Sanjay Patel: An Animated Life

In 2010, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco was on the verge of closing its doors. Popular interest in cultural artefacts of antiquity, as observers noted, was on the decline. About a year later, however, the Museum was buzzing with visitors again. What it needed for a revival, it had got from an unlikely source: a man of Gujarati descent working at Pixar, the animation studio set up by Steve Jobs.

Sanjay Patel’s 2011 exhibition, titled ‘Deities, Demons and Dudes With ’Staches’, proved to be a turning point for the Museum’s fortunes. A New York Times review described his creations as ‘Disney-esque’, but there was a lot more to them. As NYT noted, his works that explored Indian mythical characters in a contemporary format infused the Museum with a much-needed touch of effervescence.

Sanjay Patel was raised on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California, from where he moved to California Institute of the Arts to study animation. Having had an avid interest in cartoons and comics from an early age, he was allowed to pursue the call of his imagination by his parents. Straight after school, he found himself at Pixar, where he still works as an animator and for which he recently directed a short film, Sanjay’s Super Team, which has been shortlisted for an Oscar in the animated shorts category.

Patel’s tryst with the Asian Art Museum was an anomaly. The nature of his work is usually too edgy for such a sombre place. ‘My illustrations really had no business being in the museum. But that is exactly why it caught people’s attention. Suddenly commercial work was being juxtaposed against [objects of antiquity]. It was a dream come true to have the ancient and modern, the high and the low, placed right beside each other. To force people to question and reconcile what is art,’ he says in an email interview.

His illustrations of Hindu deities were neo-classical renditions served in the age of pixels, full of whimsy, colour and candour. After many years as an animator at Pixar, Sanjay had gone back to his first love: illustration. It was around that time that he founded Ghee Happy, a writing-cum-publishing venture that explores the annals of Indian Mythology, surrounded by the incense of urban legend and polished by the finesse that Patel has always insisted on. Ghee Happy caught people’s attention, and the illustrations found their way into the Museum’s display halls.

Patel’s latest project is his most ambitious so far, and has many firsts to its credit. It is the first Pixar film based on real-life human beings: in this case, Sanjay himself and his father. It is also the first creation of the studio to turn its gaze exclusively towards Indianness, interest in which has been stirred by the diaspora’s presence in America. And it may also be Pixar’s first foray into such a sensitive field as the subject of a film—not because of its apparent psychology, but its sociology.

In the short film, a young Sanjay is shown going gaga over cartoons and superheroes the way most children do. But unlike most children growing up in America, Sanjay had in his house the presence of a mythical faith, the nuances of which were far beyond the grasp of a mind given to surfing superheroes and supervillains. Patel’s short film addresses the space between these two worlds.

So what kind of research goes into a project like this? ‘One of [animator and chief creative officer of Pixar] John Lasseter’s mantras is, ‘Do your homework’, which is to say, your job as an artist/ storyteller is to acquire a godlike knowledge of your subject. If you know your subject, half the work is done for you—the rest is really your point of view on the subject. As for the subject of the deities, the stories of the gods are some of the oldest stories we know of, [far older than] their contemporary cousins, the superhero comics and movies. Since Pixar is essentially a modern myth-making machine, it seemed fitting to explore these themes at the studio,’ he says.

Pixar is a modern myth-making machine, as Patel calls it, and it has been delving into human psychology with remarkable candour: with animation projects that are simple yet complex in approach.

But religion and deities are a first on the studio’s menu, and for a sensitive subject like this, some controversy is only to be expected. Asked whether he had second thoughts about going ahead with this project and whether the studio had its own qualms, Patel replies, ‘I was at a crossroads with my career at the studio. Having spent the previous decade working by day at Pixar and at night writing and illustrating picture books and graphic novels based on Hindu mythology—it felt like time to decide on one or the other. It was a hard decision, but I decided to forgo the safety and security of Pixar to pursue my personal work. This is when the studio approached me to bring my personal work to work, and try and develop it as a short. Yet I was very reluctant as I was sceptical the studio would really give me freedom to creatively pursue material that was both so personal and so culturally specific. It was only after talking to my dad and directly asking him what I should do, did I finally decide to try and develop this project, and Pixar absolutely supported the creative direction.’

Patel’s childhood and his detachment from his father’s faith form the peg of the short film’s narrative, though it plays out in a sort of unreal world that is actually quite real. One immediately connects with its story, and the film leaves one with a context that is as much one’s own as it was for the filmmaker while growing up. ‘The action was inspired by the myths. Since I didn’t grow up in India, I wasn’t exposed to them in culture, let alone see them on TV. I was an adult when I finally read the Ramayana and learnt about the myths of Hanuman. That poem and those characters ignited my imagination. And yes, it did feel like a childlike wonder to read the stories and have my dad’s gods spring to life very much like superheroes,’ he says. His belated acquaintance with Indian mythological characters filled him with a sense of delight and wonderment, all the more so for how contemporary they felt in a world of modern day superheroes.

As part of the GHEE Happy project, Patel has among other things authored—or illustrated, rather— three books. Has caution been part of his approach?

‘Not extra caution, but just remembering that these deities are some of the most important figures in my parents’ and their communities lives,’ says Patel, ‘It’s not entertainment to them, it is how they sustain and support themselves with these sacred symbols of their faith. Once you know that your loved ones love these characters, you are less likely to compromise them.’

Patel’s journey at Pixar began with A Bug’s Life. Since then, he has worked on a number of animation projects, many of which are now considered classics in a sense, including Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Cars, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University. ‘I am incredibly proud and honoured to work at such an amazing place that continues to put out excellent work year after year. I started working at Pixar as an animator on A Bug’s Life, and since then I animated on many of Pixar’s feature films. I also storyboarded extensively for Monster’s Inc, The Incredibles and Toy Story 2,’ he says of his work.

While pitching his story for Sanjay’s Super Team to John Lasseter, Patel hadn’t imagined that it would take the shape of the most personal story told yet by Pixar. For a myth-making machine, that in itself is a significant step.

While the film is meant for a global audience, the other notable move on the studio’s part seems to be an attempt to especially attract an audience in India. On Sanjay’s Super Team holding some sort of special appeal for viewers here in this country, he has this to say: ‘The most I ever hoped for was to broaden the conversation to include different voices and perspectives. I especially wanted to see and hear voices that my nieces and nephews could relate too. I was lucky to be exposed to my parent’s culture and then study it on my own terms. Being able to draw from such a rich background of East and West to tell a universal story was always the goal. This is definitely a story that only Pixar would tell. It breaks boundaries and conventions for all the right reasons. When the studio is at its best and tells a great story, it has the power to evolve the culture. My colleagues are extremely proud of this project because it’s creatively risky, original and sincere.’

Once released, the film is slated to play alongside the studio’s feature- length production The Good Dinosaur. Given how personal the project is, with his face literally mapped onto a cartoon character with his name, Patel is naturally anxious about the response it gets in India.

‘My wish for someone seeing this in India is to know that the folks at Pixar are paying attention to the richness of their culture and how it carries on to the diaspora. I am thrilled that audiences all over the world will be able to see the short, and hopefully relate to it on some level,’ he says.

Some of Patel’s thrill is personal in another way as well. ‘I grew up not having any idols or cartoons that looked like me,’ he adds, ‘and I am glad with this short we have the opportunity to change that.’

About The Author

Manik Sharma

•