Death never has any dignity.
But you can find trust
Believing that when mind and body break down
Those you love, who love you,
Will remember who you were, and take care of you.
Trust them to take care of your body the way you would.

I was told that what I am
and what I will become
was carved into the lines on my palms,
imprinted on my fingerprints,
orchestrated in the arrangement of the stars
on the night I was pushed into this world
bloody and screaming and beautiful.

When I was a schoolgirl,
I had it all figure out -
I knew exactly what I wanted to become.
I was nothing more than the sum of my choices,
mistakes only made me stronger,
and I would build the world back,
one sunburnt brick at a time.

But, now, I am just a tangle of
my father’s name
my to-be husband’s last name
my grandfather’s profession
their collective bank balance
my mother’s sacrifice
my grandmother’s hysteria
how brittle my bones will be in 20 years
how weak my heart will be in 30 years
how fragile my mind will be in 40 years
I am all these things and nothing more.

Who I am is something that pushes
under my skin with every heartbeat.
I have no control over it.

If this is who I am,
then at what point exactly do you learn to fear
the person you will become?

When you realize you don’t need a prison stronger than your own body
or walls thicker than the ones in your mind?

I can only look at the future
through these eyes my mother gave me,
and these eyes of a different generation
are already blind to some of the dreams
I have painted into the walls of my mind.

I dream of cutting myself
on the razor-edge of a career
and I will bleed,
But the mistakes will only be my own.

I dream of a marriage
that don’t need to race against
but will walk towards.

I dream of challenging every silence,
every voice that says,
“It is not safe…
… for a girl.”

But through the coloured vision of these eyes,
I can only see myself as a version of her,
just as she is a version of her grandmothers.

I am also
the hours my mother spent
locked away from her family
strolling down Dicken’s streets
and bursting into pirate’s lairs
and though her nieces and nephews
tease her for being the boring-est of five siblings,
she just smiles,
and I know that I a version of her.

I am also
the pain of the root canal
my father’s face bloated like an old melon
his eyes drooping from painkillers
as he stumbled off to work because
“Business needs to be take care of.”
and “If I don’t do it, no one will.”
I am also a version of him.

I am a version
of my grandfather’s courage
to leave family and friends and everything he knew
to come to this city because that is “where the future will be,”
and I am songs my grandmother
remembered to sing to me.
I am my brother’s defiance of curfews
and the arch of my sister’s eyebrow.

Ever generation can only define itself
by how different it wants to be from the one before.

My body is a legacy that I share
with an ancestry of suffering and strength
my voice is never always my own,
it is part of a history
and I will always be insignificant.
I am version of them,
these wings may be borrowed,
but this flight
will be my own.

I still feel uncomfortable about putting this up online. it never feels finished, and it always feel too personal. The second half needs to be redrafted. Circling back to the same thing over and over and over again. Well, there it is. Do with it what you will.

Die sonnet form. Die.

Worlds slide with every shift in perspective,
the earth reshapes itself along new outlines
as another rib cage of beliefs collapses.
It was built out of nothing but butterfly wings
and cities of sand and faith.
Worlds balanced not by what we chose to build,
but by what we chose to be blind to.
Make-believe is fun for only so long,
until we are betrayed by it.

And we forget, how much of our lives is spent playing games of pretend.

They say I am a poet.

Poets wish themselves into existence through their words.

Realities do not collide into each other
in one moment of understanding.
That is a lie.
They can only echo of each other.
We can only stitch ourselves into a language
and hope that one sound will strike a reflection in a different experience
and resonate with understanding
so that we may hear our own voices
back through the voices of others
and we will know that we exist.

There can be no other reason for scratching
against a gum chewing existence,
hobbling on borrowed crutches
of stars and breath and worlds and sand
trying to say things without saying it.
Using pictures stolen from books and pop songs
smuggled into a blank page by ineptitude
from a language (and a culture by extension)
I have adopted but can never own.

There is no validation, only self recognition,
and trust.

The hardest part is
permitting oneself the freedom
to dream of changing worlds.

This is just something that I am.

News is always something that happens to someone else.

But in the silence of the night – listen -
there is the ghost of her unheard voice – screaming, screaming and sobbing,
a burning song of thousands of voices – screaming, shrieking, silent,
voices saying over and over again, “This could be you.”
Whether I choose to or not, I carry her scars under my skin,
her screams under my breath, I fear the fear in her eyes.

I try to find an answer to that voice, I try to understand,
but it is hard to think of her as a person,
when the image of her bloodied face flashes before my eyes every three seconds.
I try to teach myself to grieve for this girl I never knew,
I try to crawl under her skin, try to recreate her reality -
I try to fill it with good things – sunrises and laughter and hot coffee,
I try to push beyond the newspaper article, beyond the ten-second video, beyond the screaming voice,
I try to see the girl who breathed, loved, and hurt
and dreamed of streaking into a horizon of possibilities –
I look into the eyes of the person that she could have been,
and I find more than just a broken bodied, screaming voice,
I find love and song and strength; she is stronger, deeper, brighter
than just scars and hurt, she too can laugh.

Burnt brides and schoolgirls with scars of acid on their faces
still remember to laugh, and the women of Bhopal,
afraid to have babies because they live every day with poisoned bodies,
remember to sing. The heavens thunder with the song of
mothers who refuse to speak
as uncles rape daughters, brothers kill sisters,
delivering family-approved vindication for
choosing the wrong person to have sex with.
They are not numbers, to be channel changed, page turned, dismissed at will,
they are more than a screaming, keening voice, they too can laugh.
On the streets,
girls raped in late night cabs, in the back of minivans,
girls shot dead in bars by sons of famous politicians,
girls threatened with marriage for hanging out with their boyfriends -
we laughed, right through the curfew on valentines day.

And every morning women across this country
wake up to the hum of these voices under their breath
take a good hard look at the mirror
and then go on to become suits burning with red hot ambition,
slogan-shouting tree huggers, mushroom-chewing hippy advertisers,
law makers, teachers, firebrand feminists, center fold models,
have sex, have babies, have careers, have happiness
and do any other damn thing they please -
Those scars are our story, they are our collective history,
but they are not all that we are.

I cannot find the right words to offer her memory,
but I wear her scars with pride,
her song under my breath,
I respect the strength in her eyes.

Written for Brave New Voices 2010 at Los Angeles.

The day he was born, Chikku the wrinkled little thing was swaddled in soft blue towels and was handed to his father. His father took the baby in his arms, pride flowing through every tired line in his face, his spectacles gleaming with his joy, and said, “Oh, my.” That is all. No more and no less. You see, if Chikku’s ears seem big and awkward now, imagine what they would have looked liked then. They looked like two imp ears accidentally misplaced onto an enlarged raisin. Let’s be honest, Chikku was not the cutest little cherub to have a bumpy landing on earth. Chikku’s father stared long and hard into the squished face before him. He cleared his throat hesitantly, “are you sure this is the right one?” he asked.

Ten years later, Chikku woke up that Monday morning with a sigh. He did not want to go to his new school. His parent told him that the new school was better and that it would make him work harder and generally become smarter. And what was worse, it was a Monday. There can be nothing worse than a new school and a Monday. He slid out of bed and trotted towards his bathroom, massaging his ears that had become cramped overnight. His reflection in the mirror caught his attention. His eyes followed the horrendously big flaps to where they disappeared over the edge of the mirror. “Today is not going to be a good day,” he told his reflection. He pulled the edge of one ear and twanged it – it bent nearly double and then sprung back into shape easily. Hmm. He quickly ran out, rummaged in the medicine drawer and picked up the roll of surgical tape and hurried back stealthily to the mirror. He folded his right ear into thirds and taped it up to the back to his head. He could hear a strange roaring sound inside his head, but it was of no significance, considering how inconspicuous his ear now was! It was a marvel that they had not thought of this earlier! He quickly trussed up his other ear as well, and looked proudly at the result in the mirror. He turned his head this way and that, straining to see what his now neatly packaged ears looked like. All he could see was two pink aching lumps on each side of his head and he was quite proud.

“All prepped up for the new school?” his mother called out from the kitchen. She was busy squashing a squishy sandwich into Chikku’s plastic tiffin box. Chikku cheerfully answered that he was indeed. When his mother emerged, victoriously wiping her hands on a dishrag, the expression n her face slowly turned into an odd mixture of horror and fascination. “What have you done?!” she howled.

“Much better, no?” Chikku beamed up at her.

“Don’t be silly. You look ridiculous!” And in one quick movement she ripped off the tape on his right ear. Chikku screamed. “What are you doing?! I spent a whole ten minutes getting that just right!”

“You look ridiculous!” His mother hollered back at an even higher decibel.

Chikku fell silent. Aha. So that’s what she thought about his all along. If she thought he looked ridiculous now, when his ears were all hidden away, then what had she been thinking so long? He was onto her little game. She had been playing pretend for so long. Parents say all sorts of things to make their kid (and themselves) believe their blighted offspring is the best thing to happen to the world – Or in the case of Chikku – not the worst thing that happened to the world. He looked at her dolorously, not saying a word.

“What I meant was you looked ridiculous like that, with your ears taped up. Now you’re just fine. Natural… uh… distinct. Yes, that’s the word, distinct.” It was pathetic to see her fish around for words, trying to make a quick save. But it was out there – around them, over them, beneath them. The truth. Ridiculous. The word stuck to the walls in a way that no speech about being special could erase.
Chikku knew she didn’t mean it, he knew that she hated Monday as much as he did. But it stung, and it stuck.

She tried a new tactic. “Okay, maybe your ears do look a bit odd, but that doesn’t mean they have to become the center of who you are. I’m sure you have a lot of hidden talents, and when we find them, everyone will know how good you are, and everyone will want ears like you because everyone will want to be like you.”

“I don’t have any hidden talents.” Chikku said in a dull, slab voice.

“Of course you do, we just need to find it. We’ll start you off on that new gardening course next week, and you’ll see.”

“I don’t even like plants.” Chikku was still unconvinced. With 232 classes behind him, he was pretty sure that they’re not going to find any miraculous talents in him. His eyes took on the tired look of a veteran who has been there, seen it all. A little while longer, and his eyes would’ve taken on the glazed look, he would’ve rubbed his aching ears and would have begun saying war stories about he has single handed ambushed the posse of maths teachers during their coffee break with a flying feline, or how he planted that mine of gerbils in the piano teacher’s –

“We’ll find something,” his mother said briskly, stuffing the idly in his mouth and shoo-ing him towards the door. “You’ll be late,” she said.
Chikku grabbed his bag from her extended hand, and dutifully trotted towards the door. He had low expectations for the world today – it was a Monday after all. He stood at the gate, watching the traffic whirl past, cutting it way through the grey smoke that rose off the pavement in wisps and swirled around the edges of his ears. A man hurrying past shoved him out of the way, muttering something under his breath, lost underneath the handkerchief he held to cover his noses and mouth in a somewhat desperate bid to get cleaner air than everyone else. It helped that their apartment was on the main road, and he just needed to step outside their front door, climb down six fleets of stairs, and tada! There it was, the city rumbling away, waiting to gobble them up – like a cat watching them from outside the hole, just waiting for the rat to emerge so that it can slap its big paw in one swift, sudden moment and it would all be over. Just when Chikku was just about to figure out which headlights looks the most like cat eyes, the van drew up.

“Oi, Chaitan, jump in quickly!” the driver called. Chikku clambered onto the dun colored van, which reminded him over of a glorified soap box than anything else. He carefully navigated his ears through the narrow doorway before him, he’s had enough incidents of accidentally bonking them on some unexpected low hanging thing, or slamming the door shut on them. However, this method of enter though spoke of caution also meant that the first thing the other kids in the van saw were his ears, and that is what they would remember till the very end.

As Chikku looked around for a space, bags miraculous appeared in places where there had been no bags before, and scrawny eight year olds needed two seats to spread themselves out comfortable. Chikku gulped.

“Oi Batface! You can come and hangout with us!” a voice slurred from the back on the van.

Three boys sat there, yellow smiles sprawled across their faces. One was scrawny like a broomstick that had been broken into too many pieces, and had been put back together by a person who did not know how. The second was an overgrown lump that resembled a bloated toad, sucking up someone else’s lunch through its soft, lubberly mouth. But the one that was talking was worst of all – little jagged edged of teeth emerged from underneath the upper lip with a curious tuft of hair on it – it looked like centipede had been slowly pulling itself along, and just gave up and died. Right there on his face.

“Would this bar do? You just need something to cling from when you hang upside down right?” His laugh sounded like something throttled out of a dying hyena. Hyuk hyuk hyuk hyuk.

The van snickered politely. Chikku gulped. The driver was looking at his surly-eyed, waiting for him to find a spot, before she can drive off.

“What are you blinking for? Just sit down somewhere!” he yelled over the noise of the rumbling engine, his hand impatiently gripped on the steering wheel.

Chikku’s eyes rolled around desperately, looking for a few space. He could feel at least a dozen beady eyes bore into the back of his neck. Wherever he looked, eyes glowered back at him, and hands moved protectively over bags, and as every inch of space disappeared under some form of bag, boy or girl.

“You can sit here!” A small voice squeaked to Chikku’s right.

The voice came from under an enormous pink strawberry shaped bag. All Chikku could see were two black-buckle-shoe-d feet sticking out from under it. Chikku collapsed onto the half-seat offered so generously.

With a roar that defies all known theories of inertia and momentum, the van swung out, rushing headlong into the honking jungle of traffic.

“Aww. The mouse and the bat have become friends,” the Centipede Boy drawled. Someone tittered suitably. And then he apparently ran out of un-funny things to say, and settled into fishing out a neon green plastic comb and pulling it through his greasy hair.
Chikku stared straight ahead, too embarrassed by the beady eyes fixed on him to say anything. You would think he would’ve gotten used to the staring by now – but humiliation is always painful, no matter how many times you have go through the same thing. And for Chikku, it was no different. It did not help that there was an annoying voice at the back of his head that kept squeaking “I told you so!” over and over again.

“My name is Ammu,” the voice from underneath the giant plastic pink strawberry squeaked.

“I’m Chikku.”

“Don’t mind Senthil,” her voice dropped conspiratorly, “My sister says they keep him in the school only because the principal does not want to release such a blight onto society.”

Chikku tried to nod as sympathetically as possible on receiving this piece of information.

“She said we should feel sorry for him, kind of like a blister that won’t go away.”

Chikku considered the analogy. He didn’t see why anyone should ever want to feel sorry for a blister. Blisters are things that you poke, annoy, or at best, ignore. But he remained wisely silent.

The van careened widely onto two wheels, screeching in protest, dropped onto all four wheels, and gently trundled through the gates. Chikku twisted his head around just soon enough to see the sign through the window – ‘St. Joesph Matriculation School’ – or so the board read.

“So. This is it. The new school that’s supposed to make him smarter.” Chikku thought with a vague sense of doom hanging upon him. He could just feel it out there – the Monday lurking around in the shadows, just waiting for him to turn his back, so that it can pounce on him, and do something disastrous. Or even worse, there’s another kind of Mondays as well. They are the sneaky kinds – they slink around, and make you think that everything is okay – and you will, you will, until the trap snaps shut, and you see everyone staring at you like they’ve always wanted to – and you just know – that something really, really, bad has happened. You’ve been most framed for the most horrid crime that can be committed by a ten year old boy. With such glum ponderings, Chikku clambered down from the bus and followed the general stream of students as they rushed approximately in the same direction.

“Which class?” Ammu asked.

Chikku turned and saw nothing beside him but air. He lowered his gaze a bit. Ammu was tiny even for a six year old. She was just about 2 and a half feet tall. If you want to know how much two and a half feet is… it is about as much as tall as a series of Encyclopedia Britannica stacked on top of each other. Or a large rabbit when it stood on its hind legs. Ammu trotted along beside him, with her giant pink strawberry bag strapped onto her back, with many of the same knots and devices used by mountain climbers who have to carry three months of provisions with them.

“You’re tiny!” Chikku exclaimed, involuntarily. It’s amazing that people can spend so much of time saying the most obvious things.

“And you have big ears!” Ammu shot back cheerily.

Chikku considered this. She was tiny and he had big ears, and there was nothing they could do about it. It was true.

Chikku grinned. “At least it was better than having something that looks like a dead centipede on your face.”

Ammu broke into guffaws and snorted with laughter. She had a high squeaky laugh that spilt out of her tiny being, and filled up vast amounts of space around her. People around them gave them odd looks. A six-year-old year old as big as a shrub and a ten-year-old with ears as big and bright red as two large Frisbees attract attention as it is – but people do somewhat resent it if the odd people in a crowd actually manage to have a good time. They like to pity them, make fun of them, but some odd reason become vaguely annoyed when they seem to be enjoying themselves.

“He is Centipede-Boy!” She said gleefully. And that was what they called him during all the time they knew each other – and that, was for a long, long time.

As Ammu giggled to herself, clearing out the last bits of mirth, Chikku measured her using his thumb, like the way he’s seen artists in the movies do. He hmm-ed and haw-ed himself, trying to figure out her exact height. “You know what –“

“What?” she asked, tugging him toward the gate to the main compound. The bell would go off at any minute now.

“I think you’re just about an inch smaller than my ear!”

Ammu looked at him, astounded. Now that he’s said it, she realized that he was probably right. Mortifying as it was, to be smaller than someone’s ear, she could not fail but see the immense joke that it offered. She burst into another fit of giggles that left her hands flailing wildly, trying to wave something in sign language that Chikku could not understand. She didn’t bother explaining, and instead dragged Chikku through the gate and pointed towards the group he should be with. They she trotted off to join her own gaggle of friends who seemed to be as prone to giggling as she was.

What is anime? Shivankar Jayaprasad, founder of Animestan, India’s oldest anime club explains, “The word anime when used in Japan refers to animation of any sort, including their animation and western cartoons. When it is used outside of Japan, it refers exclusively to animation made in Japan.”Anime is not a genre within the wider framework of animation, but a medium in itself.

Most anime has its roots in manga, or Japanese comics. By the 20th century, manga was being read in trains, classrooms and on the streets. It had become an essential part of Japanese culture. When Japanese animators began to imitate their American and European counterparts, the stories and the style of drawing in manga were carried into anime. Since then, the anime/maga trend has evolved into an international sub-culture. It has something for everyone – from toddlers to people with fetishes for women violated by robot-tentacled monsters. It is rumored that every original plot has been taken by the Japanese; even the fine art of baking bread has been turned into a series (Yakitate!! Japan).

Often, the public’s perception of animation tends to be limited to Disney, Pixar, and Popeye the Sailor. This is also because American production houses tend to be far bigger, and have larger resources than Japanese studios. An article in the New York Times reports that an average Pokémon episode costs about $100,000; but the average cost of an original episode of an American-made cartoon is estimated to be about $500,000. In animated movies, Disney and Pixar primarily due to their size as multibillion dollar companies have managed to dwarf an entire generation of talented film makers. Ironically, Europe and America have also become the chief centres for anime-centered counter cultures. The monopoly of the animation giants has lead the anime subculture into expand in cultish proportions. Japan’s export of anime to the United States alone, stands close to five billion dollars.

Anime fans stay connected through internet forums and groups, some of whose members meets up in real time. They share information, discuss news from the industry and try to improve their Japanese slang. India boasts of its own online anime forums, like Animestan and Animeindia. Cosplaying, or dressing up as the character and role-playing, and well as creating AMV’s (anime music videos) is common.

To the general public, anime is seen through two extreme perspectives – either as childish, or an excess of gore and erotica. Often, the vast middle, the bits that talk about high school romances (Whisper of the Heart) and discuss socio-political issues and solutions (Akira) are often missed. This is because these shows rarely make it to international audiences, and are virtually unknown except to discerning viewers. Therefore, series like Dragon Ball Z and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers draw regular flak from the media for excessive violence, while series like Maison Ikkoku in which it takes 30 episodes to the boy to hold the girl’s hand remains unknown.

But these complaints about sex and gore in anime are not completely groundless either. Anime is not just about entertainment and lost children who find their way. It has also become the platform for expression of unrestrained fantasy and every known form of sexual perversion. This has lead to the creation of an entire genre of anime with violent and explicit content meant for adult audiences, popularly known as hentai. Anime has also grown some socially-unacceptable subsections, such as ecchi that is just toned down hentai, and moe which is sexualisation of pre-pubescent girls. Extreme fandom by some otakus (anime fan to the point of obsession) also leads to other fans being labeled as ‘different’.

Regular anime does feature scenes of nudity and sexuality but these scenes are usually tied to the character and plot development of the story. Since children are exposed to anime at a young age, this creates an added threat. A child who is prone to violence may take inspiration from whatever material is easily available, in this case, anime. Shivankar explains why violence can be problematic when adults fail to realize that anime is not entirely a children’s genre. “I watch the most disturbing gore flicks but I know how to differentiate between reality and fiction children cannot make that differentiation so their activities need to be monitored.” He stresses, not all anime is meant for children.

Incidentally, Japanese audiences seem to have a more open perspective to nudity and violence than anglo-euro tastes permits. They are open to idea of nudity appearing in series meant for younger audiences, like Naruto, which often shocks western viewers. If the fault of western cartoons is that they are didactic, then anime’s fault is that it is relatively amoral. The larger structure of good Vs evil exists in several plots, but anime is more likely to question morality than cartoons generated from western production houses. Maybe because a large part of the world still sees anime as ‘cartoons’ as associated with a children’s genre, and not as an independent medium in itself, it becomes increasingly difficult for adults to accept the nudity, sex and gore in anime.

In India, anime has been around only for eight years or so. Many of the anime fans today, started off by watching the anime block on AXN, Toonami on Cartoon Network, and the all-anime channel, Animax. There are nearly 800 registered fans, and many other casual watchers. Srikanth Chinta, a student from SASTRA University, Tajore, reveals that nearly 85% of his college follows the popular anime series, Naruto. Since the amount of anime and manga that enters the market is rather limited, fans depend on the internet to be updated on the latest news. Anshumani Ruddra, writer and anime enthusiast remarks, “The number of truly dedicated fans who follow every latest issue of a manga online or download the latest episode of an anime is still small. But this number is certainly increasing. And cheaper and faster broadband connections are ensuring that people interested in manga/anime don’t have to wait for a new title to come into India through traditional means (TV, book shops).” Animestan, and other groups of enthusiasts often hoast small meetings in the major cities, where they meet other like-minded fans, swap dvds, and practice their broken Japanese. Sanjay, a self proclaimed otaku says, “I have a huge network of friends with whom I watch anime on a regular basis, usually twice a week we meet up at my place and watch latest episodes and other shows.”

What makes anime popular with Indian fans? The cultural codes are different, the language foreign and the characters remain Japanese. In fact, fans try to keep the series as Japanese as possible, choosing subtitles over dubbed audio tracks. The first rule of the Animestan manifesto is “Thou Shall Not Dub.” Each anime fan has a different special reason why they love their favorite series. Surprisingly anime fans are not so drawn by the cultural closeness to the Orient, but more because three major aspects – its diversity, the interesting plot and characters who peel off layers like onions, and the exquisite artwork. What appeals to anime enthusiasts is its universality – the feeling that the story can be supplanted into any other culture and it would still make perfect sense and retain its flavour. Anime features a vibrant plethora of contemporary characters that don’t to belong to any one culture or nation.

However, the anime fandom in India is not large. Sanjay Ramjhi points out that several fans are nervous about coming out and discussing anime because they are afraid of being chided for being ‘childish’ or are scared of being judged. Additionally, the anime that is aired on television hardly reflects the quality of anime that is available, further complicating the issue.

Anime fans constantly bemoan the restricted market for anime and manga. Several manga fans agree that they would buy manga it was priced reasonably between 50 to 100 Rs, rather than the exorbitant 350 Rs which seems to be the average. Retailers however have a different story. Landmark has the largest stock of manga and graphic novels in Chennai. Mr. Arif from Landmark, Chennai remarks, “Further north, their collection (of manga) is threefold of ours. In Chennai, there is no market.” He adds, customers seem more interested in graphic novels than manga. Additionally, manga need to be directly imported, as there are no publishers who hold reprinting rights. The few titles that are moving fast include Lone Wolf and Cub, Samurai and Executioner, the Chronicles of Buddha series. The popular anime series in India, like Naruto, Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, One Piece and Death Note have not made their way to the Chennai market in manga form. The stock is meager; erratic at best.

Just as anime is a foil to western cartoons, the manga fandom often competes with the graphic novel following. Anshumani Ruddra explains, “I think manga and graphic novels are two completely different beasts. The aesthetics and content sensibility behind both is as far apart as Western and Oriental philosophy. And yet, we Indians always seem to be traversing the thin line between the East and the West. Hence the popularity of both manga and graphic novels here.”

Though the manga and graphic novel followings are small, they have been an active enough group to start creating their own art. Samit Basu, author of the Gameworld Triology and who is currently working with Virgin comics remarks, “the market for graphic novels, is tiny but quite vocal and has generated a great deal of media attention. The graphic novel is in its nascent stages in our country – there have been only three noteworthy books so far – but there’s still a very long way to go, it’ll take several years before there’s a significant body of work and anything approaching an Indian style. But we certainly get to read about it quite a lot.”

Whether the anime trend in India will fizzle and fade out in a couple of years, or stay to grow into a full-blow subculture is yet to be seen. But for now, there are a group of dedicated followers who are vocal and who are trying their best to reveal the treasure min that anime can be.

Wrote this for our ‘Journalistic Writing’ paper, August 2009, so a bit outdated. Also, had to dumb it down for various reasons, hence the ‘introduction’ in the title. Will put up source links a while later.

Filed under: College, Essay ]]>