By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS,
New Delhi : Graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee, who wrote a new chapter in pictorial story-telling with his novels “Corridor” and “The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers”, is now ready with his third pictorial work “Harappa Files”, which he says is the “story of the nation”.
In his new book, the Great Harappa Rehabilitation, Reclamation and Redevelopment Commission, a watchdog and assessment panel constituted by IAS officer Sudarshan Mittal, is conducting a survey of the “great ethnography and mythology of a country on the brink of a hormonal change”, Banerjee revealed.
“After research and analysis, the communication wing of the committee suggests the use of image and texts as the most appropriate way to bring out these observations,” Banerjee, whose work will be published by Harper-Collins India in December, told IANS in an interview.
The members refer to the decade-long findings as the Harappa findings that are about to be made public. Based on the findings, the citizens will have to sign the draconian 28b, a form that decides everybody’s fate.
And, interestingly, Bannerjee introduces himself in the book as a small-time publisher and a comic book creator who is hired to publish the findings.
Banerjee meets Mittal in the book – in a first person account – to hammer out the modalities of the format – and the bureaucrat promises to “create a bridge between art and the everyday; between alternate and the mainstream”.
“The book is a comment on the observations on the changes taking place in society. It has a masonic feel to it,” Banerjee said.
The 38-year-old writer, who studied image and communication at Goldsmith College in London, is experimenting with format in his new book.
“Harappa is not a conventional comic book novel. It is more like an essay with pictures. The text looks fluffier and more dynamic. The design does not bear heavy. Sometimes, the pictures tell the story. In comparison, ‘Corridor’ and the ‘Barn Owl…” are bonafide worlds in themselves… more conventional,” Banerjee said.
“The stratified sediments of Tintin – the way the story was told inspired me. It was probably the reason why the story has lived on. I read the series in Bengali,” Banerjee told IANS.
Recalling the making of “The Barn Owl’s Wonderous Capers”, Banerjee said: “It was prompted by an Indian Foundation of Arts Fellowship to study the 18th Century Kolkata scandals”.
“I just picked the title of the book from Kaliprasanna Singha’s Bengali humour novel, ‘Hutom Pechar Naksha (The Sketch of an Owl)’. The stories were independent. I wanted to make it into a book of short stories,” Banerjee said.
The novelist, also a multimedia artist and filmmaker, laments the decline in the quality of comic books created in India.
“In the last six years since I wrote ‘Corridor’, no one could achieve a quality benchmark. We opened the door for the graphic novel format and the process was high-energy. But now publishers have created a ready shelf for pictorial books. Anything that is published sells – and finds a shelf,” he said.
Graphic novel writers do not have to worry about shelf life, Banerjee quipped.
The writer is credited with setting up one of the pioneering graphic novel publishing firms, Phantomville Publishing, with Anindo Roy.
He is also known for his mounted art series “Monsters of Delhi” – a contemporary look at Delhi – in collaboration with science fiction writer Samit Basu.
(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at [email protected])