A joker of positivity to a fault” is how animators Sumit Kumar and Adhiraj Singh define their latest creation, Poojita—the protagonist of an animated series called Aaapki Poojita for grown-ups. She is the ‘good Indian daughter’ clad in a yellow salwar kameez with her dupatta firmly pinned in place. The embodiment of the ‘sanskaari Indian girl’, she is obedient, optimistic, and is there to solve every problem her family, comprising baa, bauji, bhabhi and Chintoo, faces.
Does it remind you of an Indian soap opera? Or every Indian soap on television, for that matter? But it’s where Kumar and Singh seem to have drawn inspiration from for India’s first animated show for adults. The pilot episode of eight-plus minutes has already garnered 93,000 views on YouTube.
The positive energy of the character—a take on the unrealistic social expectations from women—is stretched to such extreme lengths by the creators that the show borders on satire. So, you have Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes rushing in with a bowl overflowing sugar when someone requests for a little more sweetness in the tea, or diving into the river and fighting off crocodiles to retrieve the ball a young boy was playing with—the degree of goodness is amplified, giving it an almost bizarre edge.
“The idea first came when a production house approached us to do an animated show right before the pandemic. They had seen our webcomic on IIT preparations that took a dig at the madness at the time,” says Kumar, founder of Bakarmax, a Mumbai-based indie comic and animation studio. Some of their recent creations are the comedy sketches, Dalit Card: You are Born with it and Icchadhari Tatti, a shape-shifting piece of excrescence.
In December last year, Kumar and Singh went on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to raise funds for Aaapki Poojita. By December 10, eight days after the campaign began, they had garnered $34,961, going beyond their target of $25,064. The creators are now busy with the pre-production of Aaapki Poojita. Once ready, they plan to approach one of the many Indian animation studios where Hollywood shows are outsourced.
Animated shows for adults are nothing new overseas—shows like BoJack Horseman, The Simpsons and Rick and Morty have long entertained grownups. In India, however, homemade animation caters only to children. Bakarmax is eager to fill the vacuum. Kumar says, “We can ease people into it.” The creators are now on the lookout for a suitable OTT platform for their character that is “endearing and frustrating in equal measure”.