‘Bias against arts courses frustrating’

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Thiruvananthapuram: He is a mechanical engineering graduate of the College of Engineering Thi­r­uv­ananthapuram who switched to animation as a career choice, in the process giving up a job with Accenture.
 
Prem Sai has got admission into the Sher­idan College in Toronto, considered the world’s best school for animation, but he is running from pillar to post to put together the Rs 13 lakh ($ 23,000) per year required for his four-year graduation course.
 
Banks are the obvious choice for getting an education loan, but they refuse to give the loan for art education. Not to be deterred, the 23-year-old has started a crowd-funding campaign for his Sheridan dream on http://igg.me/at/send-prem-to-sheridan/x/ [2] 3750821.
 
Prem did not want to disappoint his father, C. Gopalakrishnan, a retired fisheries department official who insisted on Prem pursuing a solid professional course and so did the engineering degree. He lost his mother to cancer when he was in the 11th grade. 
 
“I felt I was lying to myself to satisfy the people around me and always felt that something was wrong. After a three-week internship at Hindustan Aeronaut­i­cs Limited, I realised that I was not even using five per cent of what I had learned during Engineering in our work, which disappointed me terribly,” Prem told DC.
 
Prem revived his passion for drawing and realised why he had been unhappy all those years. He did a short course in pre-production design from the Goa Art School. He says it’s unfortunate that animation schools in the country do not focus on the fundamentals of art required for a strong career in animation.
 
The bias against arts education is stupid and frustrating. “For the past three months, I have been trying in vain to get scholarships or funding or grants from any organisation, both in India and abroad.
 
But there is absolutely nothing because it is in the field of art,” says Prem who has been mentored by Ajit Rao, former lead trainer at Toonz Animation. Maybe enlightened individuals and institutions will respond to Prem Sai’s public campaign for funding and give the young man the break he needs.