The Comic Spiritual

This comic book comes with its own bhakts.

The recent New Delhi launch of an animated film and comic book chronicling Shirdi Sai Baba’s life didn’t attract so much as a gentle eye-roll from Indian fans of superhero films. It’s just as well, then, that the comic book comes with its own fan-base. “We’ve already sold 50,000 comic books,” says Aushim Khetarpal, Shirdi Saibaba Foundation’s managing trustee and the actor and producer of the 2001 feature film whose screengrabs and dialogues make up the comic panels. “They are disappearing off railway counters… and bhakts (devotees) all across the globe can’t wait to lay their hands on them; they want all the merchandise…” When the animated film hits theatres early next year, Khetarpal will be busy with a somewhat less religious venture: playing an Indian gigolo in the film Pick Me.

About The Author

Shruti Ravindran