Indiagraphics

Today I'll be looking at other countries, in a non-World Cup-related way. First up, India, a country where things like movie billboards (although not much anymore), trucks, and even political graffiti is elaborately and garishly hand-painted.

My cousin Basil is a graphic designer in Bombay. Here's what he told me recently when I asked him about the influences on design:

"India is almost entirely influenced by Western graphic design and graphic art form. Floral motifs and vine vector patterns seem to have given way to grungy urban textures of dereliction. Rusty metal and concrete are doing really good right now. It's a strange phenomenon 'cause the entire world seems to be hung up on Indian culture. Go figure..."

In 2004 there was a graphic novel called The Moon Of Baroda being serialized in a daily Bombay newspaper called Mid Day. My attempts to find it published in book form was met with blank looks from book store owners. Later on I emailed Rohit Gupta, the author, to ask him about it. He didn't reply.

The Moon Of Baroda, along with two other stories Knife In The Water and Towers Of Silence were collected in Gupta's book Special Officer Savant, which he described as "mainly about a police inspector and Bollywood-style crime-fighting, robbery etc." Incidentally, he described his 2007 comic The Curse Of Pippilika as "a typical science-fiction, mytho-epical tantric sex fantasy" (!).

Anyway, here's a sample strip – the first one I saw. I like how they censored the word 'ass' but left 'bloody', 'shit' and 'bastards' as is. Enjoy!

(©2004 Rohit Gupta/Harsho Mohan Chattoraj)