Going beyond the headlines

For the younger generation of Indians, Indira Gandhi is remembered mostly as a politician who played a part in winning the Bangladesh war, nationalised banks, imposed Emergency and was assassinated by her security guards. Not much is known about the person behind the powerful politician. Indira, a graphic novel by author Devapriya Roy and illustrator Priya Kuriyan makes an attempt to go beyond the headlines and discover new facets of the former Prime Minister’s life.

How did they end up writing about Indira Gandhi? Devapriya Roy, author of The Vague Woman’s Handbook and The Weight Loss Club says, “We were both approached by Karthika VK, a couple of years ago. She wanted us to write a book to coincide with the Indira Gandhi centenary last year. This was our first collaboration. We got along well and enjoyed working on the project together. We wanted to explore Mrs Gandhi the person, rather than focus on her politics.”

Over the wire

She adds, “Most of the writing was done over numerous phone calls, emails and occasional meeting since we were staying in different cities. I would write chapters and Priya would break it up into thumbnails, with her sketches. We would work together in putting the text in, chopping extra passages and rebuilding the prose at certain junctures. I also read many graphic novels. We worked on multiple edits together. I had never worked on a graphic novel before, while Priya had not worked on a biography. It was new to both of us and we enjoyed working together.”

The process

As Devapriya was involved in research on graphic novels, illustrator Priya Kuriyan was working on learning more about Indira. “I watched a lot of videos, went through scores of photographs and archives to get a better understanding of her and to help me draw her better. We also visited many places mentioned in the book, from Anand Bhavan in Allahabad to her house in Delhi. It helped me get a visual sense of the place.”

Talking about the structure, Devapriya says, “There are two parallel story-lines in the book — one is the biography which is entirely graphic, the other is the story of a young girl, her teacher and an artist. We did not want it to be just a chronological listing of Indira Gandhi’s life. We wanted to give context so that it would connect with younger Indians as well. None of us was political and did not dwell too much on her political career, which many other biographies have done.”

Fresh insights

The book took almost two years to be completed. “A lot of that time went into research. I checked out the archives, video and audio footage of Mrs Gandhi and also talked to the family. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was . She told me many stories about her grandmother. I also read older biographies of Mrs Gandhi, of which the one by Katherine Frank was excellent. We have also included insights from new books about the Emergency and the recently declassified Kissinger papers. I took about six months to research before starting to write the book,” says Devapriya.