“Alliyan Patalliyan, tur paiyan kalliyan, Kar ke salah, doven mela vekhan challiyan.” (Alliyan-Patalliyan set out walking; by themselves, they consulted and went to watch the fair together.)Picture two naughty twin cats – Aliiyan and Pataliyan — strolling along a tree-lined colonnade or a neighbourhood carnival, mouthing a chaste Punjabi song on a beautiful sunny day as they go about their mischief.While the verdant, dreamy fantasy world of Hayao Miyazaki has its charm, when it comes to “theth Punjabi” animation in one’s own mother tongue, one need not look beyond this team of brilliant Jalandhar-bred animators. Shakkar Parey, an animated venture by Jalandhar-based couple Dr Harjit Singh and his wife Tejinder Kaur, has captured the imagination of an entire generation of children in Punjab.Started as a YouTube experiment to introduce Punjab’s children to animation and stories rooted in their own land, the channel Shakkar Parey today amasses millions of views, offering Punjabi parents a home-bred alternative to animation that entertains young minds without polluting them.Dr Harjit Singh, a celebrated filmmaker and former Doordarshan producer-director, and Tejinder Kaur, a renowned author and former professor, share a deep passion for children’s storytelling. In Shakkar Parey, Tejinder Kaur’s flair for song, poetry and story-writing aligns seamlessly with Dr Harjit’s storytelling and directorial skills, creating a magical fantasy world populated by charming animated characters who speak only Punjabi.Just over a year old, Shakkar Parey has amassed a collective viewership of 60 million, with the channel boasting 26.3k subscribers. With just 256 videos, several individual uploads have garnered between two and six million views.The cheerful videos feature a generous sprinkling of chaste Punjabi akhauts (sayings) and idioms woven into entertaining songs and tales. The cast of characters includes wayward lambs, mischievous bears, hens, wolves, snakes, squirrels, tortoises, bees, robots and, of course, the naughty twin cats. Character names range from Aliiyan and Pataliyan to Dhummak-Dhoon.Elaborating on the philosophy behind the project, Dr Harjit Singh says, “There is a plethora of animation strewn across the internet. But the question is whether our kids can relate to these characters. I don’t believe characters in western animation appeal to Punjab’s children or their immediate value system. Unless they speak of your culture, environment and colours, the characters are not your own. Shakkar Parey was aimed at giving children characters rooted in their own land, language and values.”He adds, “‘Alliyan Patalliyan’ and ‘Dhammak Dhoon’ were random folk words that unconsciously found their way into our videos because of the rhythm they create. These words have emerged through hundreds of years of oral usage and folk tradition. Even if we are unaware of it, they generate a hidden vibration that appeals to us. The core idea was to immerse children in tales of the maa boli (mother tongue).”While Tejinder Kaur has penned numerous books for her grandchildren and others, delving deep into Punjab’s culture and heritage, Shakkar Parey brings her lived experience vividly to life. Their sons, Zorawar and Shiva, music director Rishabh Ganesh, among others, also pitch in.A veteran of years of experimentation in handmade animation, Dr Harjit offers a word of caution on artificial intelligence. “A computer has no heart, only a brain. It delivers only what is fed into it, but creation requires soul. Animation is, above all, a craft. Whatever is handmade has no replacement. Look at the movements created by Miyazaki – the gestures, delicate postures and subtle motion. AI cannot emulate that. However, it is a brilliant tool for a small team and helps speed up processes that once took eternities.”How it startedAnimation has long been central to Dr Harjit’s creative journey. His curiosity led him to collect second-hand books as new ones were too expensive from across India and the world. Early on, he created a Doordarshan programme titled Ting Tong Teen.Inspired by Jim Henson’s Muppets, he went on to conceptualise his own animation show, for which latex and rubber characters were created and specialised remote controls imported between 1979 and 1982, when animation techniques were manual, mechanical or remote-controlled – long before the digital era.Later, a children’s script was approved for a government subsidy of Rs 14 lakh, but both projects unfortunately failed to take off. Years after retirement, the couple revived the animation dream on YouTube, leading to the birth of Shakkar Parey.Looking ahead, Dr Harjit says, “We have many ideas waiting to be unveiled. One day, we dream of creating a feature-length animated film. We are also planning expansions for our channel.”