Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling

In the lushly animated short film Baat Wahi Hai (It’s the Same Story), two traditional Indian storytellers present their own versions of a millennia-old Hindu myth. The Indian filmmaker Nina Sabnani and a team of artists from the state of Rajasthan in northwest India provide vibrant animated visuals, which are inspired by images painted onto the wooden box of a ‘kaavad’. These intricately decorated ‘portable shrines’ have been part of the region’s rich storytelling tradition for centuries. Also drawing inspiration from many panels and compartments of the kaavad, the duelling orators give intersecting and conflicting accounts of how Shravan Kumara from the Hindu text the Ramayana was born to parents who had sacrificed their eyes for his birth, and how he asked the god Vishnu to restore their sight. In addition to offering viewers a rich slice of traditional art and mythology, the work evokes the ways in which stories take on new meanings over time.