Bengali graphic artist feels Kolkata and Karachi are made for each other

Sarnath Banerjee chats with writer Mohammed Hanif at T2F.

KARACHI: Graphic artist and filmmaker Sarnanth Banerjee held court at a packed T2F on Tuesday. The audience, which included his wife, prolific artist Bani Abidi, poet Fehmida Riaz and authors HM Naqvi and Musharraf Ali Farooqi, and more people wearing hipster glasses per square foot than anywhere else in the city, was in fits of laughter by the end of the night.

Banerjee was in conversation with journalist and author Mohammed Hanif, whose dry wit was matched perfectly with Banerjee’s tongue-in-cheek banter, delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner that Hanif warned the audience to check Banerjee’s ‘facts’ for themselves. Banerjee, who has three graphic novels, animated films and a well-publicised commission for this year’s Olympics to his credit, said that a “part of my job has been to be an enchanted reporter of the universe, which might be under the radar of glamour, popular culture and great political events.”

“It is to have a slightly, but a loose surreal grip on things and being sensitive to what is happening around you,” he added.

The event kicked off with Hanif jokingly asking Banerjee what he thought about Karachi, a question posed to every visitor even if they’ve barely spent a couple of hours in the city.

Banerjee - who described “Kolkata and Karachi as being made for each other” - is a frequent visitor to Karachi, including his visit with a group of ‘peaceniks’ from India. “They didn’t know what my real intentions were,” he quipped, referring to his courtship with Abidi.

“Some of the most important things in my life have happened in Karachi,” he said.

“You can tell us what, we’re all grownups here,” Hanif laughingly retorted.

The free-floating conversation went off on several tangents, and a screening of two of his animated films, before the two men began discussing Banerjee’s Olympics project. Described as a ‘loser’s gallery’, the graphic illustrations were commissioned by the Frieze Foundation and displayed throughout London during this year’s Olympics. “I later found out someone else had dropped out which is why they asked me,” Banerjee did not hesitate to add.

According to the foundation’s description of the project, “Banerjee’s work taps into a collective consciousness of sporting near misses - or, the people who almost made it - and aims to resonate with both local communities and visitors to the London 2012 games.”



It sparked, Banerjee recounted, from a trip in 2008 to the Sao Paolo Biennale where he started doing “graphic reportage” - a project where he followed a detective couple tracking alleged adulterers.

It was in Brazil that he met Douglas Vieira, who had won a silver medal in judo in the 1984 Olympics. His daughter had amassed a file of old newspaper clippings of his near-victory, and Banerjee felt a “great empathy for this person.”

Vieira practised his craft on Banerjee as well. “I’ve always said in the press that I was touched and something changed,” he said mockingly, “but nothing happened.”

In any case, this formed the cue for the ‘loser’s gallery’, a poignant and hilarious set of images that take their inspiration from Bengali stereotypes and the subcontinent’s penchant for conspiracies and self-taught courses. In one, depicting Pakistani Olympian hockey player Hassan Sardar, the caption reads: “As he takes aim for the decider against his arch enemies... Hassan Sardar feels the presence of three generations of Olympians behind him. But the set-up looks bleak.”

Another image hits out at the typical ‘hidden hand’ mantra that Pakistanis and Indians repeat at every moment: “At the very onset of the race, Jimmy sniffs conspiracy: Have they raised hurdles by an inch?” One of the illustrations was vandalised “seven times” but he mentioned that the neighbourhoods did interact with the art.

“I have to play badminton with society,” Banerjee said about his work.

Fehmida Riaz asked him what he would make of Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s ban on motorcycles. “This is why I partly love living in this region,” the artist laughed, because of the “bizarre ideas” that are impractical and “make my life easier”.

For those who missed his irreverent banter and quirky observations, he will be back at T2F on Thursday for an interactive session.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22^nd, 2012.