Everyday shenanigans

An anthology has its pros and cons: while, in a carefully chosen collection, literary works can complement each other, or stand out on their individual merit, in an inconsistent compilation even the good ones tend to go to waste. It’s a pity, then, that the more competent artists in the comics collaborative When Kulbhushan Met Stockli may not get their due.

A glossy compilation of 10 graphic stories by Swiss and Indian comic book artists, When Kulbhushan Met Stockli at first glance holds promise.

An introduction explains the premise: a group of Swiss artists were brought to India to take in the sights and sounds, while their Indian counterparts (some of who may be familiar: Samit Basu, Anindya Roy, Orijit Sen), roamed the Alps. Each documented their own experiences.

A sneak preview of the artists’ work was displayed last year in Delhi, and the slides on show — cheeky and insightful — promised something interesting. The artists, who expanded their observations into full-fledged stories for this anthology, were given but one restriction: to avoid regular travel documentation, and to stay away from the banal touristy hassles of diarrhoea, pickpockets, taking the wrong tram, and so on.

Several stories fall into the exact trap they were asked to avoid. “A Shortcut to India” by Andrea Caprez and Christoph Schuler, for instance, is downright naive and mundane, illustrating the “dust-covered cars” in Delhi, the “piercing” traffic noise and the delicious-smelling dhabas that result in the urgent need for “Imodium, the universal remedy of Europeans journeying in Asia.”

It doesn’t get better when one reads Kati Rickenbach’s “No Water in O-Block” — do I need to spell this one out?

At the risk of sounding biased, the work of the Indian comic artists seems far superior. Delivered in a part-fictional, part-experiential format, several of them weave their observations into their fiction. Vishwajyoti Ghosh’s “The Lost Ticket” is a neat piece of work, told through a mix of narratives: playful poetry, straight prose and illustration, and bubble-style comic strips. Samit Basu’s detective story, complemented by Ashish Padlekar’s artwork, is engaging (but for the painful font size).

Unfortunately for them, the standard set in the book is not high; examples of real humour are few and far between, a sense of adventure and perceptiveness even rarer, and the Swiss artists who journeyed to India for this purpose seem too uninspired to rise above mundane, pedestrian observations that add no real value to the book. Their straightforward travelogue-style reportage of everyday shenanigans — potholes and plumber worries, mehendi wallas and STD/PCO/ISD booths — make you wish they had dug just a little deeper.

WHEN KULBHUSHAN MET STOCKLI
Editor: Anindya Roy
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Pages: 272
Price: Rs 699