The Oscars have been announced and there’s a flutter of excitement and activity at Kandathil House, Ebenezer Lane, Nalanchira. Journalists are busy asking a long list of questions and clicking photographs of K. Skaria and his wife, Thankamma.
The latter brings out a folder containing some of Sajan Skaria’s (their son) sketches and paintings and the photographers start focussing their lenses on them. The duo, although basking in the attention, looks dazed as they pose, answer a string of similarly-framed questions while managing a stream of congratulatory phone calls.
“It’s been a long day. Ever since an article announcing that Sajan will be attending the Oscars appeared in the local newspaper, we have been flooded with calls from family and friends and the media. We have three phones, and all three have been ringing off the hook,” says Skaria, a former Zoology professor at Mar Ivanios College.
An employee at Pixar, Sajan, who currently lives in San Francisco, worked as the character supervisor in Inside Out , which won the Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars. Although he did not go up on stage to receive the award, his parents say he was excited about attending the event. “Even as the previous films he has worked in { Cars and Finding Nemo } were nominated and won awards, this is the first time he is attending the event.”
A software engineer from Regional Engineering College, Calicut (now, National Institute of Technology), Sajan who worked for a software company in Bengaluru for a couple of years found that it was not his calling. As he wanted to pursue his love for drawing, a post-graduate course in computer graphics at Viz Lab, Texas A&M University in the United States seemed the right choice. He got a position in Pixar in 2001 via campus placement.
The excited parents say they woke up early in the morning to watch the Oscars.
“The award for Inside Out was expected. In fact, Sajan himself predicted a win. He was proud of the work that had gone into the film and says it’s one of Pixar’s best.”
They have yet to congratulate their son though. “He called us before he left for Los Angeles for the ceremony. He warned us that he would be busy and would not be available on the phone for the next couple of days. We did speak to his wife, Mary Ann. She and the children, Esha and Zack, are thrilled to bits by the win. They were a tad disappointed they could not attend the event as the invite did not extend to family. Even during film previews only Sajan and Mary Ann attend them,” says Thankamma, a former teacher at St. Goretti Girls High School.
Inside Out is about a girl Riley who tries to adapt to another city. A 3-D animation, it deals with a range of emotions and how she finally learns to adjust to her new surroundings. Have they watched the film? “No. We were unable to as I was unwell when the movie was released. We will be watching it soon as the DVD of the film is now available,” says Skaria.
They have watched some of the other movies that Sajan has worked on such as the Toy Story series, Ratatouille , Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo and are amazed each time they see their son’s designs come to life.
“All three of our sons — Abu, Jacob and Sajan — are fond of art. Sajan however, started drawing in earnest when he had fractured his leg and was confined to bed for three months. He loves to doodle and sketch, and does that even now when he is here on visits. He was here last month for a week,” says Thankamma. The duo is waiting excitedly for his phone call. “We want to hear all about it… He was looking forward to seeing Priyanka Chopra; we wonder if he did…”
