He tickles your funny bone with amusing side-splitting graphics that delineate a post-modern urban reality with “layers and layers”. He etches his absurdly real “onion” like characters with tragicomic finesse that sums up the essence of India’s first graphic novel Corridor. Finally, his well-drawn intentions have made him the pioneer of what we can call the adult comic genre in the country. Need we say more about Sarnath Banerjee, the ‘representational’ author of our generation who enthralled audiences at the launch of Corridor at Oxford Bookstores in Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata.

In this vivid book, Banerjee explores a contemporary theme of “alienation and fragmented reality of urban life through an imaginative alchemy of text and image”. On the surface, the novel could well appeal to youngsters. At a deeper level, adults will enjoy it even more for the depiction of idiosyncrasies – of Jehangir Rangoonwalla, the enlightened second-hand bookseller and his customers “Brighu, a postmodern Ibn Batuta looking for obscure collectibles and a love life; Digital Dutta who lives mostly in his head, torn between Karl Marx and an H1-B visa; and the newly married Shintu, looking for the ultimate aphrodisiac in the seedy by-lanes of old Delhi”. Sometimes, the novel takes a serious turn but within a few seconds, the reader is brought back to the entertaining visual antics of the characters. Corridor succeeds in evoking a poignant yet lively response from the readers.

About the author:
Sarnath Banerjee studied image and communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Presently he is working on a comic book on the 19th century eccentricities of feudal Calcutta and Route 36, a multi-plot located on the upper deck of a double-decker night bus in London. His work has appeared in various magazines and newspapers. This is his first graphic novel.

- Satarupa Ray