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When Homegrown first peeked in Jit Chowdhury’s sketchbooks we knew he was something special. Whimsical yet somehow intense, this Kolkata based visualiser and illustrator manages to spin stories out of colour and now he’s back with a new series to capture your imagination. ‘Mythos’ was inspired by the dramatic stories from Indian lore that his grandmother used to tell him. Tales about the kidnapping of Sita and how Ganesh got his elephant head always fascinated him. “I was super amazed by the morphing stories, stories with the shape-shifters,” he says.
Building on these memories he consulted mythologists, scholars and historians who opened up new avenues for him to experience mythology. “There are stories within these stories,” they explained to him, sharing existing as well as their own theories, which were more often than not, highly contradictory, but it was this very divide that captured Jit’s interest.
Most of the time when we think of Indian lore, a handful of popular names come to mind but there are so many that remain unknown. In Mythos, he highlights these characters that have never been given a shot at the limelight. Through his illustrations we get a glimpse at the wealth of stories that our country contains, he feels that there is a simple reason for this problem.
Homegrown caught up with Jit to find out a bit more about his work on Mythos.
“When we say Indian mythology we think of Hindu only… but there are Islamic and Buddhist also included in it. Plus there are some stories which clearly show a successful marriage between these cultures.
Some stories are popular as they are well travelled and they have spread across the whole country or world and some have remained within its originating region only. Thus you get to hear those stories in that particular area and nowhere else. Likewise, there are characters which one region is very much dedicated to but other regions have never heard of.
Same thing goes with time. Some stories has survived the test of time and are still alive and told whereas, some (rather most) stories have faded from our story-telling sessions.
I plan to revive those stories by reviving the characters. I want to place in front of all those less-known or forgotten characters and make people curious enough to want to read all about them.”
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