In lie a traditional tale of modern India a broad picture book narrative that is part soap opera and part family melodrama critic and satirist Gautam Bhatia lays every Indian stereotype open to question that good always triumphs over evil that truth vanquishes falsehood that the poor will ride roughshod over the rich that the powerful politician will sooner than later be brought to his knees by the ordinary man.
The graphic novel looks at issues personalities, people and ideas that project the popularly held view of the country. Its characters interact with each other in a way that gives vent to a range of popular and suppressed prejudices desires taboos and age old injustices that dog the life of every Indian. A sardonic look at the current state of affairs in the country using a traditional form of expression lie has been drawn by miniaturists from Rajasthan.
A Delhi flower seller provides an array of colors Tulips from Holland purple gladioli from Himachal. All seeded and grafted from some of the world’s most delicate hybrids. The sale occurs against the stench filled wall of a suburban market’s urinal. Aspects of beauty mingle freely with waste and decay in daily encounters. The India that is revealed to us is one of ironic contradictions and surreal paradoxes. It strikes neither the middle class housewife buying followers for the puja room nor a shop owner using the urinal. That the other proximity of their actions contaminates the other similarly union carbide will not settle the death claims of a gas tragedy but continues to display its philanthropy in the maintenance of flowered and manicured traffic islands in Bombay. In the Indian mind the visible expression of Philanthropy far exceeds actual philanthropy just the way a seminar on communal harmony invariably outweighs actual communal Harmony or the rewriting of history books becomes a legitimate method of imparting government education to school children.
In the daily life of the country are signs that convey a sense of collective tolerance there is an Islamic tomb in the old neighborhood. An illegal Hindu temple is being regularized down the road. A delegation of Buddhist monks is attending a peace conference the day to day signals conduct governs the passing of each day. But the passive individual given to the ritual of secularism in his won life becomes rabidly fanatical when part of the larger collective of his own community. Every bit of pious rhetoric invariably carries its undertones of violence contradictions abound. Asceticism and religious intolerance go hand in hand as do caste and inequality and people struggle with the paradox of belong feminists and duty bound wives untouchables and free citizens in society western concepts are adsorbed and mingle freely with traditional ideas often themselves heal baked or fractured wherever you go every turn or incident or meeting reinforces your position you are reminded of your deprivations your opportunities in your sightline is someone worthy of emulation. Someone else in a state of humiliation another in desperation the proximity of such reminders baffle and make you acutely aware of all the social political and economic collisions that are waiting to happen to you in your life in the life in India.
Unhoused millions child labor wife beating gas tragedies nuclear threats delinquent leaders degraded forests all put the future of the country low on the list of public expectation. Unable to deliver comic relief becomes the only tool to assuage the guilt of visible unrelenting tragedy lie is a graphic novel down by miniaturist artists from Rajasthan. It is an attempt to satirize the current state of affairs within the country using a traditional from of expression. Lie looks at issues personalities people and ideas that project the popularly held view of India the story reaches out to encompass a wide range of stereotypes from politics film religion cricket and family life. Is characters interact with each other in a way that gives vent to a range of popular and suppressed prejudices desires taboos and injustices that mark the life of the ordinary Indian. Lie is meant to act as a form of corrective measure to the real India offering a set of intellectual lenses behind which lies something to today’s morality lie is a tale of a tainted idealism afloat in a despotic nightmare of ordinary life. A story of armless beggars conspiring bureaucrats dements politicians and crooked businessman of meeting and seminars with no express intent riots and conflicts. An exaggerated view of people driven t grotesque levels of greed and indulging in heinous acts of depravity and danbarism if their life is a lie so too the story
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