As we begin the Winter semester, students across ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ are looking forward to a fresh start – many of whom having just submitted applications for various master’s and graduate programs. Now that the collective stress of deadlines is over, we thought it would be a good idea to do a deep dive into some of the most fulfilling aspects of completing a graduate degree.
Shailee Rajak recently completed her Master's from ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ University’s Department of English and published a graphic novel for children in 2023 titledÌýMy Story, My Voice: Sita and Helen.ÌýThis graphic novel intertwines the mythological tales of two heroines, Helen of Troy, from Homer’s the Iliad, and Sita, a Hindu goddess from the Hindu epic Ramayana whose stories have historically been shadowed by those of their male counterparts. Having always been presented through male perspectives, these two characters are finally given a voice through Shailee’s tactful and compassionate pen. She began working on her graphic novel as part of a course within her MA program and was even . Many students wonder how graduate programs can prepare them for careers in their field after graduation, but Shailee’s journey underscores the significance of embracing passions early on, and pursuing artistic endeavors that resonate deeply within oneself.
Her story in creating and publishing this project was so intriguing, we wanted to know more about her love of writing and her perspective on adapting content for younger audiences.
Would you mind introducing yourself?
My name is Shailee and I am a scholar of literature, drama, and theatre from India. I just graduated from the Department of English at ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ University with my second master’s degree. I am interested in researching issues of gender and sexuality as a literary and performance studies scholar. In fact, my thesis explored queer representation in South Asian-anglophone theatre during the late 20th century. As a theatre practitioner, I am currently developing a play as part of the artist residency, ‘Nested Circles,’ with Imago Theatre in Montreal. I am trying to encapsulate the struggles, triumphs, and complexities of queer lives in India against the backdrop of the 2018 legal debates surrounding the decriminalization of homosexuality. Usually, my creative as well as academic works revolve around questions of identity, agency, alterity, and belonging. My Story, My Voice: Sita and Helen is my first published book though my poetry and non-fiction writing have previously appeared in The Montreal Serai, The Bombay Review and LIVEWIRE amongst others. Someday, I hope to include this book in my syllabus while teaching a course on YA Graphic Novels and Comics.
Have you always loved using the graphic novel as a creative medium? What are your preferred methods of writing?
The short answer is, yes! The longer version is basically a trip down memory lane. As a young kid of about 5 or 6 years of age, I was part of this book club where we could borrow books on a weekly basis from an extensive children’s library. I got introduced to Amar Chita Katha here. These are illustrated graphic books which revisit traditional South Asian folktales and myths and recount these narratives for children. I think this marked the beginning of a love for literature that would later translate into a career choice as well. I transitioned from Amar Chitra Katha to Japanese mangas as I grew up, but the love for comics and graphic novels never really left me.
Choosing to depict the stories of Helen and Sita for children in a graphic novel format was an easy decision once I thought about it! My first instinct was to write a play since academically, I am researching theatre. But I quickly came to the realization that a play only has as much impact as its performance. I wanted to capture the entirety of my message on paper. And a book with illustrations seemed like a much more efficient and immediate mode to communicate with a younger audience. Text accompanied by eye-catching visuals, with its vibrant designs and colours, keeps readers engaged.
The abundance of graphic narratives in the market, from DC and Marvel to the Japanese manga, is a testament to their wide influence, especially on young adults. Last year, I was a TA for an undergraduate class in the Philosophy department at ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ. I used the Naruto manga and characters to discuss philosophical concepts such as nihilism and pacificism. These are intellectually dense theories and discourses, but somehow this ‘children’s’ tale can depict these moral positions in such a simple and straightforward manner.
I believe the graphic novel format carries so much political and culturally destabilizing potential. It has a very rebellious spirit and makes it easy to challenge stereotypes and raise questions. This is something I wished to draw upon for my own book. And this is also why someday I would love to teach a course on them!
For this particular project, I was writing for a deadline, so the first draft was completed within three months. I would research and write one chapter almost every week and send it to the illustrator who would then design around the text. It was only once the publishing process started that I really went back to nuance the narrative framework, flesh out the characters, and edit the text across multiple drafts. Generally, too, I prefer just writing down the entire idea all at once, without too much research or overthinking. The editing process comes later which ties all the themes together into a comprehensive, coherent narrative.
Your graphic novel, Sita and Helen, was recently published by Tulika Graphix, but was originally written for a class here at ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ. What was that publishing experience like? How did this class at ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ in particular offer that support and avenue for you to pursue this venture?
To be perfectly honest, this book would not have existed without the encouragement and support of my professor, Dr Paul Yachnin, in ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ’s Department of English. Last year, I was part of a Public Scholarship seminar led by him. He prompted us, as academics and scholars, to think of the various ways in which we could translate our ideas and knowledge into public facing projects.
Researchers are infamous for using difficult jargon that nobody beyond academia can really understand. So, the question is, how do we bridge this gap between academic work and the public? I have studied what patriarchy is, I know its history, how it functions in our society, its effects, and contemporary consequences. Through this seminar, I was taught to find different ways to translate this knowledge beyond simply writing papers for academic journals. The entire cohort was given some funding to collaborate with artists across disciplines as we developed our various ideas ranging from websites and podcasts to art installations. Sita and Helen developed as part of my final assignment for this seminar. And I was perfectly okay to forget about it and move on once I received a good grade too. But Prof. Yachnin urged me to reach out to publishers, and his belief in my work was infectious to say the least.
I sent across a couple of chapters of the manuscript to publishers in India, though I did not have much hope of hearing back from them since it was neither a commissioned project, nor did I have a literary agent lobbying on my behalf. But to my surprise, Tulika Books got back to me within three days with a positive response. I was simply elated to be given this opportunity of publishing my first book with such a well-established and renowned company. Working with an all-women’s team was the cherry on top. I could not have asked for a better publishing experience; my editor, Deeya Nayar, my publicist, Preethi Ajit, and most importantly, my illustrator, Priyadarshini Banerjee are such kind and intelligent women. There was so much patience and understanding through the months of researching, rewriting, editing, and redesigning for countless drafts that led to the final version of the book. It astonishes me sometimes that it only took a year given the fact that we were in different time zones and working on multiple other projects simultaneously. But, I think, that it was made possible because we all genuinely believed in the importance of the work that we would be putting out into the world. For me, this book is a beautiful result of women taking popular narratives into their own hands and reworking them to give space and visibility to other women.
What kind of considerations in terms of content did you have to examine throughout the publishing process to make the story applicable for younger audiences?
Writing for a children’s book is very different from what I had been previously trained for (i.e., producing academic research). I remembered having so many discussions with Deeya, my editor at Tulika, about how to represent the violence and exploitation in both the women’s stories in a sensitive manner. For example, how do I write the scene of Leda’s rape by Zeus that leads to Helen’s birth for children? We did not want to lie or communicate half-truths, but we were very aware that this book would be in the hands of impressionable minds. We discussed the tiniest details in the use of language to paint a full picture without conveying something false or triggering. It was an arduous process, often very frustrating too—as a reader, I could have never guessed the kind of effort which goes into framing each phrase and sentence until it is appropriate enough for publishing.
There was not only the difference in terms of adapting the themes and language for the target audience, but also translating it for a different medium. Since it is a graphic novel, I quicky learnt that the narrative text needed to be nuanced and subtle while being concise. As a scholar, I have a tendency to expound generously upon every detail. I write long, convoluted sentences which convey a lot of ideas all at once. But that would just not do for a children’s graphic book! It was an entire process of unlearning andÌýrelearning for me. In creative writing, especially for a graphic novel, a lot of things are supposed to be left for subtext. It isa narrative where the visuals tell as much of a story as the text itself. And space restrictions meant a lot of things had to go unsaid.
What inspired you to take two protagonists from very different mythologies and intertwine their stories within your graphic novel?
So, before I decided upon the format of the book—that I was going to be writing a graphic novel or making a comic—I knew that I wanted to write about Sita and Helen. As someone who is obsessed with mythology and has studied these narratives in literature classrooms, I started thinking about women in myths. A lot of names cropped up in my head including Draupadi, Sati, and Kunti from South Asian thought but also Medusa, Cassandra, and Persephone from Greek myth. From what I knew of the stories surrounding their figures, I associated them with tragedy, with a lack of agency and voice. They had no control over their fate in all versions of their stories. They were either women who had been wronged, silenced, exploited or oppressed, and were often celebrated for those very sacrifices.
Since I was studying theatre for my thesis, my first instinct was to write a drama that captures and brings to centre stage the voices of these women. I wanted to explore what these women might have to say about their lives if given a chance. When I began thinking about such a play, the first scene that popped into my head was a stage divided into two spaces, each representing a particular culture, and a conversation flowing across the boundary separating them. It was a discussion between Sita and Helen, and their respective families about their marriage; how they did not necessarily want to get married to strange men they had never met before. In popular myth, both the women are basically treated as political tools being married off to build stronger alliances. Their marriage is arranged by someone else, with men who win a competition which displays masculine strength or valour in some form. While the competitionsÌýthemselves are famous within the mythological traditions, we have no idea what the women might have felt about this event.
I could imagine a very similar conversation in both the South Asian and Greek cultural contexts with the women raising their voices, demanding to be heard as they made their arguments against getting married in such a manner. I knew I had to write this scene, which is how I finally settled on writing two parallel narratives of similar moments, plucked from the various myths that surround Sita and Helen. The book challenges the historical status quo which has been handed down to societies through culturally recounted myths and folktales by imaginatively exploring the women’s lives while foregrounding their perspectives. It is an attempt to represent how patriarchy functions in such similar ways in the oppression and exploitation of women across time, cultures, and geography.
Much of your work focuses on female representation in South Asian myths and traditions– perspectives which are often overlooked within mainstream media and cultural discourse. Why is it important for you to bring forward these discussions through mythology?
I chose to rewrite the South Asian and Greek myths of Sita and Helen because mythological traditions form an integral part of the cultural canon of any society. These narratives reflect and respond to the complexities of the human condition within a fantastical or supernatural framework. Their popularity in the public imagination at a certain juncture in history explains the needs, deficiencies, and positive attributes of a community.
But even beyond this, myths are an important part of oral-storytelling practices in cultures across the world, including India. I grew up hearing tales from Jataka and Panchatantra, stories with moral messages similar to those in Grimms’ fairy tales. Historically, oral storytelling forms the basis of pedagogy in many ancient societies—it is a mode of transferring ancestral knowledge across ÎÛÎÛ²ÝÝ®ÊÓƵ. A lot of researchers and sociologists have studied how orally recounted myths provide young kids the language and lenses through which they can make meaning out of their realities. These stories have a strong impact on the formative years of development while the child is still learning about himself and his world. It made sense for me to present an alternate, feminist perspective, which gave young readers access to a different lens through myths.
Through this book, I wanted to highlight the similarities in the attitudes of two different cultures towards women—even as these myths around Sita and Helen idolize them for their beauty, one of them even worshipped as a goddess, they are dehumanized in their static, silenced representation as catalysts to a war. My book, on the other hand, focuses on certain moments in the lives of the two women—such as their birth, childhood, arranged marriages to strangers, famous abductions that led to wars, and its aftermath—and empathetically delves into their thoughts, feelings, and actions. This reconfiguration of myths for the current moment offers a fresh perspective to our patriarchal realities while reflecting on the historical attitudes surrounding gender in ancient societies. By offering insights into the interconnected experiences of women in a global context, I hope the book can spark curiosity while inculcating attitudes of inclusivity and acceptance amongst young readers.
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