A comic book on spiritual guru UG Krishnamurti

The Praveen babi panels which have been knocked off from the bookThe Year was 1967 Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti alias UG was seated among a flock of people who had gathered at a hall in Saanen Switzerland to listen to philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti UG who until then had countered the former theosophists teachings in his search for enlightenment claims to have attended the talk out of little curiosity It was free and my friends dragged me along he reasoned But while listening to Jiddu share notes on the comparative mind something within him snapped For the next few days he would be embattled by a recurring thought How do I know that this is the state Eight days later UGs universe would be enveloped by a torrential gust of unexplainable energy causing a series of strange physiological transformations within him one that he would later describe as a calamityUGs lifechanging experience is chronicled in a series of drawings in a new comic book titled This Dog Barking The Strange Story of UG Krishnamurti HarperCollins India by Nicolas C Grey and James Farley From developing a female breast on the left side to a whitelotus shaped swelling right above the bridge of his nose UGs experience gets a pictorial tribute in this biography The physical changes associated with UGs enlightenment or calamity are obviously quite odd but I dont find them bizarre One can either accept that they occurred reject them or remain undecided says Scotlandbased FarleyJames Farley and Nicolas C Grey with a portait of UG in their officeBorn in 1918 in Machilipatnam Andhra Pradesh UGs life has been unusual From a troubled childhood to his disillusionment with the leading spiritual teachers including his fractious relationship with Jiddu to abandoning his family in India and becoming the mascot for an unorthodox nonmessage philosophy UGs story has always been a subject of interest among thinkersCambodiabased Grey who created the drawings for the book chanced upon UGs teachings 13 years ago when he was homeless I used to read books in stores a few pages or a chapter at a time and then move to the next shop Once I was reading a book called Star of the East where UG was briefly mentioned The next day I overheard two people discussing UG in a coffee shop recalls the selftaught artist Soon he got hold of all possible material on UGs philosophy Having been involved in underground comics I felt that his story would work well if told in this form There was something anarchic and freewheeling about it he addsGrey then roped in Farley a social worker to write the material and the two set out to unravel UGs life piece by piece The result is the book which took over 13 years to create Initially I took quite a loose approach to the material rewriting things myself and mixing up UGs ideas with other things that I thought were interesting But as I worked on the book it became apparent that we would need to be more rigorous in presenting UG and his ideas to give our book some integrity admits FarleyFor Grey the challenge was to recreate the mystery surrounding the spiritual guru I gathered every possible photo of UG that I could get from various people For me it was a very intensive process I had to draw UG many times in different panels in different poses at different times of his life UG was an enigma impossible to capture However there were always certain eccentricities that drew me to him little things like his fondness for chesses his preference for small rooms so this was a way in for me explains Grey who invested 10 hours daily for over five years after the written material was readyOne interesting story that doesnt find mention in the biography is UGs involvement with late Bollywood actor Parveen Babi Parveen had been introduced to UG by her then lover filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt The authors however recreated a series of panels titled UG goes to Bali which were intended to be part of the biography but later knocked offInitially we wrote and drew a whole section around UGs relationships with both Parveen Babi and Mahesh Bhatt It is an interesting part of UGs storyhelliphis relationship with Parveen in the 1980s reveals a more caring and loving side to him that doesnt always come across in his blunt and confrontational speaking style says Farley However both Farley and Grey felt that the material didnt work in the structure of the book The whole Bollywood section just stuck out like a sore thumb and damaged the structural shape of the book So it had to go adds FarleyThe authors later have published the series on their Facebook page The drawings reveal the time when Parveen who was fighting her own demons didnt turn up on the set of the film she had signed with Prakash Mehra While Bhatt thought that UG would have answers to her problem what he didnt know was that this decision would jeopardise his relationship with ParveenThe actress had also briefly left the film industry to spend time with UG He was the only person around me who had no ulterior motives Parveen says in the comic strip The relationship however wouldnt last longUG and his friend Valentine De Kerven tried to help Parveen during the early stages of her mental illness It seems UG felt that due to her vulnerabilities Parveen would always struggle to cope with the confusing world of Bollywood but ultimately she opted to continue with her filmy life and her mental health continued to deteriorate says FarleyThe duo likes to describe UG as a radical and intellectual dynamite His teachings however were hard for people to engage with as it was so abstract Our objective was to share these very exciting concepts with a wider audience through this comic book says Farley