The Hindu Business Line : Rhythms of culture

After a long and arduous journey, Invis Multimedia in Thiruvananthapuram has met with success. Along the way, the team has been packaging Kerala's ethnicity and changing the face of tourism in the State.

When a group of young men pooled in Rs 1 crore to set up the firm a decade ago, they were proud of owning an Apple-based studio, the first of its kind in the country. "We thought we would bag many contracts for advertisements. Unfortunately, there were hardly any takers," says M. R. Hari, MD of the firm. But they were too enterprising to be bogged down by the hiccups. "We racked our brains until we stumbled upon a way out," he says. Scouting for an area where they could be innovative, Invis zeroed in on their homeland, "which has a cutting edge with its rare blend of natural beauty and rich cultural repertoire."

"The most viable option available to us was to digitise the esoteric charm the land holds out," says Hari. And with the most advanced multimedia gadgets on hand, it was not difficult either.

This was around the time when Kerala was tyring hard to position itself on the world tourism map. There were visitors from afar, but not too many. And except for a few select destinations, a major part of the land and its tradition lay rather unnoticed. It was this untapped potential that Invis cashed in on.

In 1998, in association with the State Tourism department, they came out with Kerala — The Green Symphony, a slick CD-ROM in English; it compels you to virtually roam the land and get a feel of its golden beaches, lush paddy fields, soothing backwaters, relics of history and rhythms of culture.

Invis was soon on its way to tapping the world market. "We were flooded with inquiries, mostly from abroad. Many foreign universities bought the CD-ROM for teaching and research purposes. Till date, the sales have touched a whopping 1 lakh," says M.R. Ajith, Executive Director of Invis Infotech Private Ltd, a sister concern of Invis Multimedia.

Spurred on by the overwhelming response, a second version of Green Symphony was produced in three more languages — French, German and Japanese. There's been work on more versions hence and the content is updated each time.

Invis was in a way packaging Kerala to the distant traveller; however, they got directly linked with tourism when made IT consultants of the State Tourism department five years back; they created www.keralatourism.org, one of the most comprehensive travel Web sites in India. "The site gets around 2.6 million clicks every month. I think this has helped in promoting the Kerala brand of tourism," says Hari.

Invis then forayed into ayurveda, which Kerala has become almost synonymous with. A joint venture with the Tourism department, this CD-ROM, Ayurveda — the Mantra of Niramaya, holds the key to `niramaya', a state of wellbeing, a world free from the maladies of the mind and the body.

"We succeeded in emphasising that ayurveda is a purely Indian concept, which our sages discovered after long years of quest. It dispelled the misconception among many in Europe that Ayurveda has its roots in Sri Lanka," says Hari.

In a sequel of sorts, the group next focused on `panchakarma', a branch of ayurveda that deals with a pentad of rejuvenation therapies. The VCDs in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Hindi were brought out in collaboration with the Tourism department. "We included Hindi too, considering the growing number of North Indians coming here for the treatment," says Hari. They have also published a coffee table book on `panchakarma'.

Invis had already arrived; however, they got the best recognition ever when they were made a partner in UNESCO's Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity in 2002. And recently, they got the nod to use the UNESCO logo on their products.

Last year's hit was the Know Your Heritage series that unveils a colourful world of native art forms — Kathakali, Koodiyattam, Ottan Thullal, Mohiniyattam and Nangiar Koothu. "Professionals like Mohiniyattam exponent, Deepthi Omcherry Bhalla, appreciated our efforts to document our cultural legacy. This really inspired us," says Hari.

And the result was the two volumes of Symphony Celestial, an audio-visual display of 12 scintillating classical dance forms culled from different States — Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Manipuri, Kathak, Satriya and Yakshagana, besides the five from Kerala; celebrities like Sujata Mohapatra, Manju Bharggavee and Pali Chandra have been caught at their dazzling best. Separate DVDs on most of these dances are also available.

"We were fortunate enough to get a danseuse like Anita Ratnam to interpret in clear, crisp terms the foundation, quaint charm and subtleties of each of the dances. We too tried our best to capture the meaning of the `mudras', facial expressions and the lyrics, with English subtitles," says Ajith.

Last Christmas, Invis' 3D animation, mini VCD of carol songs sold around 6,000 copies. They have also come out with a series on Kerala's musical heritage and picture postcards that encapsulate the land's scenery, dance forms, Yoga postures and murals.

The 50-odd team at Invis is now busy with post-production work on CD-ROMs and coffee table books on Yoga and `Mudra', the sign language of Indian dances. The one on Yoga, Ajith says, would be a veritable manual of the body mystique.

They have also started work on murals. "We intend to delve deep into the iconography of Hindu Gods through murals. It would be interesting, for instance, to know why Lord Ganesha is always depicted as having the head of an elephant," says Hari.

"Our CD-ROMs and VCDs are on display in around 200 outlets, including shops and resorts, in Kerala. Most of the buyers are tourists who want to take a memento back home," he adds. "They are light to carry and hence make good gift items for foreigners and NRIs," says Ajith. Online sales too are catching up.

The creative lot here is happy about the way things have been shaping up. At the same time, they feel that to make the `Invis' brand click better, they still have a long way to go.

"Until now, the distribution network was almost confined to Kerala. But with more projects on the cards, we need to do a bit of tough marketing," says Hari. To this end, they have just tied up with a Hyderabad-based firm and, in a month or so, the Invis range will be available across the country.

Graphics by R. Dinesh Rajan

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Where health takes a backseat

Going organic is the way

The end of golden dreams

This princess walked to school

A study in diversity

Flying on a dream