Graphic Novel: Travelling Through Tilisms: Vol. 1
- Cover 'Travelling Through Tilisms: Vol. 1' (PDF, 2 MB)
The graphic novel project seeks to map the narrative topology of tilism in the cultural topos of North India. Tilisms -- relating to magical worlds created by sorcerers in long oral narratives called dastans -- was largely lost to the world after the end of the dastans, a popular oral storytelling tradition, in the early twentieth century. Since the idea of tilism is closely linked to the sufi ideal of transcendence, the project aimed to piece together the surviving notions of tilisms by visiting the sufi shrines and gathering information that could help build an understanding of narrative elements are not lost, but reconstituted into other formations directed towards other practices.
Our travels from the ghats of Banaras to the seasonal festivals of Bihar, its archaeological heritage and sufi shrines, brought us to a realisation of a fundamental contradictions within the project: How does one write a surrealist travelouge? Surrealism, as inherent in the fantastic nature of tilismi worlds, constituted the nature of the worlds we were in search of. The non-fictional nature of the travelogue, on the other hand, defined the way in which we were orienting ourselves in the process of this research and storytelling endeavour. This apparent contradiction led us to a collaborative breakthrough, vis-à-vis our project, where we fictionalised ourselves and let ourselves be written and drawn by the other in a spirit of being guided by each other in turn. The result: two characters, a researcher and an artist, in search of a way to the magical world of tilism, encounter a host of personalities and events to realise that the world inhabit, in turn, inhabits the most labyrinthine tilism to have even been created. Will they find a way out of it?
The project is planned to be completed in three books. While the first book deals with the northern state of Bihar, in India, the second and third book tackle the delta region of Sundarbans (largest mangrove forest in the world, and home to the Bengal tigers with its own systems of folklore and myth making), and the hinterland of Mughal Delhi, respectively.
This project also branched out into two separate projects:
1. Film: Tilism -e Jahāñ: Fragments from an Unfinished Film (Opening screening @ Spore Initiative, 10.05.2025)
The documentary film features stories and evidences of a long lost oral storytelling traditions whose traces still remain amongst the folk narratives, oral histories, religious philosophy, and in “magical” practices in north India. The graphic novel follows up on the documentary as a record of sights, tellings, and experiences of the writer-artist duo that emphasise the entanglements of lived “reality” with “unreal” tales, and events that shapes the daily lives of the people of north India. Find out more here.
2. Art Exhibition: This World is An Other World (exhibited @ Institute for European Ethnology, Berlin)
The exhibition projects culture, language, and events from what has been considered the "fringes" of the world, and brings them into dialogue with the cosmopolitan centre, albeit with a minor note that has the potential of unravelling the centrality of the centre itself. The digital paintings, sketches and writings, along with photographs, focusing on the life, belief-systems, and bhakti-sufi culture of North India centred around the river 'ghats' and sufi shrines, bring out the fragmented realities across the world into a temporary whole that is stitched together into a minor cosmopolitan framework. The exhibition features original digital artworks, sketches, writings, and art panels from our graphic novel, "Travelling Through Tilisms: A Surrealist Travelogue" . Find out more here.
About the author:
Abiral Kumar is a PhD Fellow at RTG minor cosmopolitanisms. His research work interrogates world literature and cosmopolitanism theory through oral literary practices and notions of alien identities. He is a published graphic novelist. His short graphic narratives based on the 16th c. Hamzanama tradition, Fragrance of Time and Perchance to dream have been awarded by the Barzinji Foundation, USA.
About the artist:
Mainak Mitra is a multidisciplinary visual artist who creates Illustrations, animation and comics. After graduation from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda and surviving the pandemic during his Animation degree from IDC, IIT Bombay, Mainak decided to invest his time creating comics. His home is originally from the tropical delta of bengal, but his roots are spread all over the subcontinent. He loves rain, railways, meeting strangers, watching films and finding wildlife.
The writer-artist duo has collaborated on a range of projects over the course of five years which have resulted in several beautiful and unique comics which can be found here:
https://linktr.ee/tilismigram?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=4ab5d596-df8b-447c-a747-d5b3dfc79791
