Courtesy: KADAK, by Akhila Krishnan

Kadak, a local dialect for strong, reminds an Indian of a good cup of tea in the monsoon at a tea stall. It also indicates the starched cotton saree in ones’ mother’s wardrobe or like an apt response to a discussion.

Recently eight women came together as ‘Kadak Collective’ to give another strong response to a submission call by the East London Comics and Arts Festival. Graphic story tellers, these south Asian women work on stories and narratives that move between the personal and political experiences, their art, and questions culture and examines subcultures.

“Not enough visibility of minority and female voices in the comic fest was a reason to get together,” says US based- Indian artist Aindri Chakraborty, one of the eight artists of Kadak collective. Although she acknowledges the fact that the push by Janine Shroff (another artist of Kadak, UK based) who pointed to the lack of women nominees in this year’s prestigious Festival d’ Angouleme shortlist, became a stronger reason to band together.

Courtesy: Lesbian Rdidng Ponies, by Janine Shroff

Besides Chakraborty and Shroff, the group includes Akhila Krishnan, Mira Malhotra, Pavithra Dikshit, Garima Gupta, Kaveri Gopalakrishnan and Aarthi Parthasarathy- based in different locations across the globe, but having a common ideology of addressing their experiences of growing up as a woman in India, they highlight the debate about what is considered feminine, the word feminist, the hesitation and anger surrounding it.

Courtesy: Kaveri Gopalakrishnan

Adding to the description of the philosophy of Kadak, Kaveri, adds, “We’re still figuring out an Indian ‘style or voice’ of comics. We’ve got decades of American comics (dialogue, slang and popular culture drilled into our brains, which even the nerdiest comic writer can’t peel off. But we have sufficient content that is personal, political and cultural, that can enable us to have our own small independent comic and arts festival in about 5-10years from now.”

Courtesy: Artists Of Kadak, www.linkedin.com

However, they are still undecided of whether their group should be gender-neutral or an all-women-artists group.