KOCHI: The ‘Nagumo auto tune’ almost broke social media. The hilariously-crafted animation clip of three men ferrying a coffin in an autorickshaw, all synced with the segment of the Carnatic piece Nagumo taken from Malayalam movie Chitram, has been making waves online. Creator Anand S Babu still remains awestruck at how his work is being celebrated. “I just wanted to take a break from the routine work at office, and that is how Nagumo came about. In fact, it was just uploaded as a personal creation on my page. But soon, it went viral,” says Anand, who hails from Thiruvananthapuram and is currently an animation director at Vaibhav Studios, Mumbai.
The plain 2D animation clip features three men carrying a coffin in an auto, while they render the song. The high point occurs when the coffin is taken out. The 28-second video was uploaded on Friday and went viral instantly, having been shared at an insane rate. “I was elated when the video started garnering attention. Then it caught on, and it got overwhelming and dizzying for me. So I stopped reading the comments,” he says.
For someone who is passionate about music, Anand says creating an animation to tunes is very interesting. “The music itself will direct the rest of the animation, its pacing, rhythm and such. I enjoyed a lot while creating this,” he adds. Another thing of notice is that Anand only created his characters as stick-like figures without laying much detail. “I only gave a rough caricature figure to the characters. The focus was on the song,” he says.
The video has been received as a satire on the nature of roads in the city. “The audience themselves attributed a meaning to the song. I like the references that people are giving to this illogical theme,” he chuckles. “If that singer hadn’t sung like that, I wouldn’t have featured the road even,” he says. Anand says that he had shortlisted the Nagumo song a while ago as he thought it would make the ideal choice to create some entertainment.