Do dhakkan mahua

Illustration/Uday Mohite

I was quietly mindin' mah own bizness, when suddenly, I was made a novelist overnight. More correctly, a novella-ist. My first digital graphic novella, Life Begins on Thursday, was released on guruwar, October 29, by the non-profit Point of View, on their award-winning digital platform Deep Dives. It is the story of two teenage girls, Tara from Bombay, and Guruwari, an Adivasi Gond tribal girl from Bastar, Chhattisgarh, who meet at the National Athletics Sports Meet in Delhi, and how their relationship turns from revulsion to respect. It has charming illustrations by the Singapore-based artist Debasmita Dasgupta. No, I'm not one of those irritating people who have used Corona down-time to be creatively productive; I'd started work on the story two years ago, in 2018.

Bishakha Datta, executive director, Point of View (POV), that amplifies womens' voices - I also serve on their board - and a good friend, commissioned me to write a digital graphic novella. I pounced on the chance to be a storyteller, as it brought together two great loves of mine - images, cinema, and words, writing. Bish has been discovering talents in me I didn't know I had, for two decades. Our earliest collaborations include a book, And Who Will Make the Chapatis?: A Study of All-Women Panchayats in Maharashtra (1998); In Black and White, a photographic exhibition and book that explored what 50 years of independence meant for Indian women (1997), and I was curator for Made By Women, an international women's film festival (2004, 2005). In 2018, she suggested I write a graphic novel for Deep Dives' series on teenage girls and issues around their bodies. For me, it became about girls using sports as a means of empowerment. Two valuable tips Bishakha shared on writing a graphic novella: "Think of it as a story worth telling, rather than an exercise in empowerment or NGO stuff." The second was to write the script, then divide the page into text and visuals columns, fill in the text on one side, and let the artist create the visuals.

I spent two weeks in the slums of Malwani, Malad, with Just For Kicks, a superb NGO training underprivileged girls in leadership via competitive football. I hung out with Muslim schoolgirls playing football, their coaches, and families, and their experiences shaped my story. Then, one day, my sister Sarayu Kamat invited me to join her on a holiday, spending time with various Indian tribal communities, including Bison-Horn Marias, Gonds, Dongria Konds, Murias and Baigas, as we travelled to Vishakhapatnam, Araku, Koraput, Onukudelli, Jagdalpur, Rayagada, Chatikona, Kanker, Bhoramdeo, Kanha and more, in five states. I was deeply moved and humbled by the tribal way of life, philosophy, simplicity, grace, and closeness to nature. Of course, it is a romantic view, but there is no doubt that we have much wisdom to learn from our tribals, who are horrifically marginalised and exploited. Many of the things I learnt, I incorporated into the novella. Like how Guruwari ritually drinks mahua and sulphi, spirits distilled from trees they considered sacred, and even gives do dhakkan (two bottle caps) to her baby for good health. That before she married, she lived in a ghotul, where teenagers live together and are initiated into the art of life, their philosophy and culture. The British-Indian anthropologist Verrier Elwin wrote, "The message of the ghotul is that youth must be served, that freedom and happiness are more to be treasured than any material gain."

The warm response to the novella on social media tells me Bishakha is right, as usual. I've discovered I am a storyteller.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist. Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com

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