Bhagat Singh is an icon and yet opaque,” Dharamshala-based illustrator Ikroop Sandhu tells us during a telephonic interview. Her first graphic novel Inquilab Zindabad: A Graphic Biography of Bhagat Singh (Simon & Schuster India in association with Yoda Press) which released earlier this month is set to not only present the legendary freedom fighter to a new generation but also probe beyond the well-known fiery persona glamorised in popular culture towards his abilities as a revolutionary thinker, weaving his own writings on religion, caste and freedom into the story. Sandhu says she was part of an artist’s residency at Preet Lari in Amritsar around the time Arpita Das of Yoda Press proposed to her the idea of a graphic narrative on Bhagat Singh, an episode she playfully illustrates in her book. She had been keen to engage more with Punjab’s history and culture, she shares, adding that the timing—the state was then seeing the first stirrings of the farmers’ protest—prodded her further. “I needed to study the masculine psyche of a Punjabi to understand the cultural moorings of Punjab because it is a hyper-masculine culture to begin with,” says Sandhu, who not only shares her last name but also her native region with Bhagat Singh—both hail from Majha, an area extending from the Beas to the Jhelum.