KARI ...melancholy and the infinite, indian sadness

K is for KARI, the 2008 debut by Indian graphic novelist Amruta Patil, who's since gone on to become a leading voice in the Indians comic scene, illustrating a number of projects - including a reimagining of the Hindu epic the Mahabharata. In Kari, we meet the eponymous protagonist upon her surviving a heartbroken suicide attempt, and we follow her to at work and at and home in the hustle and bustle of smog city. A marketing and advertising exec who turns her creative eye on the world, she lives a semi-closeted queer life, living with many single women, befriending or romantically rebounding with a business colleague with weeks left to live, and just surviving in a monsoon drenched city. In deeply drawn black and white chapters we journey thru Kari's crowded loneliness, sleeper success, and death - all in the shadow of her departed partner. The book is a sensuous yet wry commentary on life and love and unlike anything we'd ever seen. One of the rare episodes where Ryan and Raman agree on (almost) everything.