Manzil Animation Workshop in Delhi

Thanks to Kristeen Singh I had the pleasure of doing my first animation workshop in India with the amazing people at a very special org in Khan Market, called Manzil.We met up with some of the folks from Manzil at Lodhi Gardens, where there was some beautiful old architecture and a picnic for special needs kids and kids from Manzil. Afterwards, Jimmy who is volunteering there took us to Manzil's Khan Market location where we cut used paper to be used as small flipbooks for the workshop. The idea was to use readily available, recycled materials to show the kids how to create animation in a way that they could continue long after I was gone, without materials they did not have access to.There were many things going on that day, and so our first round was with some adult volunteers including Ravi's mom and his sister Sonia. That worked well as a testing ground, before the children arrived later on. There were a lot of wonderful animations created that day by children and adults.We took a break in between and shared some singing and dancing. There's a lot of warmth and love there from Ravi (who was at a conference but joined us afterwards), his mother and sister Sonia (founders of Manzil), Shalu who shared dance and insights and to all the people who teach there and the children who come there (whose parents work for richer families in the neighborhood).Afterwards, a group of kids and young adults joined me for a session on filmmaking where I shared my short film Gul. It was fun to introduce the piece and the wonderful Sindhi music from Pakistan. The discussion afterwards was a lot of fun and I felt humbled at the appreciation and even more so at the amount of thought that people put into expressing their interpretations of the film. This after all was my wish with the piece, so it was a lot of fun.It's amazing to share the joy of animation through the medium of flipbooks which is accessible to all. Thanks to Jimmy and everyone else for helping to make this first effort a success! It was really great to share art, laughter and some great food with my new friends in Delhi.