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From Gautam Bhatia comes graphic novel, miniature style

Saturday, 20 March 2010, 21:41 Hrs

New Delhi: Filled with rich visual imagery in miniature art style, Bihar is a tale of rise, fall and redemption in architect-writer Gautam Bhatia's new graphic novel, "Lie: A Traditional Tale of Modern India".

"If good politics is about governance, how can a minister inaugurate a speedbreaker when people do not have enough food? Or a conference on drought degenerate into a debate over wines among the delegates?" Bhatia told IANS in an informal chat, explaining the context of the book.

"We live a pack of lies in our daily lives," said the self-depreciating architect, who is "now busy designing two ugly buildings in the capital".

Bhatia conceived the illustrations, which have been executed by miniaturists Shankar Lal Bhopa, Birju Lal and Ghansham, modelled on 17th and 18th century Rajasthani miniature paintings.

"I wanted the figures on a flat two-dimensional plane where everyone looked very strong and bold. It is part of the Indian miniature tradition. I had to learn to work with the style in which the colours appeared shorter. It was difficult," Bhatia said.

He is known for his funny and satirical stories woven around architecture. His latest book developed from a graphic art project on contemporary Indian social realities, Desh Ki Awaaz, supported by the Ford Foundation, two years ago.

"I collaborated with with graphic novelist Orijit Sen for the project, which we exhibited last year. Later, I decided to carry it forward as a pictorial novel."

The architect is the author of a trilogy - "Punjabi Baroque", "Silent Dreams" and "Malaria Spaces" - which probe the cultural and social aspects of architecture. His last book, "Whitewash: The Tabloid That Is, About The India That Isn't", was published in 2007.

The stylised drawings in "Lie" are executed in the traditional water tempera technique and the text is richly textured with references to colonial architecture like the Patna Gymkhana Club and the average Bihari home whose essence is "a cluster of small dark rooms" and an "elaborate Gothic facade".

The story is an irreverent, ironic and a seemingly prophetic take on a fictional India scenario where Bihar - often dubbed as the microcosm of the India's socio-political underbelly, with its corruption, ambivalence and double-edged social justice - comes across as a "karmabhoomi" brimming with look-alikes of Jayaprakash Narayan and Lalu Prasad, who appear in post-modern eccentric avatars.

The book begins with two parallel events: the collapse of villager Ali Baba's family in a fateful fire in Bihar and the lavish wedding of a Patna-based smuggler-turned freedom fighter Sati Mishra's son Rocky in Taj Mahal.

The text is funny and the illustrations are simple in a rather 17th century style.

Rocky, the smuggler, becomes politician Bhola post-wedding and subsequently a minister after a rigged electoral sweep. Rekha Pande, the winner of a popular national television reality show, becomes prime minister and clamps emergency on the country. She tries to gag freedom activist Ali Baba who gathers a loyal band of followers in the capital with his "message of compassion and individual freedom".

Bhola is made the country's health and family planning minister while his long-suffering wife has to live with her mother-in-law, who consigns her granddaughters to the waste bin. Rekha who once plied the world's oldest profession, sex trade, before her ascent to power, introduces a five-point programme to improve the lives of women. She also promotes austerity, tradition and nationalism.

The "Indian cricket team is executed for losing to Pakistan and newspaper editors are denied air-conditioners for failing to comply with the PM's press commandment".

Bhola follows Rekha in all her mad plans till he meets the fasting Ali Baba at the India Gate. "He recognises Ali Baba from his early life. And begins the long walk home," said Bhatia.
Source: IANS

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