{"id":374,"date":"2011-11-10T06:37:40","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T06:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/aliteraryspirit\/?p=374"},"modified":"2011-10-27T22:41:36","modified_gmt":"2011-10-27T22:41:36","slug":"ramayana-divine-loophole-by-sanjay-patel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/aliteraryspirit\/2011\/11\/ramayana-divine-loophole-by-sanjay-patel.html","title":{"rendered":"Ramayana by Sanjay Patel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Purchase Ramayana<\/a> from the Beliefnet Shopping Mall<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ramayana: Divine Loophole
\n<\/big>By Sanjay Patel<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Review<\/strong>:The Ramayana is a legendary book\u2014not just in terms of content but in terms of sheer size.\u00a0 The story has been told and retold over a 2,000 history.\u00a0 And so developing a new re-telling of this epic book might be daunting unless you\u2019re Sanjay Patel.<\/p>\n

Patel has worked for Pixar for many years and his contemporary illustrations were what drew me to the book in the first place.\u00a0 Most Hindu spiritual stories are terribly illustrated\u2014and even more poorly organized.\u00a0 Patel\u2019s background in the animation world prepared him to tackle this enormous project and do it successfully.<\/p>\n

Patel makes the story accessible and gives readers of every faith something interesting to learn about humanity and our inherent spiritual conflicts with one another.\u00a0\u00a0 It feels like a good friend has decided to tell you his favorite story using his favorite medium.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard not to finish it.<\/p>\n

Patel\u2019s work is light and accessible but without compromising the importance of the source work.\u00a0 That\u2019s what eventually made me a fan of Patel and eager to buy his next book.<\/p>\n

Excerpt from Interview with Sanjay Patel (from Amazon.com)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How did you get started working at Pixar?
\nPatel: <\/strong>The only thing I was ever good at was copying drawings from comic books. I just drew, and nothing could ever get me to stop. All throughout school I was considered “the artist,” which really just meant that I could make really bad drawings for people\u2019s letterman jackets. A friend told me about Cal-Arts and animation. The school was the key. Most of Pixar\u2019s directors have come straight out of Cal-Arts and its character animation program. I just walked in their footsteps and they ended up recruiting me after my second year. I’ve been at Pixar ever since, close to thirteen years now.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Describe your creative process. How do you create your illustrations?
\nPatel: <\/strong>Once I have a concrete idea of the story point that I want to communicate, which is usually nailed down in the writing, I then think of one \u201cstory telling image.\u201d For instance, it’s a big story point when Hanuman, the monkey with special powers, uses his burning tail to set fire to the Ravana’s capital city. Since this story has been told many times before I try and research what visual artist have done previously to communicate this moment. Here I pulled together reference from paintings and from vintage comics.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> How long did it take you to create the scenes in the book?
\nAt one point the illustrations were getting churned out at about one every two and half days. I was at a good clip till I decided to redo the entire book three times. I kept fighting with trying to make the art light hearted and cute, but the story was anything but that. The Ramayana is pretty dramatic and graphic, and I eventually found a style and voice that captured those things. It only took me four years.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Purchase Ramayana from the Beliefnet Shopping Mall. Ramayana: Divine Loophole By Sanjay Patel Review:The Ramayana is a legendary book\u2014not just in terms of content but in terms of sheer size.\u00a0 The story has been told and retold over a 2,000 history.\u00a0 And so developing a new re-telling of this epic book might be daunting unless…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-spirituality","category-hindu-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nRamayana by Sanjay Patel - A Literary Spirit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/aliteraryspirit\/2011\/11\/ramayana-divine-loophole-by-sanjay-patel.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ramayana by Sanjay Patel - A Literary Spirit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Purchase Ramayana from the Beliefnet Shopping Mall. Ramayana: Divine Loophole By Sanjay Patel Review:The Ramayana is a legendary book\u2014not just in terms of content but in terms of sheer size.\u00a0 The story has been told and retold over a 2,000 history.\u00a0 And so developing a new re-telling of this epic book might be daunting unless…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/aliteraryspirit\/2011\/11\/ramayana-divine-loophole-by-sanjay-patel.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Literary Spirit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-10T06:37:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-10-27T22:41:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/aliteraryspirit\/files\/2011\/10\/images-6.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Taz Tagore\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ramayana by Sanjay Patel - A Literary Spirit","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/aliteraryspirit\/2011\/11\/ramayana-divine-loophole-by-sanjay-patel.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ramayana by Sanjay Patel - A Literary Spirit","og_description":"Purchase Ramayana from the Beliefnet Shopping Mall. 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