Animator Aju Mohan’s comic twist to an iconic scene in ‘Manichitrathazhu’ goes viral

“I am still on cloud nine!” Aju Mohan can’t cease gushing ever since his humorous tackle the scene from Malayalam basic Manichitrathazhu has gone viral. The animator’s 18-second video, Gangeeeeeeee!! (Tribute to Manichitrathazhu) has clocked over one lakh views (and counting) on his Instagram web page, @gebonions.

In what he calls “a tribute to Manichitrathazhu”, Aju has given a comic twist to the scene the place actor Shobana dances to the music ‘Oru Murai Vanthu Parthaya’, interchanging between her characters, Ganga, and Nagavalli, the dancer. As she dances, Aju crops the twist in the story. The ground offers away and he or she falls down! That’s once you hear “Gangeee…”, the well-known dialogue in the film by Nakulan (performed by Suresh Gopi), which brings again Ganga from her ‘possessed’ state.

“When I posted it on my Instagram page on Tuesday night (February 16), I was a bit apprehensive about how people were going to take it. But it was overwhelming to read all the comments the next day. It was like a dream,” Aju writes to us over an e mail from Montreal, Canada, the place he’s working with a VFX firm, Framestore.

Aju says that the concept simply “popped up” sooner or later. “Lucky, I guess! I was 11 when I saw this movie and it scared me a lot. Even now certain scenes give me the creeps. So I thought, how do I turn a horror scene into a comedy. The best way to do it was by slapstick,” says the 38-year-old, a local of Thiruvananthapuram. So, in accordance to him, what may need occurred to Ganga after the autumn? “I believe she is cured with that fall and woke up as herself with a very sore back!”

It took Aju almost a month to end the video. The work was completed in Blender, a free open supply software program. “I am a character animator and I am not proficient in Blender. So I had to refer to a lot of YouTube tutorials to make it work. Since I had to do everything myself and I am not an expert in departments such as lighting, modelling, texturing, cloth simulation (giving a realistic touch to a character’s outfits) etc… I had to go through several trial and error sessions to get the desired visual quality,” he explains.

The mechanical engineer (“just on paper, I have absolutely no idea of how to fix even a toy car”) did a course in animation from Toonz Animation in Thiruvananthapuram and has been working in the animation business for the final 14 years. Previously employed with Dreamworks India in Bengaluru he had been an animator on tasks equivalent to Kung Fu Panda 3, Trolls, Penguins of Madagascar, Deadpool 2 and Mulan.

He has additionally created an animated sequence titled The Gebonions. “The project is close to my heart. It is about two tiny aliens chasing another small alien, an idea inspired by Tom and Jerry. After 10 episodes I took a break and hope to start it again,” says Aju.

Check out his works on the YouTube web page, The Gebonions, or on Instagram.