Corridor  (English, Paperback, Banerjee Sarnath)

Corridor: A Graphic Novel is Sarnath Banerjee’s debut graphic novel that talks about the collision of the Indian culture with the rising influences of the Western culture.  

Summary Of The Book

The story of Corridor revolves around an enlightened dispenser of tea, Jehangir Rangoonwalla, who has a shop in the heart of Lutyens' Delhi, Connaught Place. He also sells second hand books and dispenses wisdom to his customers. All of the main characters of the novel have this shop as their common local haunt and Mr. Rangoonwalla interacts with these residents of Delhi when they visit his shop and at times gives them his words of wisdom. They come to him for tea, books, conversation, and advice.

The story is about a plethora of characters, each from a different strata of society and different background. These customers are Brighu, passionate for obscure collectibles and a real love life, Shintu, the newly-married on a quest of the ultimate aphrodisiac, and Digital Dutta, a person mostly torn between an H-1B visa and Karl Marx. Dutta is portrayed as a man who lives in his head.

Each of these characters has a story of his own and the author ties them together in a brilliant manner for his book. While narrating their stories, Banerjee subtly touches the greyer shades of their lives and presents them vividly to the reader. The entire novel has been captured in the corridors of contemporary Connaught Place in Delhi and Calcutta. Various pictures and objects have been shown in the background frame and the author ensures to refer them, thereby touching upon the different cultural references.

Sarnath Banerjee presents a different flavor to the art of storytelling by mixing various other art forms such as sketches, illustrations, and photographs. These heighten the impact on the reader in a beautiful way. The author uses an imaginative alchemy of words and images, of a script and artwork, to present the alienation and fragmented reality of the Indian urban life. Thus, the novel presents a delightful tale with interesting twists and turns.

About Sarnath Banerjee

Sarnath Banerjee is a graphic novelist, filmmaker, artist, and co-founder of Phantomville, a publishing house. He is famously known as India’s first real graphic novelist.

Besides Corridor, Banerjee has authored The Harappa Files and The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers.

Sarnath loves to write his works with an amalgamation of photographs and other art forms. His works are often autobiographical and anecdotal in style. He mostly talks about the day-to-day experiences on Indian life. Also, the loss of history and architecture during the modernization of the country is another common theme that is strongly portrayed in his works.

Born in 1972 in Calcutta, Sarnath Banerjee is today known as the writer of the first Indian graphic novel Corridor. He studied image and communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His first novel was an instant hit. He has written other novels and has also created illustrations for other works for instance the cover page of Weight Loss by Upamanyu Chatterjee. Along with his friend Anindya Roy, he has started a graphic novel company called Phantomville in order to provide a platform for upcoming Indian artists to create mature graphic novels.