Ancient Indian Tales Inspire a Modern Indian Art

[Guest guest]

Ancient Indian Tales Inspire a Modern Indian Art

by Laura Sydell

National Public Radio (U.S.)

Dec. 13, 2007

 

" The way the Indian mind unfortunately has been trained in

the last two decades is to emulate the best of the West. ...

We do a tremendous amount of unlearning. "

-- Gotham Chopra

 

Bangalore, India

 

To many Americans, the name evokes call centers and

colorless office parks, anonymous places to which U.S.

companies export work. But in a building on a quiet

residential street downtown, an army of Indian animators is

working to export their culture to the rest of the world. Their

source material: The elaborate pantheon of Hindu

mythology.

 

" In every state of India we've got, like, about a hundred

different gods, " says Neha Bajaj, an editor at the fledgling

Virgin Comics. " 'Cause everybody believes in a different

god; they've got their own idol, and every idol is given its

own name in every village. It's vast - and it's amazing! "

 

Less than two years old, Virgin Comics has already

published dozens of titles, with names like Sadhu,

Ramayan, Uma and Kali. All of them are classic figures,

and the staff here knows these stories from childhood.

 

The Virgin Comics illustrators work from a palette of colors

and shapes that resemble those you'd find on the walls of a

Hindu temple. Their long-haired warriors have narrow hips

and robust chests; their voluptuous women drape

themselves in colorful saris. Mostly, the stories are heroic

journeys, and good generally triumphs over evil.

 

The Hindu demon Raktavija is the basis for a comic called

Virulents. Virgin Comics CEO Sharad Devarajan explains

that in mythology, Raktavija wanted to live forever, but the

gods weren't quite willing to grant him that.

 

" They said to him that in order to stop anyone that may try

to kill him, every drop of his blood would turn into another

demon, " Devarajan explains. " And that would eventually

make it very tough to kill this guy. "

 

A writer at Virgin imagined what might happen if you put

Raktavija in the middle of the conflict in Afghanistan, and

had a group of American and Indian troops discover a nest

of the demons - and the result, as presented in Virulents,

piqued the interest of filmmaker John Moore.

 

Moore directed the remake of The Omen; he has a deal with

Fox to make a movie based on the comic. He saw a modern

message in the ancient myth: Every time a terrorist is

attacked, 10 more seem to pop up to replace him. Plus,

Moore says, it's not a story that has been overused by the

Hollywood machine.

 

" It was based on a mythology that people knew little or

nothing about, " Moore says. " The movie staples have been

well worn by now, you know, whether it's vampires or

werewolves or guys running around in capes and tights. "

 

You're definitely not going to find guys in capes and tights

in a Virgin comic. Devarajan got the idea for the company

when he was working in India with Marvel Comics. He

worked on a version of Spider-Man rooted in a Hindu myth

- a title he says was successful enough, for what it was.

 

" But you know, at the end of the day what we really wanted

to do was create our own properties that really could stand

at the forefront of the world, and really could champion a lot

of this young, dynamic Indian creativity, " Devarajan says.

 

If you're wondering why a company with that mission is

named Virgin Comics, well, it's because the main investor is

Richard Branson, of Virgin Airlines and Virgin Records

fame. His partners are the filmmaker Shekhar Kapur

(Elizabeth) and entrepreneur Gotham Chopra, who also

happens to be the son of Deepak Chopra.

 

Together, they set out to find that " young, dynamic Indian

creativity. " Chopra says the talent was there - although

many of the most-gifted young people had grown used to

doing back-end animation for American studios.

 

" The way the Indian mind unfortunately has been trained in

the last two decades is to emulate the best of the West, "

Chopra says. " Because it's been built upon an outsourcing

model, so we do a tremendous amount of unlearning. "

 

When artists first arrive at Virgin, they are used to

repressing their own culture, says illustrator Jeevam Kang.

Then, " it's like letting loose a nuke. "

 

" Suddenly you are allowed to do anything you want, " Kang

says. " You can't handle that kind of freedom all of a sudden.

So it takes about three to four months of time to adjust. "

 

Virgin has more movies in the works, and the company is

animating a massive, multiplayer, online video game based

on a Hindu myth for Sony.

 

The model for many here, says editor Bajaj, is manga, the

comic-book form that mixed Western graphic-novel styles

with Japanese cultural traditions.

 

" It's a cult now, " Bajaj says. " I think that's what we want to

do with our Indian comics as well - create a niche. "

 

 

(see link for audio)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1718

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Related story:

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1136690