Prejudices

An illustration I did towards the end of last year for The Indian Quarterly was for a story called The Circle, featuring the last of the Anglo Indians, the prejudices inherent in them and how it ultimately destroys them.
The print has turned out a bit darker than the original, so I am adding the complete original below along with a detail of the illustration.

The haunting story which makes us cringe at the extent of prejudice and perceived superiority that one community has for another reminds me of the remark made by a friend of mine after she had broken up with her Anglo-Indian fiancee. She said, "How long are these Anglo-Indians going to prefix "Anglo" to define themselves? They are Indians!" This is true of course, but try telling that to Anglo-Indians, you'd probably make them writhe in agony.

Once, some years ago, during coffee an Anglo Indian acquaintance of mine remarked that the father of her niece was a Malayalee. When I expressed surprise, my acquaintance hastily added, "But she (the niece) is not Malayalee! She is one of us! She is one of us!" I was perplexed at the absurdity of that remark and at the determination of my Anglo-Indian acquaintance to completely erase the Indian aspect from her family.

Some explanation for these mindsets can be found in William Dalrymple's The White Mughals and more briefly in City of Djinns.

Here are a couple of memorable quotes from City of Djinns -

'And they're a fascinating people, the Indians. I'll say that for them.'

I've always had friendly relations with them, mind. It's their country. That's what my father always used to say.'

'That's right. The Indians are a nice people. Provided you treat them as human beings.'

'You see we're not Britishers', said Mr Smith. 'We're something different.'

*

A Superb Ending

I have just received the latest copy of the beautiful and very readable The Indian Quarterly magazine with my illustration in it for the story Mountain Disease, my first assignment since returning home. The story extract was a very challenging one because it consisted of a lot of conversation taking place in a school. There was no strong visual description within the story that I could use to capture the essence of it. However while re-reading the conversations within the extract, I found that it dealt with prejudice - about appearances, colour, places, intelligence, looks, wealth, gender... it was all there. I chose to depict it by drawing two symbolically different faces (by varying the eyes and the colour) and depicting the unpleasantness of racism in the conversation through snakes coming out the mouths of the faces .The colours are muted and cold. The atmosphere created in this image echoes the mood of the story.

I don’t use software while creating my images and I do everything using my hands, pastel, paper and a pair of scissors. Someone whose opinions I value a great deal pointed out that in a world of buffed and polished, perfectly finished images, this business of working directly with my hands makes my visuals unpredictable, spontaneous and very distinctive - qualities which give my images depth. I am glad to hear that. Probably because of these results, the kind of illustration work that I have been invited to do in these last few months has been very interesting to say the least.

2015 has been a year of hair-raising adventures, mind-boggling challenges and fantastic experiences across continents. It is a year that I will never forget especially if I consider my mindset during the start of the year and how I feel now. A friend in Montreal once assured me that everything would turn out all right. I didn't believe her then but I thank her for that reassurance now. This year has ended in the best way possible. Apart from the warm and supportive friendships that have been constant throughout this year, I can consider getting a copy of this particular magazine with my illustration in it as a sign of a very good ending to 2015.

Flight

This is my favourite illustration; two lovers escaping into the unknown. The story I had to illustrate for IQ Magazine was set in the tribal jungles of Arunachal Pradesh in the North East. In the descriptions in this story by Mamang Dai, the lovers who escaped under cover of darkness seemed very small and almost insignificant in the midst of the overwhelming  natural forces around them.
When I look back at this illustration, I like the fact that there is a sense of mystery, beauty and excitement in the atmosphere that has been created. The mountains and the stars seem to envelop the lovers in a protective way as the river supports and carries them forward into the unknown.

“Love is always a voyage. All travelers whether they want to or not are changed.

No one can travel into love and remain the same.”

 ~  Shams Tabrizi

Counterparts

In my body you search the mountain

for the sun buried in its forest.
In your body I search for the boat
adrift in the middle of the night.

~ Octavio Paz
Many thanks to Sajana J. for sending me this poem to accompany the illustration.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~ T.S.Eliot

What I listened to while illustrating this picture >
The Unknown
*

The Bong Detective

I was feeling very blue since there were no sketching jaunts outside Bangalore this weekend, when the doorbell rang and I was delivered the latest copy of The Indian Quarterly (IQ) Magazine.

Here is my illustration for Calcutta Noir, where I had to illustrate a Bengali woman addicted to detective novels who eventually ends up solving a murder. I have depicted the protagonist engrossed in a detective story in a Kolkata tram and a scene from what she is reading taking place in the tram window behind her.
To show that the background is her imagination, I have done it in moody colour as appropriate to the story she is reading while the rest of the illustration is in black and white. To bridge imagination with the reality of the story, I have shown a cloud from the coloured scene making its way into the black and white one.

I was asked to do this illustration right at the beginning of the year, before I had barely recovered from the cacophony of a New Year party. Voices with strange South-Indian accents were ringing in my ears, weird psychedelic lights flashed in circles behind my eyes, drunken men carrying a sofa knocked around the insides of my skull, bad memories of fruit flavoured beer I had been plied with haunted my dreams and I was still freaking over the contents of my 2014 horoscope when the curt and coldly professional art-director sent me a mail saying 'Kindly complete this in three days'. Trams! Electric wires! Kolkata! Three Days! If that wasn't bad enough, I swear with my hand on my heart that drawing electric wires across the sky is the most daunting feat I have ever accomplished in my entire career as an illustrator. As any illustrator who has attempted this will know, it is like running full speed across a tightrope with your heart between your teeth. It can make or break all your hard work in creating the illustration. By the time I finished this picture, my hands were shaking with nervousness and my teeth were chattering with excess caffeine...

But it is done! And over with! And published!
Abbah!
Now I need some more morning filter coffee.