The Jigrr Story

Jigrr, the official mascot for the Commonwealth Youth Games 2008, is a tiger cub — young, playful, mischievous. He has become the face of the Games. But how exactly did the mascot evolve and how did he get his name?Rochana Deb, lead design manager of Elephant Design Pvt Ltd, who was a member of the team that designed the mascot, says ‘Jigrr’, as we see him today, went through several transformations. “The idea of a tiger cub first came when Shera the tiger was announced as the mascot for 2010 Commonwealth Games. That was when we thought of a younger brother for Shera,”she says. Another reason was simply because tiger is the national animal and an endangered specie.“Usually mascots are animals which need to be preserved, so we settled for a baby tiger. We realised that he is representing sports, so should be robust and sporty,” Deb said. She adds Jigrr has been designed in nine different postures for the nine events. “In India, visual portrayal is very complex compared to international mascots. At an emotional level, the tiger cub is designed to be a naughty little kid with a twinkle in his eye.” How Jigrr got his name is another interesting tale in itself. “We tried different things like holding a competition, but it didn’t evoke very exciting response. We later shortlisted a couple of names, which had a local flavour but also very energetic. One of them was Jigrr,” Deb said. Another interesting factor behind the name was that Jigrr comes from the Hindi word ‘Jigar,’ which means courage and the double ‘rr’ at the end is for the sound of a tiger roar.