The making of an audio video story in Assamese online

I always look forward for email communication from  Mr. Wahid Saleh.  Mr. Wahid Saleh whom I fondly address as Wahid da often delights me with email stories, anecdotes, beautiful quotations and many times with wonderful ideas. It was in one of such emails that he introduced me to the innovative and alluring concept of ‘Same Language Subtitling’.

Same Language Subtitling (SLS) is a simple but powerful idea by which words are added as subtitles to children’s’ stories, film songs aired on TV and the like. Words are highlighted in perfect timing along with the pace of the recorded songs. The association of the spoken and the written word is a proven method for improving reading skills for the old and young alike. Researchers have found that subtitling the words in a story or adding the lyrics of popular song programs on television has a potential to contribute to the reading and learning skills of children and adults. (Reference Planet read.org)

As I researched on the Internet, I came to know more about the interesting and delightful tool called the ‘Bookbox’. BookBox is essentially a web-based jukebox of digital books in languages from around the world. It synchronizes the text, audio, and visual media to create an educational and entertaining reading experience for children and even adults who still have the child in them!  BookBox stories are developed based on SLS methodology where a child can relate the phonetic sounds with the visual subtitles to accelerate reading skill developments. When SLS is integrated into a “book”, reading happens automatically and subconsciously, as proven through sophisticated eye-tracking research. (Reference BookBox.com )

It was fascinating to see the BookBox stories in different languages including English, German, French, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu among others.  Yet there was none in the Assamese language, which made me, approach the BookBox technical staff in India. The task seemed daunting if not impossible for it would involve translating the original story into Assamese and at the same time ensuring the accuracy of the phonetics, synchronizing the audio and the video and intertwining it all into the rhythm of perfect balance of the corresponding script. The assignment seemed challenging and as I was dilly-dallying over it, I received an encouraging email from Wahid da with the following quote.
“The key to happiness is having dreams...
The key to success is making dreams come true.”

Soon I realized that the children, the teachers and anybody who wanted to experience something new and visually stimulating would surely be excited when they get to view inspiring and uplifting stories online. I became determined and put my total focus and faith to delivering this project to our Assamese people in all earnestness. My painstaking effort didn’t go in vain. The Book Box concept got everyone invigorated and responsive.  Today I feel immensely satisfied for undertaking this venture, for in the process of its making I learned to access into tools and technology totally new to me, and off course being able to celebrate the birth of the first Assamese audio video story for children online for everyone to enjoy.

“People will forget what you said;
People will forget what you did;
but People will never forget how you made them feel.”

Ankur Bora, Texas