27 February,2011 08:32 AM IST | | Anjana Vaswani
If you were to turn left somewhere in South Delhi, pass a stream of Nanos, the Paharpur Cooling Factory, Frankfurt airport and then spot Che Guevara swinging on a vine, where would you be? In the recesses of graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee's mind
Every Christmas, our school used to stage a drama. Throughout primary school, I was given the part of the cruel hangman. Trying to explain why there was an annual need for a cruel hangman is a separate conversation and another needless drawing," confesses Sarnath Banerjee in File #2134/64A/Prop-maker.u00a0
The American Paediatrics Association would tell you that such repetitive exposure to violence, especially when participative by nature, scars a child's psyche irreparably.
The group would, hence, neither be surprised to learn that Banerjee, in his latest work, makes a cracked India seem far too amusing, nor would they react sharply to his accounts of vampire property-dealers and triangular Bermuda files in whose depths documents have been known to disappear beyond a trace.
The Hydra/multi-faced Greek monsters who double as New Delhi
landladies. "In Delhi, if you are a single woman, you are
automatically deemed a whore," Banerjee tells us, sharing the
significance of the roles of these "keepers of society."
Instead, a sympathetic arm would be thrown around the graphic novelist's paranoid shoulders as they gently escort him to his padded cell.
Those of you who know enough to bottle up your angst and are therefore allowed to enjoy life on the outside, may be surprised to find yourselves captured inside Banerjee's new book, The Harappa Files.
Meet Calcutta's phone sanitiser, Gobindo whose poignant tale is
slated to be turned into an animation for Paris' Pompidou Centre.
The chapter presents an interesting analysis of why, "When two
Midnapuris sit down to eat, facing each other, two pyramids of
rice block their vision. Only in the middle of lunch can they
discover the identity of the person sitting across from them."
This writer (and according to Banerjee, also his gallerist) features on the cover and on page 72, where, besides a somewhat flattering image, Banerjee observes: Sometimes, through the open windows, one can glimpse at children practising kathak steps, tunelessly beating a tabla or plucking the strings of a sitar...
In this city, it is not enough to be good in studies... When mothers get together for tea parties, it is essential to say, 'My daughter topped her class in geography' and an additional, 'She also got selected for the badminton team.'
5-Minuten Frau is dedicated to a receptionist who, among other
things, taught Banerjee, "exactly what goes on in the name of
modelling auditions". Shown here is a manager of an hour-hour
hotel in suburban Bombay offering a free condom to his client.
Telling us about his own extra-curricular education, Banerjee draws our attention to another fascinating character in his booku00a0-- the 5-minute-woman. Based on a receptionist who, among other things, taught Banerjee, "exactly what goes on in the name of modelling auditions," the 5-minute-woman takes exactly that long to climax no matter who she's with, and, as the note alongside her image explains, "One can even time her, like a trusted pack of instant noodles."
Banerjee's take on the real story behind Ratan Tata's acquisition of Jaguar or why pictures of scientist-inventor Jagdish Chandra Bose often show him wielding a magnifying glassu00a0-- information he clearly sourced directly from J Edgar Hoover's officeu00a0-- are truly eye-openers.
Dept of Surplus Emotion: Europe's cathedrals and universities
are dotted with gargoyles, usually demonic figures attached to
buildings. In fiction, they are represented as monsters that
can turn into stone, and are generally stubborn, immovable and
fixed in their habits. The picture shows SS Sivakumar, a petty
bureaucrat in the Dept of Surplus Emotion and Nervous Breakdowns.
It's an educational read therefore, which informs you about our special Indian breed of Psychic Plumbersu00a0-- a signature character who slips in and out of Banerjee's booksu00a0--u00a0 uniquely equipped to tackle plumbing problems in the absence of blueprints.
Here, Greek mythological multi-faced monsters moonlight as New Delhi landladies. It offers a deeper insight into Indian culture, like in a chapter that describes the eating habits of Gobindo, the telephone sanitiser from Midnapur, whose poignant tale is slated to be turned into an animation for an upcoming show at Paris' Pompidou Centre.
Published by HarperCollins, Sarnath Banerjee's The Harappa Files is available at leading bookstores for Rs 499
