Veteran actress Revathi will be voice-acting for her first ever animation film. Titled Punyakoti, the film will be dubbed in Sanskrit, and is directed by Ravi Shankar V. Ilaiyaraaja will compose the music.
The actress was initially hesitant about working on the film since Sanskrit is rarely spoken in India. Her fears were allayed when she heard the story of Punyakoti. “I loved the story that is based on the folk tale, The Cow and The Tiger,” she told The Hindu in an interview. “In the story, the cow makes good of her promise of returning to the tiger after fulfilling her duty to her calf. The moral is about the importance of keeping your word. It talks about how humans are affecting the ecosystem. I guess I do like my roles to have some meaning.”
Like her previous films Amma Kanakku and Margarita With A Straw, Punyakoti has a social angle too. “It talks about how humans are affecting the eco-system. I guess I do like my roles to have some meaning,” Revathi said.
The film will also feature director Ravi Shankar’s daughter, Sneha. She will dub for Putta, the playful son of the cowherd. Putta and Punyakoti’s calf are best friends in the film. Sneha told The Hindu that she liked the story as soon as her father narrated it to her. “My dad and I were travelling in a bus about three-four years ago and I was extremely bored. I asked my dad to tell me a story. He narrated the story of Punyakoti that he is very fond of and immediately I too liked the story,” she said.
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In addition to dubbing for Putta, Sneha was also roped in to help Revathi with the film’s Sanskrit dialogues. “The bit of Sanskrit I learned in school wasn’t quite enough,” she said.
She also found Sneha’s command over the language incredible.”I found it incredible that she could speak such good Sanskrit, considering how the language is scarcely used in conversations. The very structure of the language posed problems. English sentences like, ‘I want to leave’, when in Sanskrit, would read, ‘Leave, I want to’. I’d sit with her every day and learn intricacies like intonation and stress,” said Revathi.
Punyakoti is based on a popular Kannada folk song about a cow that speaks the truth at all times. Ravi Shankar launched a campaign to crowd source funds for the film this June, and has collected Rs 12 Lakhs thus far.