I've been interviewing illustrators these past few months for a series of stories for The Hindu Sunday Magazine. The interviews are fairly in-depth and sadly, I can't include everything I want to in the final story (damn these word counts!). So, I thought I'd start sharing the interviews here for those interested in knowing more.

Pankaj Saikia is an author-illustrator whose work I adore. I featured him and illustrator Canato Jimo in a story about illustrators from Northeastern states who were keen to tell stories about the lived realities and experiences of children in their home state.

To read the article that was published, click here.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your childhood.

A: I was born in Gwalior, MP. My father was in the army, which meant we moved around the country. But my earliest memories are from when he was posted in Siliguri. I received my early education at Army School, Bagrakote. I only returned to Assam at around class 2 , which was followed by numerous schools across upper Assam till my family settled in Guwahati, wherein I completed my Higher Secondary.

Q: What kind of storybooks did you have access to as a child and young person?

A: There were not many storybooks in the general sense. But thanks to my cousins, I received a lot of Assamese story books. I also had access to Assamese pulp fiction at an early age which were mostly meant for adults. Thanks to them my Assamese reading skills improved. I never got any proper formal education in Assamese due to my English medium schools. And then there were the Assamese children’s magazines called Mouchaq and Akonir Agradoot. My father got me comics in Hindi everytime he came home from his postings. 

Overall, I loved reading and devoured anything I could lay my hands on except for books in English. My English reading skills developed much later.

The Assamese children’s magazines Mouchaq and Akonir Agradoot mostly had stories that somewhat reflected a child’s experience of growing up in the countryside/ small town in Assam. 

The fact that they also published stories written by children inspired me to write my own stories in the hope of getting published. It was easy to see myself in those stories because everything was familiar. You could literally smell the stories.

Q: Were you always interested in art as a child?

A: Yes. I have been drawing and sketching for as long as I can remember. Comics definitely had a huge influence on me. All my sketchings were for some narrative. I used to make a lot of comics for myself and create characters. 

The earliest story plot I remember was probably from when I was In class I or 2. It involved a TV set falling from a plane into a jungle , and the animals have a ruckus over who’s going to own it. It had a very smart parrot as the protagonist and a nasty lion as a villain.

Thankfully my parents were supportive of me spending my time drawing and made available plenty of cheap paper to draw on.

 Q: What did you study in college and how did that experience shape you?

 A: I always wanted to study in an art/design college but that never materialized.  I did my Bachelors in History from Hindu College, University of Delhi. I was an average student and more or less indifferent to studying history. But in retrospect it gave me everything I am today. It helped me shape my worldview. There were so many ideas and discussions floating around that despite hardly going to class, I had already been educated. I am always grateful for that.

 Q: How did you get into creating picture books for children? 

A: My first job as an illustrator involved creating picture books and comics. Comics came more naturally to me but I had a tough time creating picture books. I started out drawing stories in picture book format but for adults.

It took me almost 3 to 4 years of trial and error and a couple of unpublished picture books to understand picture books as a medium.Most of my stories were either fantasy or folklore based. It was only more recently during lockdown that I began experimenting with localized storytelling but rooted in the mundane. I mostly published them on instagram and that's when things started to fall into place.Soon I was contacted by Pratham Books to illustrate a picture book called “Aarna and Iris’s Big Task”. Since then I have had the good opportunity to do my own stories and get them published. 

 Q: What do you think about the fact that so many books for children that are set in the North East of the country pertain to folklore or mythology? What are the pros and cons of a dominant narrative?  

 A: I feel that there is a certain cultural baggage that writers and artists tend to carry with them. And in doing so there is a general tendency to fall back or rely on a pre existing form of narrative either as a reference point or as an inspiration.

The baggage is also one of an urge to preserve the oral traditions and sadly the brunt of that falls upon the children’s book.                                     

In case of writers/ artists hailing from the so called North East there is also the factor of outsider’s gaze. While writing for an audience other than the local readers and most importantly while writing in English, the tendency is to exoticize in many cases. 

While there is a need to preserve the folklore/oral traditions , without proper contextualization there can be no preservation. Deriving heavily from folklore for children’s books denies the children of reading stories of their lived experiences.

It also denies the folklore itself its true form as it gets sanitized of all its socio-cultural information embedded into it in order to be made fit to be read by children.

Besides, whoever decided Folklore is only meant for children?!

 Q: Do you think it's important for more books with characters from say Assam to be made that explore everyday life and culture from the state? Why does it matter if yes? 

 A: Yes. Definitely. For the simple fact that children need to see their surroundings in what they are reading and be able to relate to it. Most of the visual material that is available to children now is hardly representative of their time and space. Not to mention the lack of representation of North East in the school textbooks. In that context it becomes significantly important to be presenting characters or stories where they can see themselves.

 Q: What kind of response have you received from the books?

A: It has been very uplifting to hear the responses. In context of Theatre of Ghosts, it has been a truly revealing experience to see how children react to reading pictures. One of my favorite responses from a session with kids was a girl’s comment on one of the spreads in which she said “Oh! Now the characters have walked into a dream!”

 The HoD of the English department of one of the colleges in Assam  sent me a message stating that she will be using the “Theater of Ghosts” for a session with her HS students as part of a class on storytelling. It felt like an achievement in itself.

 Q: Can you talk about your style of illustration? 

 A: My style is an amalgamation of numerous influences over the years. I primarily rely on lines while colors mostly act as supporting factors. I find it difficult to think without lines. While some might say I am influenced by Miyazaki’s work, my influences are much more varied. For my lining I received a lot of understanding looking at the works of the french illustrator Jean Giraud. I learned about simplification of shapes and subjects from Marjane Satrapi. The works of Alberto Uderzo from Asterix have also been a huge influence. When it comes to intricate lining and compositions I keep going back to the works of Dave McKean.

 Q: How did the idea for Theater of Ghosts come to you? Your bio says you love drawing scenes and memories from your childhood. Was this something from your childhood you wanted to create a book around? 

A: Theater of Ghosts is completely based on the childhood experience of going to see “Bhaona” at night time in my village. In absence of any street lights and equipped just with a torch, it felt like a danger would be lurking in every corner. 

It was always a thrill to be walking to the distant “Namghor” through the dark landscape and then arriving at this carnival of music and colors. Also I have had the image of a bhaona performance stuck in my mind for a long time. I knew there was a story but didn’t know the form it would take. When Pratham Books asked me to pitch an idea for a wordless picture book, the story just took shape naturally.

Read Pankaj's books on StoryWeaver here.