In his long-awaited new graphic novel, Absolute Jafar, the graphic novelist and artist Sarnath Banerjee returns to the form that transformed the landscape of Indian graphic storytelling.
Moving through Delhi, Kolkata, Karachi, and Berlin, the book follows fragments of lives in transit, shaped by geopolitics, mysterious animals carrying emotional memory, and ghosts that refuse to leave modernity alone. Part memoir, part urban meditation, part love story, and part visual essay, Absolute Jafar unfolds through conversations, recollections, myths, music, and drifting encounters.
The Mumbai launch of the book celebrates its many worlds through an immersive evening. Actor and musician Imaad Shah will bring a live musical and poetic dimension to the evening, interpreting and performing selected passages from the book through voice, sound, and music. The author will be in conversation with filmmaker Kiran Rao on the themes that animate the text. Interspersed through the evening will be Sarnath's artworks, creating a visual dimension to the stories and ideas unfolding on stage.
Join us for a unique evening of storytelling, music, memory, wandering, and conversation.
Sarnath Banerjee is the author of the graphic novels Corridor, The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers, The Harappa Files, All Quiet in Vikaspuri and Doab Dil. He created Gallery of Losers, a series of billboards for the 2012 London Olympics. His installation, Critical Imagination Deficit, was showcased at the 13th Berlin Biennale 2025. His recent solo exhibitions include The Melancolony of a Heartburn City for the Gujral Foundation, and The Spectral Times, which was shown at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai. He has been a Belknap fellow at Princeton University, a CAST fellow at MIT, Cambridge, a fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Banerjee also co-founded the award-winning publishing house Phantomville. He is currently working with Rohan Debroy on an illustrated book about mosquitoes and how they challenged the British Empire.
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Based in Mumbai, Kiran Rao is a director, producer, and writer. In 2010, Kiran directed her debut feature Dhobi Ghat. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and received worldwide theatrical release in 2011, establishing Kiran as a director with a distinct voice. Laapataa Ladies, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, marks her second outing as a filmmaker. It was selected as India’s official entry to the 97th Academy Awards. The film was released to critical and commercial success on 1st March 2024. In addition to her work in film, Kiran is deeply committed to social issues. In 2016, she co-founded the Paani Foundation, a non-profit organisation working with farmers in rural Maharashtra, India.
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Imaad Shah is a musician and actor living in Bombay. He makes Disco and Funk music with his band Madboy Mink and writes wordy Urdu rhymes with his acoustic guitar. He has directed a short film, music videos and a play, the musical 'Threepenny Opera' by Brecht.
Read moreThere is something fascinating about the way we remember cities. A street we once lived on, an old building, a train journey, or even a familiar voice can stay with us long after we have moved away. This feeling of remembering places while constantly changing them is at the heart of much of today’s Indian graphic storytelling and contemporary Indian literature.
A good example is Absolute Jafar, a graphic novel that shows how powerful visual storytelling can be. Graphic novels are no longer seen simply as illustrated books or entertainment for younger readers. In India, they have become an important way of talking about identity, history, relationships, and the changing world around us. Words and images work together to tell stories that sometimes feel deeply personal.
The work of Sarnath Banerjee has been particularly important in this movement. Known for his distinctive way of looking at cities and everyday life, Banerjee has helped establish the graphic novel as a serious literary form in India. His new book is another opportunity to look at familiar urban experiences from a different perspective. His stories often make us pause and think about how much of our lives is shaped by the places we live in.
This brings us naturally to the idea behind Phantom Cities and the Idea of Home. For many people, home is not just an address. It can be a memory, a language, a childhood neighbourhood, or even a feeling that is difficult to explain. For those who have moved from one city or country to another, questions of migration and belonging become even more complicated.
Mumbai is perhaps the perfect city for these conversations. It is a place where people are constantly arriving, leaving, rebuilding, and starting again. Its streets carry layers of different histories and communities. That is why literature events can be so interesting. They are not only about books; they often become conversations about the city itself and the people who have shaped it..
Publishers and art spaces are playing their part too. HarperCollins India graphic novels reflect the growing interest in illustrated narratives, while Project 88 artworks show how contemporary art can engage with ideas of memory, place, and identity. Together, these different creative spaces are helping Indian audiences discover new forms of storytelling.
A graphic novel launch in India today can therefore feel like much more than a book release. It can bring together writers, artists, readers, musicians, and filmmakers who are all asking similar questions about the world we live in.
Venues such as the Royal Opera House Mumbai have also become important spaces for these cultural exchanges. A literary discussion, an artwork, or a performance can all become ways of understanding the city and ourselves a little better.
Perhaps that is what makes visual storytelling in India so compelling right now. Our cities are changing quickly, people are constantly moving, and old memories are disappearing. Stories give us a way to hold on to those fragments.
In the end, whether we encounter them through a graphic novel, a book, an artwork, or a live event, these stories return us to one simple question: When a place changes, or when we leave it behind, how much of home do we carry with us?
