Nov 07 2026 to Nov 07 2026 5 p.m.

Where

Museum of Art & Photography (MAP)

Kasturba Road, Bengaluru 560001

Event Description

Join us for a conversation around comic artist Sarnath Banerjee’s book, Absolute Jafar. 

Set in a world where bureaucracies and borders shape human relationships, Sarnath Banerjee’s Absolute Jafar is a poignant meditation on belonging and becoming. Perhaps the author’s most personal work yet, it is a bittersweet rhapsody, rich in humanity, wit and imagination. Moderated by Arundhati Ghosh, the conversation reflects Sarnath’s practice, influences and the ideas behind the book.

In conjunction with the exhibition A Moving Line: 1500 Years of Indian Visual Storytelling.

Sarnath Banerjee
Sarnath Banerjee is the author of the graphic novels Corridor, The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers, The Harappa Files, All Quiet in Vikaspuri and Doab Dil. He created Gallery of Losers, a series of billboards for the 2012 London Olympics. His installation, Critical Imagination Deficit, was showcased at the 13th Berlin Biennale 2025. His recent solo exhibitions include The Melancolony of a Heartburn City for the Gujral Foundation, and The Spectral Times, which was shown at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai. He has been a Belknap fellow at Princeton University, a CAST fellow at MIT, Cambridge, a fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, and was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Banerjee also co-founded the award-winning publishing house Phantomville. He is currently working with Rohan Debroy on an illustrated book about mosquitoes and how they challenged the British Empire.

Arundhati Ghosh
Arundhati Ghosh is a cultural practitioner based in Bangalore, India. After spending seven years in the corporate sector, Arundhati joined India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) as its first fundraiser in 2001. After serving the Foundation for 22 years, with 10 years between 2013 and 2023 as its Executive Director, she left the Foundation in May 2023.

Arundhati has a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Presidency College, Kolkata and a postgraduate degree in Management from the Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad. She also has a degree in classical dance and is a poet in Bangla. Her collection of poems Oshomoye phire esho nodi hoye was published in January 2023 by Lastrada Prakashana, Kolkata.