It is true that we have never been able to recover our ancient painting traditions, but the use of images to narrate a story is still prevalent among folk artists, namely the patachitrakars of Midnapore district. They are not like comics as they do not use any text and depend entirely on the painted image and songs to tell a story. Popular till today, patachitras tell stories of our times too, not just tales of times past.

In the latest issue of Marg, Bharat Murthy narrates the story of popular Indian comics often serialised in newspapers. What makes this article interesting is that he tells the history of comic strips in the vernaculars as well. So it is a nostalgic trip as he dwells on Dabbuji by Aabid Surti, Amar Chitrakatha and the ones brought out by Deb Sahitya Kutir of Calcutta as well.

This issue takes a look at the depiction of Shakuntala in Raja Ravi Varma’s depiction of the heroine of Kalidas’s famous play and how it differs from the chromolithographs printed in Maharashtra. In the latter, King Dushmanta is very much there, while in Ravi Varma’s paintings his presence is implied.

The issue deals with photography too. It carries a longish conversation with Dayanita Singh along with some of her photographs and books. Arghya Basu’s photo essay on Chaam is quite confusing. Kamalika Bose’s piece on zamindari mansions of north Calcutta has nothing new to say. The colour photographs look quite garish.

Gautama V. Vajracharya’s article on three hunting pictures from 19th century Nepal shows the close links of our visual traditions with those of our neighbour. The paintings of the prince and the hunters during shikar and in Western clothes as well tell a lot about sartorial fashions in colonial times.