Against the Grid: urbanity and infrastructure in indian sequential narratives

Sarkar, Ritam and Bhattacharya, Somdatta (2025) Against the Grid: urbanity and infrastructure in indian sequential narratives. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. pp. 1-20. ISSN 2150-4857

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Abstract

The present article, situated at the intersection of comics studies and urban studies, aims to critically explore how urbanity as a condition is represented and transgressed in select Indian sequential narratives. Urbanisation in India has often been described as messy and a perpetual disaster, as cities often extend their peripheries to form slums and other informal settlements using innovative infrastructural developments. Highlighting the relevance of infrastructure for Indian urban comics, this study approaches the urban in terms of differential modes of engagement, constituting a rhizomatic network critical to the openness of the form. In the process, the study analyses infrastructural parallelism between comics and the urban form, to explore how does the form of sequential narrative align with the fluidity of urban narratives in India. Through a selection of graphic narratives, this essay seeks to underscore how these narratives uncover, politicise, and destabilise rigid and regularising appropriations of modern cityscapes, suggesting the improbability of navigating Indian cities through conventional gridding. Drawing on theoretical insights from Thierry Groensteen, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Ananya Roy, and others, this paper argues that urban comics in India has taken infrastructure as the departure point to critique narratives of urban modernisation and infrastructural development.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Comics | City | Grid | India | Infrastructure
Subjects: Social Sciences and humanities > Arts and Humanities > Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Geography
Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Planning and Development
Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Development
JGU School/Centre: Jindal School of Languages & Literature
Depositing User: Mr. Gautam Kumar
Date Deposited: 27 May 2025 08:00
Last Modified: 27 May 2025 08:00
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2025.2506575
URI: https://pure.jgu.edu.in/id/eprint/9569

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