‘My Gandhi Story’, a 28 pages book, by Animation Film Maker Nina 
Sabnani, Warli Artist Rajesh Chaitya Vangad and Dastangoi storyteller Ankit Chadha, which brings out brings out varied phases of Mahatma Gandhi’s Life, has won Darsana National Award for Excellence in Book production. The awards ceremony was a part of the 30th Darsana International Book Fair, which happened at Kottayam this month.
Targeted at age group of 5+, this book that is published by Tulika Publishers was recently released at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai and is available to buy in English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali languages.
When asked Nina about how does she feel after this win, she shares it with 
AnimationXpress.com, by saying, “Very good, especially since it is such a fantastic team that has worked together. “I think the paintings by Rajesh, Ankit’s storytelling, Tulika Publishers editing and my putting it together have made the book to win.”
The idea of creating ‘My Gandhi Story’ came from Radhika Menon of Tulika Publishers who saw the set of paintings commissioned by Sunaina Suneja and she had asked Rajesh Chaitya Vangad to depict Gandhi’s life in Warli painting style.
Nina adds, “When Radhika saw them she thought we should make it into a book. She asked me and I suggested we also have a Gandhi expert on board so that we can tell is with passion and love. I came across Ankit Chadha and listening to his love for Gandhi I was certain I had found the right scribe. Being a storyteller who has also worked with children made this possible.”
The Art creation of this book is carried out by Rajesh Chaitya Vangad, Story and Text handled by Ankit Chadha and Story and Design executed by Nina.
“We wanted to tell the story from multiple perspectives. I was keen to hear Rajesh’s voice and a child’s who is curious about Bapu. Tulika was keen to introduce Gandhiji’s photos and so Ankit and I thought of adding Gandhi’s voice as well.” Adds further.
And, Nina concludes the conversation with us by giving an insight into the research, “Ankit who has read a lot on Gandhi sourced the texts and we also video-taped our conversations with Rajesh about the way he made the paintings and why he chose to emphasize certain things. We edited the interviews and gave them to Ankit. All the way through we had a lot of back and forth between us and between Tulika and us.”