everything should make some sense… hahahaha,

I am trying to solve a riddle for a visual answer.

For my 3rd classroom project I took Hindi Riddles पहेली to make an understanding of the medium of Motion Graphics.
My target audience is kids of the age group of 8 to 12 years

Here, the selected riddles,

1.अन्त कटे तो अंधा हो जाये फिर भी करे प्रकाश
आदि कटे तो रज बन जाए गंगा नहीं निवास

2.खुली रात में पैदा होती, हरी घास पर सोती हूँ
मोती जैसी मूरत मोरी, बादल की मैं पोती हूँ

3.कभी ओढ़नी पूरी ओढ़े, कभी ओढ़े वह आधी
कभी खोल कर, पूरा चेहरा सूत कातती दादी

4.बारह घोड़े तीस गरारी
तीन सौ पैंसठ चढ़ी सवारी

I started with the very first riddle
1.अन्त कटे तो अंधा हो जाये फिर भी करे प्रकाश, आदि कटे तो रज बन जाए गंगा नहीं निवास the answer is सूरज, while making the very first story board I could not think of anything great. I just visualized a simple typographical imaginary with some illustration. It was looking very literal as I followed a discussion with my guide.
Then I tried using basic shapes like line and square. But still the literalness was there. I talked to one of my GD senior Chiru, who suggested that I can use a character to tell the story and then the whole riddle can be an adventure of that character. This idea was quite good as it gave a background to the subject to take place. But this also did not help as still I could not think out of the WORDS.

There was not any visible evidence to say that why am I using this technique to make the subject look interesting?

I got really tired with all this trial and fail and I went home to meet my parents for the new year weekend. My mother is a teacher so I wanted to discuss with her that how she deal with kids when she has to make them understand something. She told me that she make small stories out of ordinary subjects and relate them to what kids already know. I realized that I have failed in making connections.

Then I made a list of things related to the sun indirectly, like there are synonyms

सूर्य के पर्यायवाची शब्द – दिनकर, दिवाकर, भानु, भास्कर, आक, अदित्य, दिनेश, मित्र, मार्तण्ड, मन्दार, पतंग, विहंगम, रवि, प्रभाकर

then Sun is related to day so it can be connected to the moon (night). We have mythological imagery of Sun God which has seven horses. The Yog- Kriya Suryanamaskar is also related to the Sun.

I had a chat over this with one of my senior called Ghate he told me,
“A riddle works because it takes a very familiar idea/object and describe it in an unexpected way, the advantage words have that words are abstract ideas, your mental image of a circle might be Sun, mine can be car tyre hence the ambiguity workout well for riddles but with motion graphic/images you have to show visuals and you have to replace the abstract quality of words with something similar in images plus with motion graphics you have one more advantage, change over time.”

I went to some schools to do a talk based research but unfortunately, these days exams are going on in near by schools. My GD faculty Tarun Deep suggested to organize a workshop in NID itself with the faculty and staff kids, I found it wonderful.

Today morning I discussed all these things with my guide Ajay, now I have to structure the workshop.
There are few point which I need to know at the end of this workshop,
1. Word and Image, How kids make connection with word and image, There will be a series of visuals and I will show that to kids and tell them write whatever comes to there mind. or/and i will tell them the riddles and they have to draw whatever comes in their mind including the answer
2. Color, I want to see how kids relate colors to the words so there will be an exercise based on color
3. Riddles, How much they know about riddles and can they make their own riddles? There will/can be an enacting exercise where they have to enact a word to their friends.

Today, finally I could finish the workshop with kids. It went quite good though not to my expectation, I learnt that how much you prepare, with kids its not going to work the way you want it to happen it will be accordint the kids will.
In the workshop:
The images I showed to the kids, they tried to relate it with their school learnings and text books.
Some of them were talking to the images and making their stories.
They do understand abstract images and can make connection with what they already knew.

While talking to my guide today I realize that I should look back to the context I started the project with.
I took Pahelees, because it has become a dying tradition. When visual medium was not there or was not so powerful that time these Pahelis used to be a very good mind bent as well as a medium of entertainment.

I remember once in a class with Suresh (Graphic Design Faculty) we were discussing about the Indian scripts and why the scripts have so many twists and turns, may be we were used to talk in a very metaphorical language.
While taking the topic of riddle its just not a two lined verse.