TO the bystander, the protagonist of Kawal Oberoi's graphic narrative Trunk Di Chaabi may only be a senile old man who refuses to part with the keys in his pocket, until frames of animated GIFS and grunge typewriter art unveil the underlying trauma and unpleasant experiences that connect the two. It hits you like a ton of bricks. The story is one among the eight incredible stories that the Kadak Collective released as a web multimedia project under its The Bystander Anthology.

The Bystander Anthology is a collection of comics and graphic narratives that spans triggering themes of borders, bodies, bonds and beliefs through the lens of a bystander. Launched in 2019, the ambitious project brought 50 South Asian practitioners — largely women, non-binary, and queer individuals — from 13 countries to present varied perspectives on the bystander theme and share graphic narratives on experiences of discrimination, geography, gender, identity and self, boundary
and exclusion.