Sneak peek: Hindu gods enliven 'Super Team'

Brian Truitt | USA TODAY

Through the big eyes of a little boy, director Sanjay Patel has animated his journey from a California kid watching cartoons to a man respecting his father's Indian traditions.

Premiering in front of The Good Dinosaur (in theaters Nov. 25), the Disney/Pixar short film Sanjay's Super Team begins with a scene similar to Patel's own San Bernardino upbringing. Sanjay is glued to the TV and Dad interrupts by ringing his bell for morning meditation.

"I knew exactly what that meant: 'Turn off the TV, Sanjay, and get your tail over here. We're going to chant and count mala beads for half an hour,' " Patel recalls, laughing. "And I'm like, 'I don't really want to do that. I really want to watch Voltron.' "

Yet the little Sanjay in Super Team finds something cooler than his superhero show when he joins his father: Three Hindu deities come alive to take care of a pesky monster.

Wanting to fit in with his American friends, Patel initially pushed aside his immigrant parents' culture. But later he found respect for Indian legends and began illustrating them through what he learned as an animator on Pixar films such as Toy Story 2, The Incredibles and Monsters, Inc.

His new short "felt like this bridge I needed to bring these two things together," says Patel, who joins producer Nicole Paradis Grindle for a Sanjay's Super Team panel Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con.

The artwork and filmmaking in Pixar shorts and features have always originated from personal tales, Grindle adds. Patel's animation, however, "very clearly comes from a different cultural place than all the other stories we've told before. … And for kids who come from these backgrounds to see themselves on screen, it's exciting for us."

Patel, 41, chose three deities to reference in Super Team: the monkey-like Hanuman, the goddess of power and protection Durga, and the blue-skinned Vishnu, who represents preservation.

Some might liken them to a Hindu version of the Avengers, or an Indian take on Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but they're more meaningful than that to Patel. "I kind of have an insider's point of view so I see them a little bit differently," says the filmmaker.

The short doesn't have any dialogue so Patel enlisted the help of Oscar-winning composer Mychael Danna (Life of Pi) for a fittingly non-Western soundtrack.

For the moment when little Sanjay meets the deities, Danna employs a bansuri, a South Asian flute and spiritual instrument associated with Vishnu, Patel says. "It's a choice that only somebody who really understood the culture would make and something for sure my dad would really appreciate."

Patel recently brought his father, who runs the roadside Lido Motel in San Bernardino with his wife, up to Pixar's headquarters near San Francisco to show him Sanjay's Super Team.

It was a moving and proud experience for both men but also "very karmic," Patel says. "I'd be the first guy to sell out my dad and my parents' culture so it really felt like, man, I found a way back home and champion it."

It took Patel until his 30s to become interested in Hindu heritage so he acknowledges having some patience when it comes to his own 2-year-old son, Arjun: "He loves Mickey Mouse right now, and there's nothing I can do to convince him otherwise."