Page - 18 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

18 | Amruta Patil www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 15–30 The content I was dealing with in the mythology books, had it been dealt with purely through text, its readership would have been far more limited. I would have been heading into William Chittick territory, which means my readership would have been PhD students and flaneur-schol- ars. Personally, I like those books, I need those books, I need others writ- ing them for me. But my own intent in choosing this medium is to disarm people into being receptive. Some readers tell me, “The pictures are hypnotising, but I don’t ful- ly understand what you’re saying.” Others skim through the visuals, fol- lowing the trail of words. And you know, both those ways are okay! We underestimate the amount of transformation that happens in visual and sonic spaces. Sometimes a beautifully designed monastery will do more for your mental state than an unimaginative spiritual guide. Alexander D. Ornella: You deal with quite complex issues in your work. Would you say that what you are doing is philosophising through art and graphic nov- els? And also, you mentioned transformation in visual spaces: could you ex- pand on what you mean by the transformative? Patil: I shy away from putting a label on my books. But it could be said that what Adi Parva, Sauptik and Aranyaka are trying to do is make the complex accessible. And about the transformation of visual space, my work isn’t exactly sequential art. It uses text and visuals in a more hybrid way. Kari and Aranyaka are much more “sequential art” than Adi Parva and Sauptik. The images are often points of contemplation, a foil to heavy-duty text, or a lush counterpoint to a spare line. I pull the balance off more confidently in Sauptik than in others. So ideally, text and image dance with one anoth- er, one leads, the other follows, then they swap roles. Ornella: You said you wanted to explore the topic of learning to see the other. Is there anything in particular that prompted you to explore that theme? Patil: In 2017, Devdutt Pattanaik and I noticed a very extraordinary con- tinental drift in India between the right wing and the left/liberals. As a nation, we have come a long way from founding fathers like Jawaharlal Nehru, who brought together people who believed in things utterly differ- ent from their own ideas to build a free India. Today, we cannot even read a Facebook post that is not saying exactly what you want. An important question for creating Aranyaka was this: what does it take to tune into a point of view that isn’t exactly like our own? Can I look at someone who isn’t an ideological or physical clone and truly begin to em-