BENGALURU: The year is 1947, when the British are marking their departure from India. While partition looms large, Chhotu, a student-cum-paranthe-cook in Chandni Chowk, has other things on his mind-like feeling the first flushes of love with his crush. When he makes a move, Chhotu finds the town’s aloo has suddenly gone missing, reluctantly embroiling himself into the world of corruption, crime and dons. As he struggles to understand what freedom truly means, Chhotu realises that his world, and the world of those around him, is about to change forever. “Chhotu is a coming-of-age story of an unlikely hero and a parable of a past that doesn’t feel too removed from the present,” says Varud Gupta, who has worked on Chhotu along with his second cousin, Ayushi Rastogi .
Gupta points out that the original plot line was of the ‘everyday superhero’ Chhotu, a simple kid from the gullies of Chandni Chowk who stumbles upon the magical underpants of Shaktiman giving him superpowers. “The story of ‘Chhotu’ was the first trigger that anyone small, no matter where they come from, can make a difference in the world,” he says.
For their research, they wandering through Chandni Chowk, and started thinking about placing the story in the past incarnation of the place: on the cusp of partition. “That reshaped the story with the partition having its undercurrents in today’s world. Moreover, it allowed us to explore the story of our grandfathers growing up during that time,” he says.
The duo was clear right from start that they would work on a graphic novel, especially since Rastogi has always been an avid graphic novel reader. “When we decided to work together on this project, we both wanted to tackle the challenge of bringing a story alive in this format,” he says. Since it was their first time at working on a joint project, instead of Gupta giving Rastogi a script and using that to do the illustrations, they sat down when he finished the outline and storyboarded of the 170-plus pages on paper.
The reason behind the launch in Bengaluru, Gupta reasons, are the “events of the partition, as with the politics of today, have widespread ramifications across India and we just hope to share this story with anyone that needs it,” he says, adding, “Irrefutably, the partition is one of the defining moments of India’s past, and yet we still discuss it in tip-toes. If you always treat such a subject matter as taboo, you can never truly unpack it and share it and learn from it. Sometimes you just need to open the pandora’s box and that’s what we hope to do with this story.”