The good people at Tehelka asked me to review a new graphic novel by Parismita Singh. It appears in their latest issue. Do check it out.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Dark Temptations
I recently wrote an article for the Times of India's special New Year edition. It expressed my love and admiration for the colour black. ToI in the usual ToI fashion forgot the byline. It just said: "The writer is an author and screenwriter who spends his time between Chennai and Mumbai". Wow, so I am that writer!
If I had a penny for every time I heard someone say "Fuschia is the new Black" or "Aquamarine is the new Black", well I will be left with a lot of pennies at a time of financial crisis when the pound-rupee exchange rate is abominable. Growing up I used to incessantly wonder, to everyone's plight, when Black would be the new Black. Mothers, and may God bless their souls, always come through for little brats with too much curiosity and too little patience.
Black is always in. Black is always cool. Black covers you in a veil of mystery and gives you an edge. And when all else fails, black gets you out of trouble. And it has done all this since time began. For what existed before time, the universe or that big bang we keep hearing about in science journals? Black, of course. It is not a colour, but the absence of it. The absence of all light. It exists in the heart of all men and for the sheer contrast it provides to everything else in life, it's presence is necessary, nay, paramount.
And it has left its indelible mark on popular culture. The colour Black has always provided the backdrop, the canvas, on which great art, cinema, music and literature can be freely painted.
Imagine Batman as a caped crusader wearing flashy tights and saving the denizens of West Mambalam (nothing against their lot, but do they really need saving?) while riding the latest offering by hamara Bajaj. Would we ever get to see the monster hit that was The Dark Knight? Here's a movie almost completely set in darkness, that poor detested daughter of the colour black. Its music is ominous; it delves into the darkest corners of the human condition and yet its capacity to entertain is unmatchable.
Imagine Ralph Fiennes's Voldermort meeting Harry for the first time on a bus stand on a warm sunny day. Imagine Darth Vader wearing a green or a blue helmet.
Hitchcock's films were never the same once black and white gave way to colour. Salvador Dali's psychedelic set for Spellbound would never have the same charm, the same aesthetic sensibility in colour. The magicians would lose their ability to create believable illusions.
The complete genre of horror films would disappear without Black's ability to spook us.
But what happens when the medium is not visual but affects our other senses. There is no colour to be seen. And yet its presence can be felt.
Where would metal or grunge be without black. There would be no Black Sabbath and no Metallica. There would be no collectible Black Albums for connoisseurs. And all of Goth culture would just disappear. Where could teenage rebellion find a better companion and guide than in the colour black?
Would musicians go to the crossroads and sell their souls to the devil to be able to write and play better music? Would there be haunting, melancholic lyrics? Would there be head banging with friends in large grounds and auditoriums while listening to divine heavenly music? The answer is a clear no.
All of fantasy literature owes a great debt to Black. The Mines of Moria and the Battle of Helms Deep in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings wouldn't have existed without it. Wizards and witches, dungeons and dragons, folktales and dark and grim fairy tales - they all wouldn't have the same force.
Every mystery novel ever written, every Enid Blyton adventure tale where youngsters explore abandoned light houses - they would vanish into thin air without Black.
Krishna - that most charismatic of characters in our mythology whose skin is the colour of twilight - his raaslila and maya are a direct result of Black. One could even equate sensuousness to this 'colour'.
It's not only the stars but also the deep and dark emptiness of space that has attracted man towards the skies. Black also represents our insignificance in the greater scheme of things. And yet it propels us forward in search of the uncertain, the unknown. And so we get space opera on one side through fiction and films and actual endeavours to cross the barrier of space by diligent scientists and engineers working day and night.
But Black is now tired. We are exhausting it. It is time we made a sincere contribution towards its rejuvenation. Maybe this coming year we round up the usual Page 3 suspects and tell them not to sport Black. Try Fuschia or Aquamarine instead.
If I had a penny for every time I heard someone say "Fuschia is the new Black" or "Aquamarine is the new Black", well I will be left with a lot of pennies at a time of financial crisis when the pound-rupee exchange rate is abominable. Growing up I used to incessantly wonder, to everyone's plight, when Black would be the new Black. Mothers, and may God bless their souls, always come through for little brats with too much curiosity and too little patience.
Black is always in. Black is always cool. Black covers you in a veil of mystery and gives you an edge. And when all else fails, black gets you out of trouble. And it has done all this since time began. For what existed before time, the universe or that big bang we keep hearing about in science journals? Black, of course. It is not a colour, but the absence of it. The absence of all light. It exists in the heart of all men and for the sheer contrast it provides to everything else in life, it's presence is necessary, nay, paramount.
And it has left its indelible mark on popular culture. The colour Black has always provided the backdrop, the canvas, on which great art, cinema, music and literature can be freely painted.
Imagine Batman as a caped crusader wearing flashy tights and saving the denizens of West Mambalam (nothing against their lot, but do they really need saving?) while riding the latest offering by hamara Bajaj. Would we ever get to see the monster hit that was The Dark Knight? Here's a movie almost completely set in darkness, that poor detested daughter of the colour black. Its music is ominous; it delves into the darkest corners of the human condition and yet its capacity to entertain is unmatchable.
Imagine Ralph Fiennes's Voldermort meeting Harry for the first time on a bus stand on a warm sunny day. Imagine Darth Vader wearing a green or a blue helmet.
Hitchcock's films were never the same once black and white gave way to colour. Salvador Dali's psychedelic set for Spellbound would never have the same charm, the same aesthetic sensibility in colour. The magicians would lose their ability to create believable illusions.
The complete genre of horror films would disappear without Black's ability to spook us.
But what happens when the medium is not visual but affects our other senses. There is no colour to be seen. And yet its presence can be felt.
Where would metal or grunge be without black. There would be no Black Sabbath and no Metallica. There would be no collectible Black Albums for connoisseurs. And all of Goth culture would just disappear. Where could teenage rebellion find a better companion and guide than in the colour black?
Would musicians go to the crossroads and sell their souls to the devil to be able to write and play better music? Would there be haunting, melancholic lyrics? Would there be head banging with friends in large grounds and auditoriums while listening to divine heavenly music? The answer is a clear no.
All of fantasy literature owes a great debt to Black. The Mines of Moria and the Battle of Helms Deep in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings wouldn't have existed without it. Wizards and witches, dungeons and dragons, folktales and dark and grim fairy tales - they all wouldn't have the same force.
Every mystery novel ever written, every Enid Blyton adventure tale where youngsters explore abandoned light houses - they would vanish into thin air without Black.
Krishna - that most charismatic of characters in our mythology whose skin is the colour of twilight - his raaslila and maya are a direct result of Black. One could even equate sensuousness to this 'colour'.
It's not only the stars but also the deep and dark emptiness of space that has attracted man towards the skies. Black also represents our insignificance in the greater scheme of things. And yet it propels us forward in search of the uncertain, the unknown. And so we get space opera on one side through fiction and films and actual endeavours to cross the barrier of space by diligent scientists and engineers working day and night.
But Black is now tired. We are exhausting it. It is time we made a sincere contribution towards its rejuvenation. Maybe this coming year we round up the usual Page 3 suspects and tell them not to sport Black. Try Fuschia or Aquamarine instead.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Coming to a Festival Near You
Bookaroo, India's first ever festival of children's literature, is happening on the 22nd and 23rd of November 2008 in New Delhi. On the second day I will be conducting a two-hour long workshop on speculative fiction for children between 12 and 16 years. The festival promises to be a lot of fun and I am particularly thrilled at the chance of meeting Jeff Smith, the creator of Bone.
Am also on a panel discussion on comic books and graphic novels that is happening at Lady Shri Ram College on the 21st of November as part of their literature festival. Will put up more details as they become available.
A judging/ moderating gig at Mood Indigo, IIT Bombay's cultural festival, is also on the horizon this year. Haven't visited their campus in a long time.
My official site ruddra.net should be up and running in 2009. A lot of writing projects are taking shape and coming out of their incubation chambers and am dying to share the details. In time, gentle reader.
Am also on a panel discussion on comic books and graphic novels that is happening at Lady Shri Ram College on the 21st of November as part of their literature festival. Will put up more details as they become available.
A judging/ moderating gig at Mood Indigo, IIT Bombay's cultural festival, is also on the horizon this year. Haven't visited their campus in a long time.
My official site ruddra.net should be up and running in 2009. A lot of writing projects are taking shape and coming out of their incubation chambers and am dying to share the details. In time, gentle reader.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Article for Tehelka
The good people at Tehelka recently asked me to write an article about today's children and their pop-culture influences and how grown-ups can become a part of this world. I wrote an overview article that can be read here. Sampurna Chattarji, Anita Roy and Anand Ramachandran wrote articles focused on books, TV and video games for children. Enjoy!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
India Today Article
I recently wrote an article about Chennai and its bookshops. You can read it here.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Graphic Novels: A Personal History
An edited version of this appeared in TOI Chennai today.
It was the summer of 1988. I, safely perched atop my father's knees, was doing a dramatised reading of Chacha Chaudhary Aur Raka. By muscling my way through multiple polysyllabic Hindi words I was adding to the joy and pride of my parents.
Years passed, Chaudhary got replaced by hordes from the DC and Marvel universe. In between was a sporadic sprinkling of Amar Chitra Katha and Raj Comics followed by regular heavy doses of Tintin and Asterix. And then there was a summer spent in college reading manga (Japanese comic books) back-to-front and right-to-left.
With age, my fascination with sequential art remained undeterred and I felt myself gravitating towards stories of a higher literary calibre, told with an economy of words and deftness of brush strokes. These were stories that painted a broad canvas of human emotions in a way that I found very different from the more conventional text-only prose.
Definitions abound (a quick search on the internet will show you that), and are often confusing and contradicting. The Americans started calling this medium Graphic Novels and the Japanese Gekiga to differentiate it from comics and manga. It covers fiction as well as non-fiction, but is clearly meant for a mature audience. It's all encompassing when it comes to genres. And its impact on pop-culture cannot be ignored.
Since most graphic novels are printed and published abroad they can leave a sizeable hole in your pocket. Though popular titles are now easily available in bookshops, it is advisable to do some scouting based on your prior tastes and preferences. There are also a handful of Indian graphic novelists out there - Amruta Patil's Kari and Sarnath Banerjee's Corridor would be my recommendations.
But if you are like me, and on a monthly basis spend a large chunk of your hard earned money on books, then give a holler next time you are in a bookshop. I'll most likely be in the graphic novel section ogling at Volume 1 and 2 of Absolute Sandman.
Sandman sits on the thin line separating comic books and graphic novels and is still the only comic book to ever be on the New York Times Bestseller List. Written by master story teller Neil Gaiman it was originally published in 75 issues that were later released in ten volumes. It is now being re-released in four Absolute volumes. The story revolves around Dream of The Endless and weaves characters from mythology, literature and history in genre-bending ways.
One of the most anticipated films in theatres this year is Watchmen, an adaptation of a graphic novel of the same name created by Alan Moore (writer) and Dave Gibbons (illustrator). Included by Time Magazine in its list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present" don't let the fact that this is a story about caped crusaders fool you into thinking that this is another comic book meant for children.
Fans of Tarantino and Rodriguez would love to read Lone Wolf and Cub - a staggering epic created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima in the seventies. These 28 volumes of manga (a total of 8700+ pages) are set in Tokugawa era Japan and tell the tale of a master swordsman and his young son. This masterpiece has served as an inspiration for some of the most brilliant moments in world cinema over the last 30 years.
Based on Paul Auster's story City of Glass (from his acclaimed The New York Trilogy), City of Glass: The Graphic Novel serves as a successful example of an adaptation carried out by independent artists of a previously published piece of prose. David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik's artwork takes the story to a dimension the original author could have never imagined possible.
And then there is A Contract with God by Will Eisner, the book that cemented the term Graphic Novel into modern lexicon. It is a collection of short stories set in a Depression-era-affected Jewish community of the 1930s.
Other interesting titles for collectors - Blankets by Craig Thompson, Bone by Jeff Smith, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Maus by Art Spiegelman.
It was the summer of 1988. I, safely perched atop my father's knees, was doing a dramatised reading of Chacha Chaudhary Aur Raka. By muscling my way through multiple polysyllabic Hindi words I was adding to the joy and pride of my parents.
Years passed, Chaudhary got replaced by hordes from the DC and Marvel universe. In between was a sporadic sprinkling of Amar Chitra Katha and Raj Comics followed by regular heavy doses of Tintin and Asterix. And then there was a summer spent in college reading manga (Japanese comic books) back-to-front and right-to-left.
With age, my fascination with sequential art remained undeterred and I felt myself gravitating towards stories of a higher literary calibre, told with an economy of words and deftness of brush strokes. These were stories that painted a broad canvas of human emotions in a way that I found very different from the more conventional text-only prose.
Definitions abound (a quick search on the internet will show you that), and are often confusing and contradicting. The Americans started calling this medium Graphic Novels and the Japanese Gekiga to differentiate it from comics and manga. It covers fiction as well as non-fiction, but is clearly meant for a mature audience. It's all encompassing when it comes to genres. And its impact on pop-culture cannot be ignored.
Since most graphic novels are printed and published abroad they can leave a sizeable hole in your pocket. Though popular titles are now easily available in bookshops, it is advisable to do some scouting based on your prior tastes and preferences. There are also a handful of Indian graphic novelists out there - Amruta Patil's Kari and Sarnath Banerjee's Corridor would be my recommendations.
But if you are like me, and on a monthly basis spend a large chunk of your hard earned money on books, then give a holler next time you are in a bookshop. I'll most likely be in the graphic novel section ogling at Volume 1 and 2 of Absolute Sandman.
Sandman sits on the thin line separating comic books and graphic novels and is still the only comic book to ever be on the New York Times Bestseller List. Written by master story teller Neil Gaiman it was originally published in 75 issues that were later released in ten volumes. It is now being re-released in four Absolute volumes. The story revolves around Dream of The Endless and weaves characters from mythology, literature and history in genre-bending ways.
One of the most anticipated films in theatres this year is Watchmen, an adaptation of a graphic novel of the same name created by Alan Moore (writer) and Dave Gibbons (illustrator). Included by Time Magazine in its list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present" don't let the fact that this is a story about caped crusaders fool you into thinking that this is another comic book meant for children.
Fans of Tarantino and Rodriguez would love to read Lone Wolf and Cub - a staggering epic created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima in the seventies. These 28 volumes of manga (a total of 8700+ pages) are set in Tokugawa era Japan and tell the tale of a master swordsman and his young son. This masterpiece has served as an inspiration for some of the most brilliant moments in world cinema over the last 30 years.
Based on Paul Auster's story City of Glass (from his acclaimed The New York Trilogy), City of Glass: The Graphic Novel serves as a successful example of an adaptation carried out by independent artists of a previously published piece of prose. David Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik's artwork takes the story to a dimension the original author could have never imagined possible.
And then there is A Contract with God by Will Eisner, the book that cemented the term Graphic Novel into modern lexicon. It is a collection of short stories set in a Depression-era-affected Jewish community of the 1930s.
Other interesting titles for collectors - Blankets by Craig Thompson, Bone by Jeff Smith, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Maus by Art Spiegelman.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Superhero
My story Split Infinitive and the Destroyer of Worlds has just come out in a new collection by Scholastic titled Superhero. Soon available in all leading bookstores.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
... and Other Unlikely Stories
My story Sneezed out of Existence has just come out in a new fantasy anthology by Scholastic titled The Moustache Maharishi and Other Unlikely Stories. Check it out at your nearest book store.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
A Pregnant Pause
Nine months away from the blog (ignore the last two blog entries) – shameful for someone who is addicted to writing and the internet. Yours truly can always conjure up a multitude of excuses, but what dear reader would be the point of such a futile exercise? Instead let me elucidate, nay, wax eloquent about my life in general. Forgive me my hubris (and the hoity-toity language), for I have never seen happier times.
Here goes – got published (have more writing projects in the pipeline), acted in two large theatre productions (one more on its way), started doing film reviews, became a creative consultant of sorts, sold my old IIT comp (miss you buddy), finally made the switch to Nokia from Sony Ericsson and …
An eventful and memorable year, which makes me look forward to the next one with greater expectations.
I am not one for resolutions, but am addicted to To-Do Lists.
To-Do in 2007
Blog regularly
Keep track of books and movies seen
Travel extensively
Get back into quizzing
Attend Clarion
Learn to play the guitar
Maintain contact with old friends
Write, write and write
And …
Here goes – got published (have more writing projects in the pipeline), acted in two large theatre productions (one more on its way), started doing film reviews, became a creative consultant of sorts, sold my old IIT comp (miss you buddy), finally made the switch to Nokia from Sony Ericsson and …
An eventful and memorable year, which makes me look forward to the next one with greater expectations.
I am not one for resolutions, but am addicted to To-Do Lists.
To-Do in 2007
Blog regularly
Keep track of books and movies seen
Travel extensively
Get back into quizzing
Attend Clarion
Learn to play the guitar
Maintain contact with old friends
Write, write and write
And …
Monday, September 25, 2006
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