Take a graphical journey of erstwhile PM ‘Indira’

‘INDIRA,’ a part-prose fiction and part-graphic biography of India’s first and only woman Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was launched by Member of Parliament, Jairam Ramesh in the Capital on Tuesday. The book has been written by Devapriya Roy and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan.

Devapriya Roy’s compulsive storytelling and Priya Kuriyan’s fine drawings weave a seamless tale of the formative years of the erstwhile Prime Minister through a combination of textual and comic narratives. In a mixture of fiction and reality, a young Indira Thapa - who is named after Indira Gandhi - discovers the legacy of India’s first and only woman prime minister, while trying to finish an unusual assignment given by her favourite teacher.

The book launch witnessed a riveting conversation between MP Jairam Ramesh, Vishwajyoti Ghosh (author of Delhi Calm) and the authors of the book, who discussed the journey of documenting one of India’s most fascinating political figure and many anecdotes from her life.

On the occasion, Jairam Ramesh said, “In the past, I had spent a good amount of time researching about Indira Gandhi and in the process, I discovered many facets about her personality that we are not aware of. Her love for nature is one of them. In fact, she was a patron of the institution and laws on the environment that we have today. She was not just a great politician but also an intellectual.” Talking about the book, author Devapriya Roy said, “The book is a manifestation of in-depth research, which included digging deep into material like Indira Gandhi’s biographies and letters exchanged between her and Jawaharlal Nehru. We realized that while it was difficult to condense her fascinating life into one book, we ensured that the book captures important nuances from her life, such that it effectively brings out the very essence of Indira Gandhi in a manner that the younger generation reads and appreciates.”

Illustrator Priya Kuriyan, who made the book come alive through her fine drawings, said, “While researching and travelling for the book we discovered that everything in her life was carefully selected and I kept those little details of her life in my mind while illustrating for the book”.

‘Indira’ has been published by Westland under their new literary imprint – Context. The book is available on Amazon for purchase.