He hears dead people

Sarnath Banerjee is keeping his ear not only to the ground but whats six feet under For Spectral Times his new exhibition at Bhau Daji Lad the writer of five acclaimed graphic novels has conducted mock interviews with those who see dead people Over a phone interview in a rather sexy voice he tells us why hes going to focus on radio plays going forwardHow did Spectral Times come aboutI tell ghost stories to my son every night We have a djinn encyclopaedia The ghosts are based in Kolkata Delhi Karachi Mumbai and I find it quite easy to talk about reality through these djinns I associate these djinns with a mohalla or a fish market or a clothes shop With them you can even navigate through the class system talk about trade about politicsRuchir Joshi is one of the voices in the exhibitionWhat happened with the Mumbai project was an extension of that These are mock interviews recreated interviews with people who have had spectral experiences These spectral experiences happen all around Mumbai Like behind Asiatic Library Shelfon ke peeche kitabon ke peeche mujhe ek iblis dikhayi diya I saw the devil between the shelves Or something appears out of Powai Lake in the night Its all told as if its normal reportageThe normality of the narrative makes it the most plausible When I started thinking about it I realised we live in a society where with our intelligence and our norms we can find an explanation for anything All the horrible things we do we have an explanation often a religious one But there are certain things which are not resolved All the things you try to dabao bury come back to you in the form of ghosts Thats the central principle of denial of denying the reality of denying the truth of denying political realities of denying that your city has just been taken over by a bunch of hooligans Its an anthropological idea Possession and ghosts are basically revisitors of unanswered questionsHow many stories are a part of this And have you used different voicesThirteen I have used the voice of theatre people filmmakers some trained some untrained some just because their voice is something I had in mind when I wrote the story Im a great champion of stories being told orally I have taken voices from theatre of people who were active in the 1970s and 80s I had to travel to Mumbai Delhi Kolkata Berlin to collect voices Its basically like Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan except my Tabassum is a bit dark My Tabassum is asking strange questions And the people who are answering are not Shammi Kapoor but noncelebrities who are sinister I am the voice of Bijis Bari Hes a tonal reporter he doesnt want to get information he wants to get the toneHe works for this obscure fortnightly called Spectral Times When you go through the exhibition youll come to know that Spectral Times is basically about a postfact postbelief world If you back up a claim with emotion its better than fact My character is an exfact checker He realised that Boss theres no need My job is defunct Nobody needs that kind of hardcore fact They just want emotion ki this falana chief minister has put 2000 toilets in some village The fact that those 2000 toilets dont have any plumbing or that the anganwadi workers have to carry human shit around is another question So basically no one is into truth anymore its all about mythology Scholar Sunil Khilnani Im a great fan of his said this to me Indians understand themselves through myth Thats why you see so much mythological stuff among bestsellers You go to a bookshop and all you find is Nandan Nilekanis biography ad nauseam or you find some myth of MithilaYouve mentioned that radio plays are the nearest to telling a story in person How do you plan to engage with the medium going forwardThis is my first big radio project and its going to be radio from now on Im going to focus on radio for a long time I personally think radio is a visual medium because you can conjure that particular evening in Mumbai You can talk about that feeling of listlessness of walking around the streets of AndheriIf you just write down all the things youre doing you can create a very rich visual world Im also pushing myself into doing radio comics in which the narrative is of comics in radio and you put drawings in it I want to see how it works At Bhau Daji Lad I also want to create this radio salon like you walk into a bar and a story is being told to you dramatically You sit in a dark corner and curl around your whisky like a king cobra and listen to the story of Shehri AdamkhorWhen February 23 to May 14Where Bhau Daji Lad Museum 91 A Rani Baug Byculla EastEntry Rs 10Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates