KOCHI: Of late efforts are being made to educate children on traffic rules and safety. After a Children's Traffic Park in the city, now artist Nandan Pillai has come out with a CD for children. Nandan who? Well...he's none other than the creator of 'Pappu' the Zebra, kids' most-favourite character, and now the mascot of the Kerala Traffic Police wing. Pappu will now recite rhymes and tell stories on road safety.'Pappu Zebra', the CD by Nandan, was released last week as part of the International Road Safety Week. The CD will be distributed state-wide to schools by the Kerala Police to promote road safety among students. 'Pappu' was created in order to make children easily connect with the road safety awareness campaign. The rhymes and stories are done through animation using cartoons and story board."Always walk along the right side of the road. In some of the text books it is written as the left side, which is wrong. The concept of line traffic is important in cities. Through my paintings and writings, I am trying to inculcate a good road sense in children," says Nandan.An ardent nature lover, Nandan says that children must be encouraged and inspired to care for nature. "Young minds are the most positive and if we can inspire them, they will prove to be the most effective soldiers in fighting in the interest of nature," he says.Nandan's deep concern about nature and environment has led him to publish many books for children on the issue. His recent book ‘Olivia Kanda Swapnam' depicts a world where the human beings are forced to carry oxygen cylinder on their back as there is no natural oxygen for breathing. The story is narrated as a dream by a little girl named Olivia. "No one knows about the disappearance of tiny living things from our earth due to the over use of mobile phones. The sprouting of mobile towers everywhere and its magnetic waves is leading to the disappearance of lakhs of small birds and living organisms," says Nandan. Nandan's artistic abilities initially drew him into the field of advertising where his creativity was instantly noticed. Developments in the digital imaging technology made Nandan visualise and create things for the larger public. Interestingly, his vision for the future was much bigger than others. He set up an online community for the people in 2000, prior to the arrival of Orkut and Facebook. www.orgpeople.com was the nation's first online art club for school students and later grew into the world's largest collection of children's art on world wide web.Later, the character Pappu, the Zebra, was adopted by the Police departments of Karnataka, Orissa and Rajasthan for their respective road safety campaigns. Characters like Uncle Dash and Baby Pom, created for the fire safety awareness campaign of Karnataka Fire and Emergency Services Department, Student Police Cadet Sharan, created for the prestigious Student Police Cadet programme of Kerala Police, Kadalunni, created for the Coastal Security programme of Kerala Police were also done by him.Nandan is now also planning to bring out an animation film on road safety this year and a gaming platform for the children. "Children are now mostly addicted to violence-induced video games which injects negativity in their mind. So I am planning to bring out some soft video games which can entertain and at the same time can give knowledge," he says.[email protected]
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