s an illustrator, animator and comic book creator, Abhijeet Kini is constantly looking to feed his visual imagination. And the city of Mumbai has never let him down. This is where he spent most of his childhood and teenage years, and all of his adult working life. Therefore, when he decided to make the big shift from just illustrating other people’s comics to writing, illustrating and publishing his own in 2012, he knew that the city would feature prominently in it.
Instead of focusing on “the common man”, Kini wanted the city to speak in the voice of “an angry maushi: a Maharashtrian woman who can be seen anywhere and everywhere you go — at the fish market, in a chawl, on the railway platform”. She is the protagonist of his Angry Maushi trilogy, which includes Angry Maushi (2012), Second Blood (2013), and Heavy Metal (2014). This unnamed character of indeterminate age hates corrupt politicians and all manner of local rogues, and considers it her personal mission to fight them. “ Angry Maushi can be summed up in one sentence,” says Kini. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Her most defining trait is her anger. The moment she opens her mouth, you know she is going to quarrel with someone.”
Kini, who owns a collection of over 2,000 comic books, will be speaking about Angry Maushi as part of his talk on experimental and adult comics at the Litmus Festival today. Kini’s focus will be on getting his audience to appreciate what goes into the making of a comic — ideation, panelling, production — and how the world of contemporary comics is far more diverse than they might have imagined.
A self-taught artist, Kini says that he has received a lot of positive feedback from women who identify as feminists because, “Angry Maushi breaks away from how women are usually portrayed in popular culture. She is not a super-heroine wearing a spandex suit and a cape. She is comfortable in her nau vaari (nineyard sari), and does not need to be overly sexualised to grab the reader’s attention.”
In order to capture the flavour of Mumbai’s diversity, Kini gets Maushi to speak a smattering of English, Marathi and Hindi. Her strength does not come from sweating it out at the neighbourhood gym but from eating kanda pohe and batata vada.
On one occasion, she does encounter one Dr Iyerstein, a man who gives her “super soldier serum”, which is nothing but a sugar solution. Later in life, she gets trained by “a ninja master in Japan.”
While Kini began working on Angry Maushi , he was making a significant departure from his earlier work for children. He began illustrating for Tinkle Comics in 2004, and he continues to illustrate for them. However, there is another kind of thrill to be had in producing work targeted at an adult audience.
“Angry Maushi loves expletives, and that is part of her charming personality,” says Kini. “Sometimes, people who do not understand Marathi write in to ask the meanings of these cuss words. That is why there is a disclaimer saying that these books are not for children. Of course, if parents buy them for their children, I cannot do anything.”
The books also feature graphic violence, as Angry Maushi believes in taking the law into her own hands. From auto rickshaw drivers who refuse to take her to her chosen destination, to fake dentists who sell a dubious brand of toothpaste, to politicians who mix chemicals in the sewage system to turn citizens into zombies, Angry Maushi fights them all with guns, swords, and her bare fists.
“She is a vigilante,” says Kini. “And luckily, there are no cops ever chasing her. Whenever I get frustrated by something in the city, I try to imagine how Angry Maushi would have dealt with the situation. I wanted to create tongue-in-cheek humour, not a preachy person who gives out messages. But I cannot stretch the series endlessly, so I will stop at three books.”
Having worked on a series that uses Mumbai as its backdrop, Kini is now in the initial stages of developing a new series of comic books revolving around a protagonist called Delhi Billi, “a green coloured tom cat with a purple cape”. This is a character he first visualised for Kini Merch, his line of merchandise, and he is now keen on creating a full-fledged series around it. The other characters in this comic series will be, “animals with human qualities, like an underworld gang of dogs, and other animals who will represent corrupt politicians, celebrities, and business tycoons”.
The humour will be different from that of the Angry Maushi series. “It will be more crass and adult in its humour but I will not take potshots at anyone in particular.” The first book in the series will be out towards the end of 2016, and will be published under the imprint of Abhijeet Kini Studios.
Abhijeet Kini will talk about Angry Maushi and his other work at the Litmus Festival today at Blue Frog at 5.30pm. See litmusfestival.com for details.
The author is a freelance writer
