Lalit Gupta
In backdrop of the charade of political tokenism that since last 27 years has been dangling promise of honorable return of the ‘displaced community’ to their ‘homeland’, a large corpus of creative works by Kashmiri Pandit poets, writers, playwrights and visual artists mirroring the pain and anguish of dismemberment, unexpected dislocation, loss of roots and cultural moorings, has made its mark as a distinct genre in Indian contemporary literature and arts.
Neeraj Bakshy’s Premo- nition’, comes at the apt time when there are efforts to minimize or downplay the exodus, which in the year 1990 forced the entire society of Kashmiri Pandits to abandon their home and hearths in the Valley and seek refuge in different parts of the country.
Born in Anantnag in 1970, and yanked from home and hearth at a tender age, Neeraj Bakshy managed to complete his unfinished studies in fine arts while at Jammu and worked in various capacities before making his mark as a contemporary painter of promise in Delhi.
‘Premonition’ labeled as a Graphic Memoir, and authored by him, is a standalone creative endeavor that as form uses sequential art to reflect upon nostalgia, angst, of the reality lived and its present-day ominous avatar. Such autobiographical works, being a sub-genre of graphic novels, also referred as “nonfiction graphic novels”, do not cover the same wide scope as that of a print memoir and typically lack in breadth, but make up for in depth and the focus on one particular event or something and feelings surrounding it.
The graphic memoir, a slim volume of 87 pages, is a post-memory reflection of author’s trip to Kashmir, his ‘homeland’. A combination of words and drawings, this ‘intense artistic exercise’ is noticeable for bringing to fore the underlying ‘sense of menace and anguish’ that informs his black and white renderings of Valley’s architecture, the most visible iconic symbols of Kashmir ethnicity and shared heritage.
The text accompanying the drawings stands out as a narrative of great sensitivity, ‘a lyrical graphic poem’ which brings forth the author’s struggle to match the images of the mind (the cherished memories) with the images of the eye (the ominous desolateness of the cityscape). The humane and empathetic insights that inform the narrative lift it from the narrow confines of parochialism and raise it to the ethereality of a lament for the irreversible loss of the innocents both Hindus and Muslims, of values and ethos that once was the cornerstone of the composite culture of Kashmir.
The minimalist drawings portraying ‘remembered sites’: architecture of dilapidated homes, balconies, windows, rooftops, shrines’ spires, crisscrossing cables, menacingly leaning electric poles, hanging meters—all are metaphorically infested and peopled with ‘superimposed’ animals having a predator like presence. The canids and felines with a menacing air look ready to pounce on anyone.
It is the feeling of absentia that makes the author see the architecture as foreshadowing a doom, a chaos, brought about by alien predators. It is remarkable to see how his nostalgia for memories once held so dear, transforms into a kind of forlornness, a melancholic acceptance of a loss, of dispossession, the condition of perpetual but unforgotten exile.
As an acknowledgment of Neeraj Bakshy’s perceptive draughtsmanship, each drawing in the Memoir is a sensitive portrayal which can also be appreciated independent of the accompanying text. Especially the one titled as the Alien Gaze (page 37), the one on page 67 and rest of the untitled ones are so self-reflecting.
When seen together, that words and images blend in a seamless vocabulary. It is actually the sequential nature of storytelling that makes the medium unique, especially for the post-traumatic narration: a unique representation of memory which touches very significantly upon questions of identity, of nationalism, of power and authority.
‘Premonition’ is certainly a collectors’ item; not only for being a unique narrative of the political conflict but an opportunity to buy at the small price a series of sensitive drawings interspersed with insightful narration by the author Neeraj Bakshy, the son of the soil and a contemporary painter of repute.
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