fatigue has set in. The lockdown too had its effect on the mood of the people and we felt that humour will cheer them up and the message will be more effective.
As the series has short clips, how challenging is it to convey strong and impactful messages in such a restricted time frame?
With shorter attention span and massive content in the digital world, anything long lands up in the bin. Short and entertaining messages have more recall value and it’s consumed in huge numbers. It goes viral very quickly and everyone wants to share — that is its power.
You said that “We want to trigger a behaviour change through humour, poetry and instantly likeable character of Potliwala...” What more do you intend to achieve through it?
Along with this, we want a positive behavioural change particularly towards the growing stigma. Our frontline health workers including doctors are being stigmatised and that is unacceptable. The COVID patients are ostracised and even recovered patients are boycotted. We hope this attempt can help change attitudes.
Since you are a theatre director primarily, have you worked on something like this before? How different was it?
Yes, this is very different from theatre but honestly, I just jumped into it without fearing the consequences. I found some wonderful collaborators in writer Iqbal Raj and the animation team led by Supreet and Taruna at Doublexstudio.
(The series was launched on the MyGov’s COVID-19 platform.)
