Kari by Amruta Patil

I was pulled to this 2008 graphic novel from Amruta Patil after reading her story Atlantis in The Blaft Obliterary Journal. I liked the honesty of Patil's narration and her strong characterization. I was not disappointed as Kari is quite satisfying on multiple levels. It works as a strongly woven tale of a fish in an ocean of urban milieu.
The sexually-pronounced and assertive protagonist can be paralleled against any contemporary artists or writers. Few that came to my mind were Alison Bechdel, Erika Moen, Marjane Satrapi, Kuzhali Manickavel and Sharanya Manivannan. Patil's style is distinctive in its tonal confidence and ability to say the same thing in a loop with remarkable grip. She maintains an equal balance between Kari's mundane life as an advertising copyhead as well as her sexual adventures in realms of magic realism, and switches between the parallel worlds with utmost ease of a seasoned hand.

Kari boasts of strong, realistic characters, every mannerism detailed and conflicts exploited to create a story and world which is rich, almost TV soap-like in its interactions, yet poignant and provocative in its abstract excursions(allusions to an underground sewer and Kari's life as a boatman learning to "row clean through the darkest water").The book goes through portions great, average and repetitive, but told with a consistent honesty.

Patil uses diverse medium/art to evoke feelings of imagination, confrontation and oblique satire of the civilized society.  The sections at Kari's workplace give way to some hilarious situations which are told in a solemn, deadpan style. Few sequences that come to my mind are when Kari pulls out thoughts from her sub-conscious to advertising pitches which surprisingly win her deal over deal and recognition from all and sundry.

Great book which tells a sometime depressing if black tale of urban life with its share of sexual existence issues, isolation, angst, guilt and threads from memories that just wouldn't go. Kari is a solid debut by Patil, and though I am criminally late in this review, I hope to make up for it by catching up on her future release, Adi Parva on time. 

Interview with Paul Gravett
Artist Profile

The Obliterary Journal(Part I) & The Epic Misgivings of Blaft

The Obliterary Journal(Part I) by Blaft is a welcome addition to the little less ordinary publishing house’ well, convention-obliterating repertoire. I have been a fan of Blaft books since I laid my hands on the then-revolutionary Tamil Pulp Fiction Anthology Part I. 

Those were the days of Quick Gun Murugan, bad books and free-flowing alcohol, not in any necessary order, and Blaft was the new kid in town, the proverbial ray of hope that would transform the world as we know it. As fate would have it, alcohol started damaging kidneys(of no particular gender, religion or political belief), Quick Gun disappeared from theaters before you could say Mind It!, and Blaft, among other things, released a smaller version of Tamil Pulp Fiction hiding beneath rows of emo-blood-sucking-teen vampires and self-consciously-conscious-IT-type-urban-indian-fellows. 

Alcohol sales dropped but the flame of revolution did keep burning, thanks to landmark books from Blaft that shook translated fiction and its abusive cousins to no end – Zero Degree, Where are you going, you monkeys!, Insects are like you and me except some of them have wings, Ibne Safi Series, Surender Mohan Pathak’s 65 Lakh Robbery and Day Light Robbery. I was away from Blaft books after I left the Ibne Safi series midway and never could pick up again somehow. You know, just like that.

Now, The Obliterary Journal brings back happier times, in lush color and youthful fountains. It fits in perfectly with these graphic-friendly times. Excerpts and one-shots, “art projects”, Rajini-friendly autodrivers, depressing old-age home residents, forgotten aliens all enthuse and abuse your sensory perception of the world in this oddly-graphic novel.

I flipped through some pages faster than others, and it had nothing to do with my racial prejudices or contempt of growing old. Loved the urban satire by Amruta Patil, an old Bengali detective pulp, and dystopian science fiction-weird mythology smatterings. Again, nothing to do with my apolitical leanings.

 Pick up this book, you must, for sake of your kidneys. No, seriously, in pure unbiased recommendation, TOJ is made for your shelf, put it between a vintage Thomas Hardy and MAD.

Preview

Interview at NH7

Mug Shot - This is what you get for plugging Blaft books